William Golding’s 1954 allegory describes a descent into savagery as marooned schoolchildren allow separation from reality to govern their leadership and actions. There is an uncanny relationship between the 2020 Democratic presidential field and the novel’s main characters and key plot points. The novel begins with a plane crash. Similarly, the first two rounds of debates left the American public wondering if these candidates live on a deserted island.

Ralph: Joe Biden

Ralph is the narrative’s protagonist and quickly-elected leader of the castaways, based on the idea that the best way to weather their current situation is to enact a miniature version of their original government until help comes. In essence, a quintessential establishmentarian.

Ralph believes that the enlightened children’s respect for logic and reason coupled with their shared history is enough to unite them.

Ralph is a representation of the innate human desire to civilize and find common ground, which often means compromising hard-lined ideology in the name of pragmatism.

Ralph’s unredeemable quality is the fact that he thinks that just because a society is longstanding means that it is also morally correct, and he derives his morality through the civilization, which is a false premise through which to judge a system of government.

The reader empathizes with Ralph and finds himself hoping he can hold onto his soon-dwindling power and position in the face of rising barbarism.

Jack: Kamala Harris

While Ralph tries to foster a democratic society on the deserted island, Jack sees the island as an opportunity to reject the status quo and implement a new, deviant society that requires total commitment and allegiance. Jack’s faction are the hunters and they leave Ralph’s camp to practice their religion unseen in the woods.

Jack’s most prevalent characteristics are his cruelty and hunger for power. He believes that complete and total conformity is necessary for his system of governance, and violating the rights of the individual is a small price to pay.

Before long, Jack cannot live with only controlling the hunters, and returns to Ralph’s camp to force-feed his indoctrination to all, through any means necessary.

Jack’s ideology would never work in the society the boys left, but their current situation is a vacuum where the most violent and radical ideologies have an opportunity to seize power.

Roger: Cory Booker

Roger is Jack’s lieutenant and carries out many violent attacks on Jack’s behalf. At first, he serves as a whip by brutalizing the younger children until they forcibly assimilate to Jack’s way of thinking.

Roger serves at Jack’s beck and call and will perform any amount of mental gymnastics to justify his actions to retain his position within Jack’s ideological movement and add validity to that movement.

Simon: Andrew Yang

Simon is the quiet character, gathering his morality and reason through the idea that universal truth and morality exists disconnected from established governance. He has a special connection with the natural world, which further reveals his connection to concepts that are universally true and accessible to all.

He often helps the younger children who are in a worse position than him (Venture for America) and is willing to put the good of the group over his personal enjoyment.

In many ways, Simon is the only inherently good character, untainted by allegiances to either the establishment or radical, opportunistic ideology. This makes Simon morally correct, it also puts him at a power disadvantage on the island, unable or unwilling to lead.

Piggy: Michael Bennet

Piggy is Ralph’s second-in-command. He laments the rise of Jack’s ideology, much preferring Ralph’s establishmentarianism.

Piggy’s character possesses rationality, creativity, and ingenuity, realized when he fashions a sundial. It’s important to understand that Piggy achieves this through free thinking and an interaction with the universal truth of nature.

His propensity for the status quo drives him to create this tool, but in order to do it, he must act as an individual. This is one of the biggest problems facing the candidates today. Instead of raising individual proposals and policies that address universal truth, many of our candidates either find themselves backed into a corner defending a previously held position or advancing policies that are aimed at enacting an overarching ideology, not offering specific policies to help the individual.

Piggy is the first to die on the island, which is emblematic of the way a radical ideology takes over -- destroying the more tepid supporters before going after the pillars.

Sam and Eric: Bernie Sanders and Liz Warren

Sam and Eric are older twins that the other boys cannot tell apart, so much so that they are often referred to collectively as “Samneric.” This nickname is given by Jack, the one most focused on stripping away individuality.

Sam and Eric are also to blame for not differentiating themselves. Recently, Sanders has refused to critique Warren’s positions, claiming to put their longstanding friendship over competition. A true believer would be able to articulate why his or her policies are better than another candidate’s, which forces the voter to wonder how committed the politician is to his or her positions in the first place.

Sam and Eric remain loyal to Ralph for the majority of the narrative, until they ultimately fall in line with Jack and help kill innocent Simon. Sanders and Warren fashion themselves as renegades, but in reality, they are establishment figures who have spent many years in Washington. What remains to be seen is if they drink the poison offered by Harris and Booker and participate in the Russian roulette that is identity politics.

The Lord of the Flies: Intersectional Identity Politics

The Lord of the Flies is the name of the sow’s head which Jack and his hunters anoint as a peace offering to the “beast.” There is no inherent value to the Lord of The Flies, but through Jack’s power, he is able to artificially implant false value in the carrion and force the rest of the children to worship it through the implicit threat of violence.

The “beast” of course is the blue checkmark, social justice warrior Twitter brigade aiming to exile any who dare misstep from their religion. This religion has its roots in infantile postmodernism critical theory, which creates a list of immutable characteristics and contends that the reality experienced by an individual is a direct result of those characteristics.

As an example in short, a poor Muslim woman raised in the inner city will experience a reality similar to that of other poor Muslim women raised in inner cities, which in turn means all poor Muslim women raised in inner cities must have the same political leanings and support the same politicians and policies. Any attempt to critique her politics must only be the result of racism, sexism, religious bigotry, or any number of other words that end in -ism.

Ironically, this philosophy can only be described as collectivist, in which the value of the individual is diminished and erased.   

Our candidates treat this intersectional hierarchy as sacrosanct and convey their messages through the lens of identity politics.

The only question left to answer is who is the naval officer and when is he coming to save the nominees?