These Democrat vs. those Democrats
by Tom Sullivan
Now branded the progressive wing vs. the establishment wing, the reboot of the Democrats’ 2016 Hillary vs. Bernie squabbles is already irritating and tiresome. But it won’t go away because the underlying issues won’t go away.
Barbara Boxer, the former California senator, told MSNBC’s Chris Hayes Tuesday night Democrats need to avoid self-inflicted wounds. “If you don’t like Bernie, pick a candidate and go,” Boxer said [timestamp 37:15]:
And also this attack on the so-called establishment? I don’t get that either. Who’s the establishment, Nancy Pelosi? She’s as progressive as they come. The head of the DNC, Tom Perez? He’s as progressive. And the leadership in Congress. So, all of this is ridiculous. It’s a self-inflicted wound if it continues. People should knock it off.
Boxer, a self-described 40-year veteran, doesn’t really understand the “establishment” issue. She just wants people to stop. Fine. Let me explain it.
The issue is and has been with Democrats who fear democracy breaking out inside the Democratic Party. Talent takes a back seat to tenure. Established leaders feel entitled to decide for voters who the party’s candidates will be. (Some of that comes down to candidate recruitment, but locking out opponents should be off limits.) There is also a legacy issue, similar to college admission, in which insiders get to preposition their successors. No input from voters wanted.
Sarah Jones details a case-in-point. Illinois Rep. Dan Lipinski is a pro-life Democrat who, by Planned Parenthood’s analysis, has sponsored 54 pieces of anti-abortion legislation. “He voted against the Affordable Care Act, and the DREAM Act, which would have created a path to permanent citizenship for undocumented youth brought to the United States as children,” Jones writes.
Lipinski held on against a 2018 primary challenge by Marie Newman, a pro-choice and pro-LGBT rights Democrat. The 2,145 vote margin (2 percent) was not exactly “rousing support” for the conservative Democrat in the suburban Chicago district. Lipinski holds the seat, Jones argues, not because he reflects voters’ views, but because his father, Bill Lipinski, had held it for 12 years before him and “essentially bequeathed the seat to his son.”
That establishment, Ms. Boxer.
In announcing she would run again for Lipinski’s seat in 2020, Newman said his views put Lipinski out of step with his district (Chicago Sun Times):
“It’s time for a real Democrat to represent us in Washington, not the conservative son of a ward boss. Those days are over,” concluded Newman, who noted that the landslide election of Lori Lightfoot as Chicago mayor and the recent losses of longtime aldermen and political bosses show Chicagoans are hungry for progressive change.
Led by fellow Illinoisan Rep. Cheri Bustos, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is using its financial clout to suppress opposition to its members. Even to those like Lipinski. No surprise there. Collecting dues that sustain the insider organ would be that much harder if it did not use them to defend members’ seats no matter the voters’ wishes.
That establishment, Ms. Boxer.
Jones continues:
A second Newman campaign threatens to expose the anti-democratic implications of the party’s strategy. There is a thin sliver logic underneath the DCCC’s unwavering support for incumbents; the party needs to keep control of the House, and it believes left-wing candidates could jeopardize that goal if they run in conservative districts. But this logic doesn’t even apply to Lipinski or his district. Much like Representative Henry Cuellar of Texas, another Blue Dog Democrat who may face a primary from his left, Lipinski represents a thoroughly Democratic district. Democrats there voted for Bernie Sanders in the party’s primary, and the district itself voted for Hillary Clinton over Donald Trump by a comfortable margin. There’s no reason to think the district would suddenly turn Republican if the more left-wing Newman defeated Lipinski in the primary. In fact, the local GOP is in such disarray that it couldn’t marshal an alternative to Art Jones, an unrepentant neo-Nazi who ran unchallenged in the party’s primary before losing badly to Lipinski in the general.
The party establishment is not only electeds, but unofficial clubs like the DCCC and DSCC that prefer incumbents with a “D” behind their names to aspirants with views more in line with their own districts. Best not to risk the business model.
So long as that culture pertains, there will be conflict between upstarts and those defending turf over principle.
Pick a candidate and go.
But Sanders stoking the insider-outsider conflict for fundraising isn’t helping either. Nor will it endear him to Democrats already inclined to vote for Democrats in a Democratic primary over a candidate who is not a Democrat (as if that needed explaining). Self-inflicted wounds, indeed.
A loner his whole life, an old friend once said if he ever found himself on the inside of a social group, he’d have to create a new outside for himself, just to feel normal. He and Bernie should trade notes.