At this week’s Democratic debate, Senator Cory Booker made a plea for Democratic unity, but both during the debate and its aftermath, several fault lines have emerged, threatening Democratic unity.
The first battle line is over the proposal for Medicare for all. On one side, you have Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren who both have called for Medicare for all to replace all forms of private health insurance. On the other side, you have former Vice President Biden, Senator Amy Klobuchar and Mayor Pete Buttigieg who support Obamacare and the addition of a public option, but do not want to end private insurance. Unions, a staunch Democratic constituent, are also quite wary of going after private insurance. During the debate, Klobuchar and Buttigieg were quite effective at attacking Warren for not being clear how she would pay for her plan. Watch for both Klobuchar and Buttigieg to continue with this line of attack as Warren could only offer platitudes about how she would pay for her signature proposal.
The second battle line is between Sanders and Warren who are competing for the mantle as the most progressive. Sanders, recovering from his heart attack, is holding a “Bernie’s Back” rally in NYC today with fresh endorsements from Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ihlan Omar, and Rashida Tlaib as well as liberal media producer Michael Moore. On most issues, Sanders and Warren are indistinguishable, but Sanders has tried to position herself even further to the left. Unlike Warren, he unabashedly calls for a higher tax on the middle class. This week on ABC, he accused Warren of being a capitalist saying that she is a “very, very good senator” but that “she is a capitalist … I am not.” The endorsement of Sanders by three prominent female Democrats also angered key feminists who questioned why they were endorsing a “white guy.” While we have our doubts that Sanders’ campaign will fully recover from his heart attack, the battle between Sanders and Warren is likely to escalate, with white female progressives backing Warren and self-professed Democratic Socialists backing Sanders.
Finally, on Friday, a new third battle line emerged between Representative Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI) and Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Clinton suggested that Gabbard (as well as Trump and Green Party candidate Jill Stein) was a “Russian agent” because of her support for pulling troops out of Syria and the Middle East. Clinton (and most of the Democrats running for President) is aligned with the Washington establishment on foreign policy. In contrast, Gabbard, a veteran who served for twelve months in Iraq, favors a less interventionist foreign policy and was the lone Democrat to back President Trump’s decision not to get involved with the Turkish – Kurd flare up on the Syrian border. Gabbard on Twitter hit back against Hillary Clinton, calling her the “queen of warmongering” and “the embodiment of corruption.” Gabbard has been shunned by establishment Democrats but gathered support from Marianne Williamson, who like Gabbard has felt the wrath of the Democratic establishment. Williams tweeted her support for Gabbard saying “The Democratic establishment has got to stop smearing women it finds inconvenient!”
Perhaps it’s not surprising to see the Democratic field start to try to distinguish themselves, but just as in 2016 when the rift between Sanders and Clinton hurt their efforts in the general election, we see signs that Democratic unity is starting to break down. Whether it is the establishment v. the progressive wing, the Democratic Socialists v. white feminists, or the globalist establishment v. non-interventionists, watch for the divisions within the Democratic Party to grow over the coming months.
NewEnglandPolitics.com 