Bernie Sanders and The Betty White Factor

Why is Bernie Sanders appealing so strongly to millennials? This question has vexed everyone from political commentators to his opponent, Hillary Clinton. To be sure, the Vermont senator’s positions on a wide variety of issues is a major factor. So, too, is the excitement of backing a vigorous underdog; as someone who was “Clean For Gene” years before I could vote for Eugene McCarthy in 1968, I know how appealing “Feeling The Bern” might seem to a young person. But do not discount another major element of Sanders’s appeal: It’s what I call The Betty White Factor.

The Betty White Factor is a fairly new phenomenon, based on certain pop-cultural tendencies of the Generation Y cohort. They comprise the first generation that prizes irony and campiness as values that can sometimes trump true quality. Thus the delightful millennial admiration for genially schlocky TV shows such as The Brady Bunch. Baby-boomers may feel nostalgia for Fess Parker in Walt Disney’s version of Davy Crockett, or for the music of The Monkees, but they would tremble to say that these were significant works of popular art the way some millennials boldly assert just such an argument for, say, the music of Journey or, more to my point here, Golden Girls.

That 1985-92 sitcom co-starred Betty White as a lovable senior citizen, and represents the high point of White’s popularity after portraying the waspish Sue Ann Nivens on The Mary Tyler Moore Show, and, before that, a long career as a popular guest on game-shows (frequently appearing on her husband Allen Ludden’s show Password) and talk shows.

Now in her 90s, White has built a new popularity with the public persona of a feisty-grandma type, willing to be a little naughty or randy, game to try almost anything. It’s an image that has made the millennial generation loyal to her, in a sort of oh-look-at-that-lively-old-person way. It’s an essentially condescending ageism softened by ironic affection — an “Isn’t that cute, she’s trying to communicate with us” attitude that has resulted in fresh prominence for White.

Thus it is, I would argue, for Bernie Sanders as well. At a time when young voters will tell you they prize most highly that elusive quality of “authenticity,” the 74 year-old Sanders can be seen inveighing hoarsely against the inauthentic political apparatus — PACs, corporate donations, power-cronyism — that has grown up around the two-party system. That strikes a chord among millennials who feel disenfranchised by a political process put firmly in place by their generational predecessors and (to many) their nemeses, the baby boomers, of whom Hillary Clinton is an AARP-card-carrying member.

By contrast, Sanders is like the old neighbor who yells at kids to get off his lawn — he seems angry, stubborn, and tough, and his initial disinclination to pander to the youth vote is precisely what made him attractive to the youth vote. The more facile pop-culture comparison, on SNL and elsewhere, has been to Larry David, but beyond superficial vocal and physical similarities, David has less millennial appeal than White, with whom Bernie shares a more spunky, devilish, spry aspect. With Sanders, young voters pat themselves on their backs and think, “I’m so open-minded — see, I can relate to this really ancient dude!”

Lately, Sanders has started cozying up to his Betty White factor, not just being interviewed but also doing comedy bits such as spinning Stephen Colbert’s “Wheel Of News” on The Late Show, and going viral two weeks ago with a clip of the candidate learning “the hip hop hug” from some hosts of New York radio station Hot 97. (Subliminal message: Oh, look, the old white guy digs young black guys — sweet!)

If by some contradiction of current predictions he wins the Democratic nomination, Sanders will have to shuck off the Betty White factor to project the potential might of a world leader. Too bad another Golden Girl, Bea Arthur, isn’t around to be his Vice Presidential ticket partner — now there’s someone who always radiated a steely strength transcending both pop-culture and age demographics.