Opinion: One of These Seven White Men is the Democrats’ Best Choice For President

This year, voters face a choice overwhelming in its complexity and its importance that will determine the future of American democracy. 

With such high stakes and different visions, this publication’s editorial board has chosen to break with convention by endorsing seven democratic presidential candidates rather than just one: Bernie Sanders, Joe Biden, Pete Buttigeg, Michael Bloomberg, Tom Steyer, Michael Bennet, and John Delaney. 

While these candidates vary on issues such as healthcare, climate change, college tuition, immigration, taxation, national security, and trade, what they have in common is far more important: their whiteness and their maleness. Biden is importantly a white man. As is Sanders. And, notably, Buttigeg. Not to mention Bloomberg, Steyer, Bennet, and Delaney.

The race for the nomination has grown increasingly homogenous. The election will largely be determined by the caucuses in Iowa (a state that is 90% white), not a single person of color qualified for the last debate, and the issue of electability is saturated with racial rhetoric. But, at least Senator Sanders is Jewish. Also Bloomberg? He’s from New York?

The Democratic field is crowded with candidates with inspiring backgrounds and messages, and many exciting newcomers have captured the hearts and minds of swaths of America that have spent the past four years in alienation. However, these are the only seven candidates who could do so while being both a white and a man. 

May the best of these seven white men win.