Do Conservative Democrats Believe In Unity And Solidarity? Of Course They Don't

Sarah Ferris and Heather Caygle, reporting for Politico yesterday, wrote about how congressional Democrats-- most far to the right of Bernie-- are planning how to run with him at the top of the ticket. Some-- like way-to-the-right Blue Dogs Anthony Brindisi (NY) and Joe Cunningham (SC) have said they flat out will refuse to back him. Many others from the Republican wing of the Democratic Party want to write their own less progressive platform to run on. Ferris and Caygle wrote that "even as some Democrats privately test-drive rhetoric for sharing a Sanders ticket-- like how to talk up expanded health care, rural broadband or new workforce programs-- there are others who say they could have to strongly distance themselves from the Vermont independent if he wins the party’s nod."

“I’ve been consistent from day one that the answers to the problems that we all agree that we face today, the answers are not socialist economic policies,” said Rep. Max Rose of New York, a Mike Bloomberg backer, whose district went for President Donald Trump by 10 points in 2016. “That’s just not the case. And I stand by that.”

Sanders’ biggest supporters on Capitol Hill say he plans to make a concerted push to appeal to more of his congressional colleagues after Super Tuesday’s high-stakes contests. Much of that outreach, they say, will go toward finding common ground on policy and calming jitters among endangered House Democrats that a Sanders nomination would mean a down-ballot bloodbath.

Sanders maintains a relatively small group of allies on Capitol Hill, with just nine Democrats endorsing him in both chambers. But his supporters say momentum could shift toward him this week, with Sanders expected to do well Tuesday in delegate-rich states like California and Texas, potentially putting him on a path to winning the nomination.

“Everyone in this building is very good at politics, and it doesn’t take a lot to see that Sanders has a very good chance,” Rep. Ro Khanna of California, a national co-chair of Sanders’ campaign.

Khanna said some Democrats have approached him with concerns about Sanders’ bid, and that in some cases, he has relayed them directly to Sanders as they look to build a Capitol Hill coalition.

“We want to make members realize that whatever wing of the party they’re on, they’re welcome in the coalition,” Khanna said, adding that some of Sanders’ proposals-- like building rural broadband and investing in infrastructure-- could appeal to more moderate Democrats who have otherwise stayed far away from a platform centered on “Medicare for All” and a “Green New Deal.”

“People are beginning to see there could be a strong upside to a Bernie nomination as well, even though I understand many of them might be a little nervous,” added Rep. Jesús “Chuy” Garcia (D-Ill.), who officially endorsed Sanders last week.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi is acutely aware of the anxieties swirling inside her caucus. The speaker has even declared that while the party will unite around its nominee, House Democrats will run on their own agenda-- one that helps them hold the GOP-leaning seats that delivered her majority in 2018.

“My responsibility is to make sure that those we elected last time return to Congress, keep the majority and add to our numbers,” Pelosi told reporters Thursday.

“We have to win in certain, particular areas,” she added. “We’re not about a popular vote in the country or in particular states in terms of the Electoral College. We are district by district.”

...Democrats may disagree on whether to back Medicare for All or focus on strengthening the Affordable Care Act, for example. But the Trump administration and several GOP-led states are currently in court trying to completely dismantle the Obama-era health law.

“I think the campaign will be an opportunity to contrast where Republicans stand on all these issues,” Cicilline said.

Several moderate Democrats have said they would focus on Sanders’ health care message-- the biggest plank of his platform and a key driver of his base.

“I think health care is a good direction, I just don’t like how he wants to get there. Same with some of his other ideas,” said Rep. Tom O’Halleran (D-AZ), whose district barely went for Hillary Clinton over Trump in 2016, and who has not yet endorsed a candidate.

“There are certainly parts of his agenda that are attractive to some people,” said freshman Rep. Susan Wild of Pennsylvania, noting the idea of universal health coverage is popular in parts of her purple district. But she said Democrats would need to find a way to achieve that outcome that doesn’t “burn the house down in the process.”

“I’m seeing it kind of like the process of legislation,” Wild added. “There’s going to have to be compromise all the way around.”

But not every Democrat is so optimistic that they can run with-- or run away from-- Sanders’ message and the “socialist” sobriquet Republicans are already trying to pin on every Democrat.

House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn (D-SC), who offered a high-profile endorsement of Joe Biden ahead of the former vice president’s landslide South Carolina win, warned of “down-ballot carnage” if Sanders is the Democratic nominee.

“We want to see somebody on the ticket that will allow us to expand our numbers. Not having to run some kind of a rearguard campaign in order to keep from being tarnished with a label,” Clyburn said Friday on CNN.

The fears about keeping the House are most pronounced among the several dozen Democrats running in the most competitive seats, particularly freshmen, who have never run on the same ballot as Trump.

Freshman Rep. Tom Malinowski of New Jersey, whose district went narrowly for Clinton in 2016, said he would go into his race “with the same degree of confidence” regardless of who leads the ticket.

But he said Democrats would have a much simpler message-- and better odds of beating Trump-- if they have someone other than Sanders on the ballot.

“All we’ve got to do is to say, we’re not messing with the economy, we’re going to improve health care, and we’re going to give you a president who tells the truth, respects the law, and can be a good moral example for your kids,” Malinowski said.

“Why we would risk this extraordinary opportunity by nominating someone who has a tendency to divide our own side is beyond me,” he said, though he added that he would “absolutely” support Sanders if he is the nominee despite their differences.

Still, it’s not clear that Sanders will be welcome on the trail with the most vulnerable House Democrats.

“We don’t know who the nominee is going to be yet, so I think that’s kind of forward thinking,” said freshman Rep. Gil Cisneros, who flipped a GOP district in Southern California, after being asked multiple times whether he would campaign with Sanders. “But again, whoever the Democratic nominee is, Democrats in my district are going to rally around that individual.”

Cisneros, basically a waste of a seat, was a professional potato chip taster who won the lottery and self-funded $9,252,762 to win the primary and then the open-seat general. He quickly joined the New Dems, quickly started voting abysmally and now has an "F" rating from ProgressivePunch. This cycle-- despite immense PAC contributions-- he's being outraised by Republican Young Kim. Yesterday he endorsed Biden.

Does it feel odd to you that there are no progressive members of Congress saying they won't vote for Status Quo Joe if he-- not to mention Republican oligarch Michael Bloomberg-- manages to steal the election at the convention? And that there are no progressive congressional Democrats talking to the media about how they will have to run on a more progressive platform than the pile of status quo garbage either Biden or Bloomberg will put together?

Last week, Mehdi Hasan asked at The Intercept if we can all agree that everything we were told about Bernie by the press, the pundits, the politicians was wrong. "And not just wrong, but completely, utterly, demonstrably, embarrassingly, catastrophically wrong." Hasan's post was particularly looking at electability but also looked at the smear that Bernie's "policies are extreme and unpopular." Bernie, he wrote "is a socialist who backs radical policies too far to the left of not just the electorate as a whole, but even mainstream and moderate Democratic voters. Yet in Iowa and New Hampshire... a clear majority of caucus-goers and primary voters backed Medicare for All over the current private insurance system. In Nevada, too, 6 in 10 Democrats said they supported a Sanders-style single-payer health care system. At a national level, a (narrower) majority of Americans support Medicare for All, according to the latest Kaiser Family Foundation poll. Contrary to the conventional wisdom, then, it is Sanders, and not Biden or Bloomberg, who is the real centrist candidate-- in terms of pushing policies popular with most Americans."

A few days later, Scott Lanman and Stephanie Flanders went further, reporting that world-renowned economist Thomas Piketty, has explained how Bernie's agenda will be good for the American economy than the no fundamental change agenda Biden and Bloomberg and the transpartisan elites have in mind.

At the start of the 20th century, Sweden-- now held up as an egalitarian country-- was entirely controlled by wealthy elites and voting rights were determined by property. Within a very short space of time, and with little economic disruption, it became the social democratic nation that we now know.

This precedent bodes well for Mr. Sanders' policy goals of reforming American capitalism, Piketty suggested.





In his new book Capital and Ideology, Piketty examines the relationship between inequality and ideology, and how they shape each other.

The Sanders campaign has promised systemic change through economic policy to tackle inequality-- higher taxes of the rich, a wealth tax, a minimum wage, and “workplace democracy.”

Piketty, like Mr Sanders, advocates a progressive tax on wealth. “Remember that the U.S. is actually the country that invented progressive taxation of income and wealth in the 20th century,” he said.

Citing 30 years of data showing that U.S. workers have not seen any real per capita growth in that period, Piketty also said no country has a national determinism about economics and the US is not necessarily wed to its current system. Things can change very quickly.

“Warren and Sanders are not radicals, they are moderate social democrats by European standards… and the ideology of the U.S. is changing,” he said.

Piketty’s first book, 2014’s best-selling Capital in the Twenty-First Century, is said to have foreseen the Trump presidency-- predicting that voters who felt marginalised by globalisation would turn to radical solutions outside of the realms of traditional politics.

Could there be parallels in support for the Sanders campaign? A portion of the electorate that again feels left behind in a highly unequal society, who could turn away from "business as usual" solutions, and wants real structural change.

In a discussion with the Financial Times, Piketty described the two different policy reactions to this scenario-- the first wants to regulate the movement of goods and people, the other wants to regulate the movement of capital. One focuses on external factors (immigrants, unfair trade deals), the other on internal factors (inequality, education, health) advocating structural change at home.

At this early stage of the primary campaign it is still unclear whether the American voter will opt for the latter, and embrace Mr Sanders.