But what the progressive surge in these primaries is telling us is that we can, and must, do so much better.
For that to happen, the very last thing we need is for the two strongest left/progressive candidates and their supporters to tear each other apart for the next eight or so months, in a desperate bid to discredit a perceived rival. What should be happening instead is exactly what Sanders and Warren have been doing (with only a couple minor lapses): steadily building their bases by talking about ideas and strategies, thereby sharpening the contrast in policies, track record, and electability with Biden.
Because despite the various transparent attempts by Democratic power brokers to boost the narrative of a pitched Sanders vs. Warren battle over a finite pot of progressive voters, there is less overlap between the two candidates' bases of support than is commonly assumed.
Sanders and Warren have competed for months over the party's left flank," Politico recently claimed. In fact, both have dramatically expanded that flank, drawing on different parts of the U.S. electorate. Sanders's base is younger and more multiracial; Warren's is older, whiter, and wealthier, according to a CBS News poll and one from Fox News. Sanders galvanizes traditional nonvoters and is more likely to peel off some Trump voters down the road; Warren is more able to shift former Hillary Clinton supporters to the left.
What is really happening in this race, and this is why the rivalry is being so relentlessly stoked, is that centrist candidates presumed to be front-runners or at least serious contenders are flailing, and the progressive flank is expanding to the extent that Sanders and Warren's combined bases exceed Biden's. This is an extraordinary turn of events representing an unprecedented revival of unabashedly left ideas in U.S. politics. In short, it's not 2016, when broad support for Sanders's bold progressive policies took nearly everyone by surprise it's something entirely new.
None of this is to say that Bernie and Warren are interchangeable. There are big differences between their policies, styles, and world views: on the role of markets and the military; on the depths of our structural crises; on the urgency of standing up to the Democratic Party machine; on the role of outside movement power; and more. These differences are important and should be explored and clarified during this interminable campaign. Like everyone else, I have my own preference (hardly a well-kept secret), and I'll be writing more on that later. We should all also pay close attention to how messages resonate beyond our particular tribes and ideological circles because beating Trump is paramount.
But as we make these assessments, let's not lose sight of the depths of the shift we are witnessing. Whether it's Sanders's stalwart support for Medicare for All or Warren's plans to break up big tech, neither politician is primarily trafficking in the kind of win-win market based "solutions" that never ask the wealthy to give up much of anything at all. Both are saying to the multimillionaire and billionaire class: You have won enough, now you have to share so other people can thrive.
IT'S ALSO TREMENDOUSLY significant that these sorts of policies are catching fire not during an economic crisis like in 2008, but in an economy that is considered booming by conventional measures. In 1933, Franklin D. Roosevelt introduced the New Deal to solve the most profound crisis in the history of capitalism, one for which markets had no semblance of a solution of their own. Warren is calling for New Deal levels of market intervention, and Sanders is leading a revival of democratic socialism at a time when the economic fundamentals are strong and that has significantly further-reaching implications. Because it means that when capitalism is doing precisely what it was built to do -- produce unprecedented wealth -- it is a crisis for both the majority of people and the planetary systems on which we depend.
The threat that this realization represents to establishment players like the Wall-Street-funded Third Way think tank and Center for American Progress is the real reason that both have begun to hold up Warren as a more palatable version of Sanders. It's not because Warren actually has their backing; it's because this revved-up rivalry is viewed as the most effective way to undercut Sanders and, with it, the left's growing base in the party.
There is no question that the elite antipathy for Bernie runs deeper than for Warren, for obvious reasons. Writing on his landmark speech on democratic socialism at George Washington University earlier this month, Keeanga Yamahtta-Taylor marveled that "he named capitalism as the culprit and democratic socialism as a solution. What a breathtaking turn of events." And as the very real prospect of an attack on Iran heats up, it's equally clear that Bernie represents the far greater threat to the bipartisan consensus for endless war.
But Warren, because of her track record and her competence, is a threat in her own right. To Wall Street, for whom she has been a nemesis since 2008; to big tech, whose obscene profits and monopoly power would take a hit under her plans to break them apart; to the ultra-rich as a class, because of her proposed wealth tax. So make no mistake: For corporate Democrats, the endgame is still to defeat both Warren and Sanders. And in this never-ending and crowded campaign, that effort will shape-shift many times over.
It is true that Biden has had a bad week. But if Biden implodes, there's a phalanx of other candidates, recently seen hopping from one $2,800-a-head Wall Street fundraiser to the next, all with variations on the same reassuring message: I'll change things just enough to fend off the pitchforks and to save you from the social embarrassment of Trump, but not so much that you will notice a thing.
"It is important to rotate the crops," David Adelman, a financial industry lawyer, told the New York Times. He was ostensibly explaining why he had co-hosted a fundraiser for Beto O'Rourke, but in doing so, he also summed up precisely how Wall Street sees Washington: as its plantation. It engineers the seeds, plants them, then reaps what it sowed.
These forces, and the think tanks they finance, want the Warren and Sanders camps at each other's throats, demoralizing and weakening each other. Because that's exactly how the progressive bloc stalls or shrinks enough for Biden (or some newer political GMO crop) to walk away with it.
The current political map is confusing, there is no doubt. Progressive vote-splitting is a real possibility down the road but so is vote-combining, and the more progressive voters there are, the more viable that prospect will become. There are multiple routes by which a progressive majority spread over several candidates can be translated into a Democratic ticket that is more progressive than any we've seen in nearly a century, maybe even ever.
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