The Endorsement Problem Isn’t Going Away

Democratic presidential candidates who survive the first primary contests will soon face fraught decisions about whether to embrace support from controversial endorsers, as Bernie Sanders did when the comedian Joe Rogan announced that he would likely vote for him, or to maintain their distance to avoid running afoul of the Great Awokening. As some progressives tell it, Democrats are divided between consequentialists, who favor accepting endorsements that expand their coalition, and deontologists, who think it is always wrong to accept a bigot’s endorsement.

But the more consequential disagreement concerns what renders someone verboten. Most agree that, say, Richard Spencer—a white supremacist—warrants stigma and exclusion from polite company, even if he would expand the coalition. Controversy over the Rogan endorsement revealed stark disagreements about who counts as a bigot, how this standard is set, and why.