Sanders Supporters Out in the Cold, Again
In the 2016 Democratic primary, party leaders helped ensure Clinton's victory over Bernie Sanders, whose candidacy was fueled by millions of passionate supporters.
Despite this mistreatment, Sanders' supporters didn't bolt the party. Instead they coalesced again, this time around Congressman Keith Ellison's bid for chair of the Democratic National Committee.
But once again, rather than welcoming in this much-needed energy, party insiders worked to keep Sanders supporters out in the cold.
The campaign to stop Ellison, the first-ever Muslim elected to Congress, included accusations of anti-Semitism.
"What is being done to Ellison," The Intercept's Glenn Greenwald wrote, "is Islamophobia in its purest and most classic form."
Ultimately, Ellison was narrowly defeated by Tom Perez. The former Labor Secretary under President Obama jumped into the DNC race a month after Ellison, at the urging of top Obama officials.
Perez challenged Ellison despite the similarity of their progressive politics, a point Perez and his supporters stressed.
"This is" why the case for Tom Perez makes no sense," wrote The New Republic's Clio Chang. "If Perez is like Ellison--in both his politics and ideology--why bother fielding him in the first place?"
With Ellison's loss, party leaders once again pushed Sanders supporters to the outskirts.
"At this point, one has to conclude that the national Democratic Party has a death wish," Nathan Robinson wrote in Current Affairs. "The progressives needed to receive some kind of gesture. And they have received one: an enormous middle finger."
But maybe the Democratic Party can overcome this with a strong message.
If only they had one.
What Do They Stand For?
What does the Democratic Party stand for? And what's its strategy to retake the government?
When activist and New York Daily News writer Shaun King puts these questions to audiences, "The response that I get is always the same -- mass laughter or audible frustration."
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