What's needed is the kind of leadership that's not in evidence. Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi sitting down with Trump and getting a deal this week to outfox GOP leaders on extending the federal debt is a parliamentary victory. But it is not party-healing leadership. Democrats have been more united than the Republicans in 2017, but it is easier to play defense than offense. While congressional Democrats have moved left (seen this week in uniformly defending DACA, whereas a decade ago they weren't as pro-immigrant, including Sanders), the party is easily provoked into rekindling old fights.
What seems to be the status quo are deepening silos, left and center.
Does anyone remember this past summer's "A Better Deal" press conference where Schumer, Pelosi and others laid out a more populist economic agenda as their template for 2018? That hasn't become a bandwagon. Meanwhile, Sanders' upcoming "Medicare for All" legislation, to be released next week, has become a litmus test on the left.
Early press coverage of Clinton's book shows it is easier to rekindle party tribalism. But it doesn't bode well for 2018 and 2020. One can only wonder what might happen if the DNC faced up to the anti-democratic features that deepened the Sanders-Clinton divide in 2016. Barring that reckoning, deals between Trump, Schumer and Pelosi may be the best the party can do.
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