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March 29th, 2024

Insight

Bernie Sanders still doesn't know what the Democratic Party stands for

Chris Cillizza

By Chris Cillizza The Washington Post

Published March 16, 2017

The Closing of the American Mouth

Bernie Sanders isn't too happy these days with the party he ran to lead in 2016. And he wants to make sure you know it.


In a lengthy -- and very good -- New York Times magazine piece on the future of the Democratic Party, Sanders is asked what the party currently stands for. Here's how he responds:


You're asking a good question, and I can't give you a definitive answer. Certainly there are some people in the Democratic Party who want to maintain the status quo. They would rather go down with the Titanic so long as they have first-class seats.


That's remarkable. Not only did Sanders run for president in 2016 -- and win almost two dozen states! -- but he also is now a member of Democratic Senate leadership thanks to Chuck Schumer. And, when asked one of the simplest questions in all of politics -- what does your party stand for -- he admits he can't really answer it.


Part of that is simply for affect. Of course Sanders can offer his own vision -- a liberal one -- of who the Democratic Party is and where it needs to go. He chooses not to because he views the party as still too in thrall to the power brokers, donors and consultant class and not committed enough to real change. By saying you don't really know what the party stands for, you are making sure people know you're not happy.


If you need to understand the roots of Sanders's annoyance, look no further than the just-concluded Democratic National Committee Chair race.


Sanders was an early and active backer of Minnesota Rep. Keith Ellison's bid for the DNC chair, believing that Ellison was committed to a bottom-up approach to party buidling that represented real change after the devastation of the 2016 election. Ellison began the race as a clear favorite but establishment Democrats -- including Barack Obama -- helped urge former Labor Secretary Tom Perez into the contest.


Perez beat Ellison rather easily on a second ballot, proving that the establishment is the establishment for a reason -- and they aren't planning to fold up shop solely because Trump won last fall.


What you have then is a party at odds with itself. Its most prominent voices (Sanders, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren) are calling for radically overhauling who the party is and what it stands for. Its permanent political base remains in control of the party apparatus, however, and they view the changes that the party needs as largely superficial ones. Caught in the middle are Democratic voters.

Much of this divide has been glossed over in the months since the election due to the fact that President Donald Trump has been busy chewing the scenery and leaving very little oxygen for any other political fights. Democrats may even be able to gloss over these disagreements for the 2018 election, making the midterms a referendum not on their party but on Trump. (This strategy worked exceedingly well for Republicans in 2010.)


The problem will come in 2020 when it seems nearly certain that the Democratic primary process will force candidates not simply to slam Trump but also to offer their own positive vision for how they might govern if elected. What that vision will look like is, as Sanders rightly notes, anyone's guess.

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