Many people expressed outrage when Vermont senator and former presidential candidate Bernie Sanders insisted that “being a Democrat isn’t enough” and subsequently refused to endorse Jon Ossoff, a Democrat running for Congress. How could he, they thought, jeopardize a key congressional race in favor of maintaining progressive purity?
On the flip side, when Sanders endorsed pro-life mayoral candidate Heath Mello, moderate and social democrats also had a field day. How could he, some believed, toss women’s issues aside for economic issues?
Last year, I took a writing class on the 2016 presidential campaign. The professor had talked about problems and holes in the Republican coalition, and how they might not ever come back from Donald Trump. I raised my hand and told him that I believe that Democrats are facing a similar if not worse problem — there are deep, deep problems in the party, and we might not be able to deal with them in the capacity that we should.
“Well,” he said, “I think it’s a lot worse with the Republicans,” and many in the class nodded their heads in agreement.
Well, I turned out to be right. The Republicans won. And they, though facing mountains of obstacles of their own, are doing a lot better than the Democrats. We’re infighting, and we’re infighting publicly. Some moderates don’t want to accept the future Sanders has laid out — a future that is, by the way, extremely popular among young people and labor — and others feel as if that’s a destructive future. They’re feeling more and more foreign inside a party they feel like they had helped create.
How do we reconcile progressivism and liberalism? Can we? Do we hold every democratic candidate to a litmus test we ourselves have determined? And if they fail to meet the litmus, do we shut them down and vote them out?
In the 1970s, after Barry Goldwater’s failed presidential campaign, a movement began. Conservative author William Buckley sat down, then examined and analyzed every strand of conservatism out there: Ayn Rand’s libertarianism, the fiscal conservatism of Milton Friedman and the new Christian or more appropriate evangelical right, led and directed by people like Harold Ockenga and Billy Graham. He was determined to unite these strands under a giant umbrella of republicanism without major risk to their individual identities and pulls. They’re worlds apart, but they’ve been and still very much are packaged together. And that’s been a relatively successful enterprise, too. The Republican party has state legislatures, gubernatorial offices, the Supreme Court, Congress and the presidency.
Now, this strategy has its problems. Someone like Ron Paul gets grouped into a category with someone like Mitt Romney, and someone like Romney gets grouped into a category with someone like Joni Ernst. They’re worlds apart, and it could be difficult to unite them — as we saw with Trumpcare and the federal budget. But, at the same time, they retain their individual principles and have room to vote and campaign a particular way.
It’s wrong to force progressives to the middle, or moderates to the left. There are two different strands in the Democratic party, two different kinds of Democrats, and that’s fine. There can’t be a litmus test. It’s unrealistic. A Massachusetts Democrat is not a New Jersey Democrat, and a New Jersey Democrat is not a Louisiana Democrat.
Now, we’re still talking about politics. No matter how ardently progressive or liberal a congressmen or women is, if the overwhelmingly majority of people want their constituent to move a particular way, he or she better move that way. Doing what your constituents want isn’t tending a particular way for good, it’s doing what’s required of you. You’re representing them. That’s what the Republicans can’t do. They’re so wrapped up in their political identity that they don’t listen to what their constituents want anymore.
Maybe Ossoff isn’t a progressive, but his district is an important stronghold. Maybe Mello is pro-life, but he’s a progressive champion. Welcoming varying strands into the Democrat Party is key to its survival. Letting these strands retain their respective identities, but still holding them accountable to the wants and needs of people, is key too. That’s how we move forward. We are stronger together, but not as uniform liberals or uniform progressives — but uniform Democrats.
