Valerie Jarrett: Mandatory Voting Is ‘My Fantasy’

Valerie Jarrett, former senior advisor to former President Barack Obama, dreams of mandatory voting in the United States.

“It’s never going to happen, but it’s my fantasy which I get to have now,” she said in a Recode podcast with Kara Swisher.

Jarrett argued that if everyone was forced to vote, the country would come closer to the middle of the political spectrum.

She questioned a Bernie Sanders supporter whether he would have been able to govern if he was elected president of the United States.

“You can’t let perfect be the enemy of the good,” she said. “And compromise in the nature of the beast.”

Jarrett said that she wanted the next presidential candidate in 2020 to be a compromising candidate who was willing to lead both sides of the country.

“No, I don’t think we should compromise on things like keeping guns out of the wrong hands, but surely there must be matters where there is a line and there are other matters where the is wriggle room,” Jarrett said.

She expressed concern that Democrats were struggling to build a big tent party where there were areas of compromise and not just anti-Trump.

“It’s never enough to be anti-something, you have to be for something,” she advised. “People emotionally, psychologically need to be for something.”