In the last few days we’ve heard what sound like the opening salvos of a Democratic Party civil war.
After losing two of the last three presidential elections to Donald Trump, self-reflection is sorely needed — and some are at least feigning an interest in such an effort.
On his new podcast, California Gov. Gavin Newsom is sniping at the progressive shibboleths he once promulgated so proudly.
In the Senate, Minority Leader Chuck Schumer rejected calls from his left flank to shut down the federal government rather than let a Republican-backed funding bill pass.
And across the country, swing-state lawmakers like Michigan Sen. Elissa Slotkin are trying to tell constituents that the hysterical far-left approach to fighting Trump just hasn’t worked.
“What have they actually done?” Slotkin asked last week after a voter implored her to “resist” like Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
Meanwhile, Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez are crisscrossing the country to expound a very different explanation of the Democrats’ woes — and to promote a very different corrective.
Sanders had harsh words for the Democrats this month, calling the party “heavily dominated by the billionaire class, run by consultants who are way out of touch with reality.”
“The Democratic Party has virtually no grassroots support,” he declared.
AOC, too, slammed her party at a Las Vegas rally last week.
“We need a Democratic Party that fights harder for us,” she complained.
“We as a community must choose and vote for Democrats and elected officials who know how to stand for the working class.”
So which is it?
Do Democrats need to lurch even further to the left in the name of “fighting Trump” — or is that what’s consigned them to their unenviable position?
Available evidence suggests it’s the latter.
Polls ahead of November’s presidential election found that 47% of likely voters believed 2024 Democratic nominee Kamala Harris was “too liberal or progressive,” while just 6% said she wasn’t “liberal or progressive enough.”
That hasn’t changed in the months since: A new survey released by Echelon Insights this month revealed that 42% of Democrats think the party should move “to the center” — and only 20% want it to move “to the left.”
But just because the answer is obvious doesn’t mean party leaders will recognize as much.
In fact, they’re all but certain to do the opposite.
Today’s Democratic Party is built on the proposition that it stands on the right side of history, pushing humanity toward progress while battling backward, bigoted opponents.
For a long time, that messaging has served as a powerful recruitment tool, particularly for younger, idealistic Americans searching for meaning — and for an easier path into elite progressive-dominated political, media and academic circles.
But now we see the drawbacks to this smug self-conception.
Over the long term, it has spawned a radicalization that first offended the sensibilities of the median voter, then pushed them into the arms of a pugilistic champion: Trump.
Worse yet, the nature of the Democrats’ messaging makes it nearly impossible for them to walk back any of their unpopular ideas.
They were on the right side of history, they declared, when they manufactured a crisis at the southern border.
They were on the right side of history when they insisted that not only could men become women, such men must be allowed to compete in women’s sports and enter their most intimate spaces.
They were on the right side of history when they waged a holy war on fossil fuels.
They were on the right side of history when they proposed a massive wealth transfer to their voter base in the form of a student loan “forgiveness” program, and on and on.
To propose moderation now is to betray a righteous cause — and to shatter the carefully cultivated self-image that provides meaning to so many in the Democratic activist class.
That’s why the mainstream Biden campaign gave way to the militantly leftist Biden administration.
That’s why it’s the likes of pugnacious Texas Rep. Jasmine Crockett — and not Slotkin, or Pennsylvania’s gadfly Sen. John Fetterman — who is being hailed as the future of the party.
And if you parse the moderates’ words carefully, you’ll find that theirs isn’t an ideological objection to the progressives’ vision, but a tactical one.
“My district is very different than Alexandria’s district,” Slotkin said soothingly last week, immediately after belittling AOC’s lack of anti-Trump accomplishments. “So I don’t fault her for doing what she thinks is right for them.”
Schumer, for his part, has lashed out at fellow Dems like Nancy Pelosi only to cling to his personal power — not to set his party on a fresh course.
So if the much-anticipated Democratic civil war breaks out at all, there’s no question about who will prevail: One side has already laid down their arms.
Isaac Schorr is a staff writer at Mediaite.
This story originally appeared on NYPost
