For years, the Democrats have been defined by the bitter battles of the 2016 election where the feud between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders essentially divided the party into a definite progressive and moderate wing. Now, with the new leadership of Kamala Harris and her running mate, Tim Walz, there are signs that the party is entering a new era, where the demons of 2016 have been exorcised.
The 2016 election was one that never seemed to end for the Democrats. That’s because it essentially continued for years through a series of intense primary campaigns that functioned as proxy wars for the main factions of the party.
In “The Truce”, The book I wrote with Luppe Luppen that explored the different elements of the Democratic Party in the election, we discovered that no less an authority than former President Barack Obama was convinced that the divisions that erupted in the primary of 2016 had allowed the rise of his authority. successor, Donald Trump. The split — and the media’s obsession with it — was even immortalized in a meme: “Democrats in Disarray.”
President Joe Biden was quite aware of these fissures and worked diligently to heal them. As we chronicle in our book and here at TPM, Biden and his team have worked to cultivate relationships with the left wing of the Democratic Party. They ultimately emerged as some of his most reliable allies and partners as he pursued an ambitious first-term agenda. That’s part of why progressives like Sanders and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (DNY) was one of Biden’s staunchest defenders as he faces pressure to drop his re-election campaign.
Of course, in the end, Biden made the decision to quit. He promised to be only a bridge for the next generation of Democratic leaders as he defeated Trump in 2020. However, Trump did not leave the stage and, although not exactly willing, Biden finished. And although the alliance that Biden formed with progressives was a strong one, it began to be tested in recent months, especially because of his support for the Israeli government and its war in Gaza. he left tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians dead. In January, Representative Pramila Jayapal (D-WA), the chairwoman of the Congressional Progressive Caucus and a key partner in the Biden administration, warned that her coalition had “fractured”.
All this raised the specter that the division between the main poles of the party could last. However, in the weeks since Biden completed his second bid for the White House and endorsed Harris, we have seen clear signs that the alliance he began to build is now, in fact, stronger than ever. After Biden’s exit from the race, Harris secured the Democratic Party nomination without a serious challenger. While there are still primary intraparty fights, those have widely fed by lobbying groups focused on Gaza rather than warring factions within the ranks. And Jayapal and other progressives have expressed optimism about Harris’ position on Gaza and indicated that they believe it is. nicer to the situation of the Palestinians.
“I think you have already seen it with her language. Even when she was asking for a ceasefire before, her language was stronger, very empathetic towards the Palestinian people, towards the two-state solution,” Jayapal said of Harris in a conversation with TPM yesterday. “The reality is that she does not have the same kind of relationship with (Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu) and the decades of work that the president had done with Netanyahu as chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee. And so, I think that there is just much more openness to potentially looking at US policy and making sure that we reach a peace that supports Israel’s right to exist and the right of the Palestinian people to have their own state, their own freedom” .
And the Gaza issue isn’t the only area where Harris has progressives feeling hopeful. When Harris tapped Walz as his running mate, he made a selection that progressives and labor leaders clamored for. In many ways, Walz is a pure manifestation of a fully formed alliance between progressives and the leadership of the Democratic Party.
However, Walz is more than that. While he has supported progressive policies and has progressive support, he is not a democratic socialist like Sanders or Ocasio-Cortez. Indeed, in Congress Walz represented a district of Minnesota that has since turned red and, as governor, he managed a state that is quite purple. Walz may be loved by the left at the moment, but he isn’t of the left.
Walz’s selection drew praise from across the spectrum of the Democratic Party including centrist leaders who have been major antagonists to progressives such as Representative Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ) and Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV). It was a vivid indication that, with Harris at the helm, the 2016 era of the party may be over. For now, the Democrats and their new standard bearers are in array.
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