(Pelosi
and Schumer respond to Trump’s Oval Office speech / Image Credit: NBC News)
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“If
history repeats itself, and the unexpected always happens, how incapable must
Man be of learning from experience.”
-George
Bernard Shaw
Wayne Messam is
running for President in 2020 against Donald Trump. Who? Exactly.
That, in a nutshell, defines
the core problem the Democratic Party will face in 2020. Almost every mayor,
senator, governor, congresswoman and man believes he can take on President
Trump and that she alone is the best candidate to defeat the incumbent. I remember
remarking about the demise of the Republican Party when 18 candidates ran in
the 2016 primaries. That was a clear indication of a
group with too many Indians and no Chiefs. At last count, we had 55 potential Democratic presidential candidates. I am just grateful that Michael Avenatti, the self-proclaimed Trump on the left and Stormy Daniels
lawyer, dropped out of the race after facing multiple accusations of sexual assault.
Put it this way: if we thought the
battle between Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton was ugly and exposed deep
rifts within the base, then I suspect the 2016 primary will feel like a Disney
movie compared to what we will witness in the 2020 primaries.
Democratic candidates
are already stumbling over each other to showcase their lack of judgement and discredit
the front runner, Joe Biden; whether it is Elizabeth
Warren’s attempt to prove her Native American heritage with a DNA test or Corey Booker’s Spartacus moment during
the Brett Kavanaugh hearings. Curiously, a few days
after some of the progressive favourites announced their bid for the
Presidency, media stories started showing up about Biden taking $200,000
for stumping for a Republican candidate and about his role in the much-maligned Clinton-era crime policies which resulted in a disproportionate number of people
of colour being incarcerated for minor drug-related offences.
At the other end of the
spectrum we have Kirsten Gillibrand, who announced her Presidential bid on
a late night comedy show and Kamala Harris, both desperately trying to grow their
likeability with younger voters. Ms. Harris released well-designed campaign merchandise with a catchy
tagline, and is also taking on the new age social media darlings like Beto
O’Rourke (who is expected to run) with a video of her dancing to a Cardi B song. No word yet on whether Ms. Harris
will release a viral video on serious policy positions.
The problem is that when
you have so many candidates with such minor policy
differences, it is impossible for voters to
differentiate, and candidates need to find
extreme ways to stand out against the crowd. Outrageousness is exactly what helped Trump come out on top and ensured
that the entire GOP narrative during the campaign and primary debates was focused
more on size of manhood and ‘pussy’ grabbing, versus substantive policy discussions.
I have written
previously about how Republican’s moral blindness and abandonment of core Conservative principles during the
Bush, Jr. years resulted in an internal civil war. No
question that the cracks had been building for many years before, but
the Bush years were the final straw, and it led to
the rise of the rebel and anti-establishment Tea Party.
The freedom caucus, as they are now
called, was responsible for pushing out moderate
Republicans like Speaker John Boehner and House Majority leader Eric Cantor
(who was defeated in a primary), and is entirely responsible for the GOP
dysfunction we witnessed during the Obama years. Their antics of ‘no
compromise’ without any goal or unifying vision left their party defenseless
and wide open for a hostile takeover by Donald Trump. Now, the Democrats, rather than learn the
lessons from the demise of the GOP, seem poised to repeat history, within their
own ranks.
Much like the Republican
Party, the rift we see inside the Democratic Party has been growing for a
number of years and is not sudden. While Bernie did not cause this rift, his
anti-establishment campaign did ignite and light the match with young
Millennials who were feeling disillusioned with
Obama. By going after Hillary Clinton, Bernie also
took on the ageing Democratic ‘establishment’ and old guard who many felt had
unfairly chosen Obama’s successor without consulting the younger, more
progressive and diverse Democratic base.
The fact is that the
Democratic party was already broken and hopelessly divided when Obama won his
first nomination; in fact he too had defied and defeated the establishment by
running against Hillary Clinton, and his primary victory simply hobbled an
already weak party.
To win his primary
battle against Hillary, Obama knew he needed to go around the party machinery.
This is why he created Organising for Action; “OFA was created as a shadow party because Obama operatives had no faith in state parties,” according to Nebraska
Democratic Party Chair Jane Kleeb. As a result, during the Obama
years there was a massive erosion of power in state legislatures, congressional
districts and governor’s mansions.
At the start of Obama’s
first term, Democrats controlled 59 percent of state legislatures, by the end it was down to 31percent; the lowest percentage
for the party since the turn of the 20th century. Democrats held 29 governor’s
offices at the beginning of his term and by the end they had only 16; the party’s lowest number since 1920. There
is no question that, while Obama himself was popular, his persona transcended
the party and did not trickle down the ballot. His
was a coalition built less on party unity and more on personal charisma,
optimism and the idea of tearing down racial barriers. Large numbers of people
who came out to vote for him were voting for the first time, and many were minorities who had not voted in a long time.
In 2016,
Hillary failed to bring together the same voting coalition that helped Obama
win office. Millennials, deeply disappointed with Obama for not being
progressive enough, broke for Bernie and many older blue collar voters who voted twice for Obama, and had not cast a vote for a Republican presidential nominee before, broke
for Trump because they felt completely ignored and
betrayed by Democrats. Of course, we cannot negate Hillary’s own long-standing
establishment baggage and deeply polarizing personality. We also have to
credit Trump for reading the depth of frustration among working class white voters, a group who
had long been the core of the Democratic base. There is no doubt Trump’s
message was deeply divisive, but that fact remains that he was the only
candidate speaking directly to them.
After the 2016 election,
I hoped the Democratic Party leadership would take time to introspect, listen with humility and then forge a new platform for the American people for 2020, one built
on ideas, and not ideology rooted in identity politics. Yet, two years on, the
dysfunction and factionalism within the base and party seem to have grown
deeper and wider, and with their unhealthy obsession to remove Trump from
office by any means, it is clear Democrats learned nothing from their humiliating
2016 election defeat.
In fact, it feels like
every corner of the Democratic coalition is self-destructing or tearing itself
apart in some manner. The Women’s March organisation, a powerful activist group
within the base, which was formed by a diverse group of women as an act of
resistance to Trump’s misogyny, had a rift in its very first meeting.
Apparently, it began when the black and Latino women told their Jewish
counterpart that “Jews needed to confront their own role in racism”.
Rather than find ways to unify, it seems
the divisions from this first meeting only continued
to grow over the past year and finally blew into full public view this year
with charges of anti-Semitism roiling the movement and overshadowing plans for more marches. This rift eventually
led to marches being cancelled in some cities, and three competing marches being held in New York City.
Then there is the Bernie
wing of the party, who call themselves Democratic
Socialists, which is represented by young, outspoken
leaders like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. This group genuinely believes their time
has come. 2016 was the first time since Gallup has been asking this question
that a majority of “Democrats had a more positive view of socialism than they did of capitalism.” Much like the Freedom Caucus, this is a
rebel group that is intent on remaking the soul of the Democratic Party from
the inside. In a recent interview with Five-Thirty Eight, Waleed Shahid, a
Bernie Sanders campaign alumni who recruits progressive candidates for
Congress, was asked if this far-left group was the equivalent of the House Freedom Caucus, his answer was unequivocal: “Yes, it is”.
One could argue that the Democrats
seem united, having selected Nancy Pelosi as speaker, whom the new left was
totally against, and having withstood the government
shutdown as a cohesive unit. The problem is that this unity is an illusion
because it is driven entirely by a shared hatred of Donald Trump, and not built
on a unifying vision or faith in leadership. Hate is never a reliable adhesive
for long-term unity and it just corrodes the vessel it is carried in.
Democrats will not win
in 2020 by simply being the anti-Trump party, again. Hillary Clinton spent all
her time and energy vilifying Trump, rather than offer Americans ideas and
solutions and we all know how that movie ended. Nor will they win if
they cannot clearly articulate what they stand for, and they would do well to
remember that a house divided is a house that can be conquered.
The photograph reminds me of the American Gothic by Grant Wood, all Schumer needs is his pitchfork. We are all guilty of being reactionary, especially in politics where consequences are felt hard, politicians need to focus on the issues and leave the emotions for their time spent with their shrinks. Cheer's to unity.
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