The Politician

July 12, 2023

I sit outside the office of Wendell Primus. He’s a white man. He struggles with technology: so far, the research assistants have had to help him look at his email attachments, open a web browser, and unmute himself on Zoom. Oftentimes, he puffs out his cheeks when he walks around. He’s a kind man, but even though I say good morning and good evening to him everyday, I don’t think he knows my name.

He’s also the lead health policy advisor to Speaker Nancy Pelosi. He headed the effort to create and pass the Affordable Care Act.

He’s passionate — truly passionate — about the welfare of poor people. He works on social security, Medicaid, and immigration, among other things. He gets to work earlier and leaves work later than I do. It’s strange, because I can’t imagine him being a Democrat. It’s probably because he’s 77 years old and white. I am scared of him, as I am scared of many white men.

Today, he gave a talk for the fellows of a health policy program about the Affordable Care Act.

“I’ll never forget this number.” He said, “63 seats were lost in 2010. The Democrats lost their majority in the house. There were people who knew when they signed that bill, that they would lose their jobs. But they signed it anyway”.

He stopped talking. When he said sorry, his voice trembled. He removed his glasses, and looked down. For a moment, he looked as though he was going to cry. I remembered back to when I was young, maybe six or seven, when my aunt told my dad that she would no longer be voting democrat because of the ACA, that her premiums had soared up hundreds of dollars, that she couldn’t believe what was happening.

“Up, Simba” is my favorite story in the anthology Consider the Lobster by David Foster Wallace — it may be my favorite piece of nonfiction ever. Wallace writes about following John McCain during the Republican primaries. He wrestles with the politician as the leader, and with the politician as a salesman. He considers McCain in a Vietnamese jail as a prisoner of war, and how he sacrifices his turn to return home. He challenges the country’s political malaise, and the Young Voters’ growing apathy. I’ve often joked that it’s been the best primer to DC as I watch people with ambitious walks in ambitious suits empty out of the (not so ambitious) public buses.

Now I, too, grapple with the politician. Two weeks before this talk, I listened to another speech by Andy Kim, a representative in the house for New Jersey, during the Asian American Congressional Reception. He told us that he won his majority white district, that he beat the Republican incumbent. His accent was a touch southern and a touch Chinese, and his tone was such that he declared more than he spoke. For most of his speech, I was occupied with trying to eat my bahn mi without rustling the paper bag it was in. But at his talks’ midpoint, there was a strange tension in the room, and I put the stale sandwich down. The thrum of energy moved me to an unrecognizable feeling — passion? desperation? desire? — until I listen to what he’s saying. Evoking the future generation and the nation and the principles he lives by, each word crackles with electricity but the sentences form no wire. His speech sparks those who touch it but powers no lightbulbs. The next bite of my bahn mi was remorseful.

Wendell has continued his talk, his voice long since returned to its steady, croaky cadence. But occasionally, his voice will dip and skim the pool of reverence. When he spoke about Pelosi — The Speaker, he called her — his words are a memorial for the living, and I hear something between love and worship. When I leave the conference room, I’m filled with the dull ache of a foreign emotion.