Posted on 04/28/2019 2:50:01 PM PDT by yesthatjallen
The bell has rung on round two of the Democratic Party’s civil war.
Former Vice President Joe Biden’s entry into the 2020 presidential primary sets the stage for another knock-down, drag-out fight between the establishment wing of the party and the ascendant left, led by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.).
That showdown threatens to tear open old wounds the party suffered in the bitter 2016 primary contest between Sanders and Hillary Clinton.
Party leaders have tried to move on from that divisive episode, but deep wells of suspicion and distrust remain between mainstream Democrats and the left.
"The civil war that started in 2016 never ended," said one veteran Democratic hand. "It’s still going on."
The 2016 primary contest left liberals fuming at what they viewed as establishment interference in the race, underscored by the hacked Democratic National Committee (DNC) emails that showed favoritism toward Clinton.
And some mainstream Democrats are unnerved by what they view as a group of left-wing interlopers, online brawlers and sore losers trying to take over the party.
The same fight played out in 2017, when party officials elected Tom Perez to be the next DNC chairman. Perez, who was backed by Biden, narrowly defeated Sanders’s preferred candidate, former Rep. Keith Ellison (Minn.). That race similarly cut along establishment and grass-roots lines.
Now liberals are on the lookout for any whiff of malfeasance and warning party insiders that they’re playing with fire if they meddle in the 2020 primary.
"If I were in charge of the DNC or Joe Biden’s campaign or any other entity associated with the traditional Democratic Party, I would be going out of my way to embrace the new energy on the left and these anti-establishment forces," said Robert Reich, former President Clinton’s Labor secretary and a leading progressive thinker.
"I hope the establishment wing understands how dangerous it would be to attack Bernie Sanders or anybody else who they may feel represents the left wing of the party. That would be a really stupid thing to do," he added.
The left has won a slew of victories in the years since Sanders’s primary defeat.
There have been changes at the DNC to limit the power of superdelegates, the party officials who propelled Clinton to victory in 2016. A robust debate schedule will ensure that voters are exposed to the full field of candidates.
And many of Sanders’s once-fringe ideas have gone mainstream in the Democratic Party.
"Bernie Sanders has already defined the soul of the party if you look at the current conversation on health care, college tuition, foreign policy and wealth inequality," said Jonathan Tasini, a progressive writer. "That debate is over if the party looks at what voters thirst for."
But many on the left feel like outsiders in the Democratic Party. They’re still worried about officials exerting influence over the primary, particularly if there is a contested convention, which seems likelier this year with the massive field of candidates splitting votes. Biden is trying to avoid the perception that he’s the anointed establishment candidate. In an interview on ABC’s "The View," Biden said that he specifically asked former President Obama not to endorse him in the primary.
"I didn’t want it to look like he’s putting his thumb on the scale here," Biden said. "I’m going to do this based on who I am, not by the president going out and saying, 'This is the guy you should be with.'"
But many centrist Democrats are just as worried about how the left will approach the primary contest.
They’re frustrated by Sanders’s steadfast refusal to officially join the Democratic Party and worried by what they view as his team of political assassins. And they wonder whether Sanders’s supporters will accept the outcome of the primary and turn out to vote for the nominee in the general election if Sanders falls short again.
"There is a 'Bernie-or-bust' coalition, and they have no allegiance to the party," said the Democratic strategist. "They don’t care about campaign infrastructure or winning up and down the ballot. They’re just concerned about bullshit litmus tests and defending their guy no matter what and pretending that everyone else is a member of the big bad establishment."
Liberal groups have torn into Biden since he launched his campaign, casting him as a relic of the "old guard" and an establishment figure beholden to corporate interests.
The Sanders campaign swiped at Biden for holding a fundraiser at the home of a lobbyist. The Justice Democrats, a liberal group started by former Sanders campaign aides, tore into the former vice president, saying he "stands in near complete opposition to where the center of energy is in the Democratic Party today."
"The level of nastiness we see here is completely up to Sanders and his camp," said Jon Reinish, a Democratic strategist.
"Joe Biden is an optimistic guy. I can’t think of a sunnier or more unifying person. The way he communicates is in stark contrast to Sen. Sanders, who unfortunately tends to campaign in a language of grievances, conspiracies and victimhood. It’s my hope that Sen. Sanders campaigns on his own merits and policies, but so far his surrogates and he have engaged in the same old attacks. No other Democrat is doing that. Sanders is the one that sets the tone for his campaign here," he added.
Still, some Democrats are optimistic that the party will come together in the end no matter the outcome.
"In 2016, the question was, do you want Bernie or Hillary?" said Howard Gutman, a former Obama administration ambassador. "The circumstances couldn’t be more different this time around. We have a broad array of strong candidates from the entire Democratic family, and the only issue is, how do we beat Donald Trump? That’s the great unifier."
Who will emerge as victor? The safe establishment pick or the fringe radical?
One would think the Democrat party would be seething with internal animosity and backbiting. The only thing the various factions have in common is a hatred for America and a simultaneous desire to loot her for all she's worth.
When you run across a question like this, it's best to check the jerbilist's Twitter feed. I don't know Jonathan Easley, but his feed is easy to find:
The jerbilists kind of let it all hang out on Twitter.
There's one out of a hundred that keeps their mouth shut about their political views/leanings on Twit. Kind of handy.
The dem primary is a takeaway discussion. Who can take away more rights, freedoms, human lives, taxes, economic activity.
They face at least a two front war as we are coming after them too.
Go, Bernie, GO!
I’m feeling the Bern!
All this BS is to help creepy Joe grab the reasonable centrist coming to the rescue meme. If it looks like Joe isn’t going to get it done look out for Moochele.
Mainstream RAT...is that like a moderate Muslim?
But the risk is real that the party may re-enact the debacle of 1972, when they nominated the leftist radical George McGovern, thus giving Richard Nixon a historic landslide. They could do this again with Sanders, and the old timers of the DNC know it damned well. Which is why Biden will be the nominee and Trump will win re-election handily anyway.
"The level of nastiness we see here is completely up to Sanders and his camp," said Jon Reinish, a Democratic strategist.
If Bernie fights back, they're going to try and destroy him. They're setting him up to be the bad guy when it goes nasty.
Not the case at all - trust me, they're all Communists together, it's just that some talk about it less than others.
At the end of the process Democrats will vote as a solid bloc for the candidate they are given.
As opposed to Republicans who will 'sit out the vote' if their candidate is not chosen.
That's the difference I see.
Thanks yesthatjallen. The Demwits are always in a civil war, and they are also always the cause of it.
Captain Hyperbole has struck again. I wouldn’t call this a “civil war” until somebody is actually killed in it. Who will go first?
The Democrat Establishment plays fast and dirty... they'll win while giving the illusion they're being fair. It's how they got Perez in... it's how they'll get Biden or some unknown ringer in...
Globalists, nationalists, socialists and communists are 4 factions squeezed into two parties.
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