Watching elements of the Democratic Party establishment respond to insurgencies is fascinating.
After Senator Bernie Sanders won several early contests in the 2020 presidential nominating process, the establishment panicked. In 2016, Sanders had almost beaten their favorite, Hillary Clinton, before they put their thumb on the scale, providing the Clinton campaign with a questionable infusion of cash and mobilizing hundreds of “super delegates” to give Clinton the appearance of a lead in the primaries.
Despite beating back the Sanders insurgency in 2016, here he was again in 2020 winning against their favored candidate, former Vice President Joseph Biden. After Sanders’ early wins, an anti-Sanders television advertising campaign was launched making arguments that “Sanders was too old”, that “Sanders’ socialist views were too radical” and that “with Sanders at the top of the Democratic ticket, Democrats would lose down-ballot races.”
These ads represented the party’s talking points. On television talk shows and newspaper commentaries, these themes — Sanders is too old, too radical and will cost Democrats elections — were repeated over and over again. Ironically, despite the establishment’s anti-Sanders hysteria, polls continued to show him beating Biden in the primary and doing better against Donald Trump in the general election.
This recent history is worth recalling as a similar scenario plays out in the Democratic establishment’s reaction to this year’s mid-term elections. With their favored candidates having lost several big-city mayoral contests, a few Senate primaries and over a dozen congressional races — once again, the establishment is panicking and making hysterical claims designed to scare voters.
Because many of the victorious insurgents are either members of the Democratic Socialists of America or have been endorsed by Senator Sanders, the attack language of more establishment Democrats has been extraordinarily harsh. The insurgents are routinely called “extremists”, “far left” or “bomb throwers who hate America” and charged with “holding the party hostage to their socialist views.” Their elections, it’s claimed, would “wreak havoc in Congress.” One member of Congress actually called the insurgents “a growing cancer” that needed to be rooted out.
Several observations can be made.
After a similar insurgent/establishment standoff in the 1988 Democratic presidential primary, Jesse Jackson famously noted, “it takes two wings to fly.” He cautioned liberals and moderates to find ways to work together because both were needed to win. The Clinton campaign didn’t do this 2016, but in 2020 the Biden campaign smartly formed teams with Sanders’ people to write a joint party platform that helped heal the divide between the party’s two wings.
Secondly, both the 2020 advertising attacks on Sanders and the current assault on the mid-term insurgents are both about Israel without ever mentioning Israel. In 2020, dramatic TV ads excoriated Sanders for being too old or too radical and then, strangely, had the tagline “Paid for by the Democratic Majority for Israel.” Similarly, the almost $50 million spent to defeat this year’s insurgents came from groups backed by the pro-Israel lobby, AIPAC. Again, the ads don’t attack the insurgents for their position on Palestinian rights or opposition to continuing military aid to Israel in the wake of the genocide in Gaza. But despite not mentioning it, Israel is the obvious reason AIPAC or DMFI are so heavily invested in defeating these insurgents.
The establishment fails to seriously consider why these insurgents are winning. They give facile answers like “urban angst and youthful naiveté” or the less serious “hatred of Israel.” But they ignore the real problem — voters, especially Democratic voters, don’t see the status quo working for them. Being against Trump isn’t enough, nor is simply observing that “things cost too much.” They want these problems addressed with programs that work. It rings hollow to simply mimic New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s “affordability” mantra, without also embracing his detailed program to make life more affordable. If that means taxing billionaires, rent control, raising the minimum wage, universal day care and healthcare as a right not a privilege — and if the establishment wants to term this socialism, so be it.
Finally, a caution: This effort to besmirch the insurgent victors only drives a deeper wedge between the party’s ideological wings and hands Republicans weapons to use against Democrats in the general election.
Dr. James Zogby is the president and founder of the Washington based Arab American Institute (AAI).
This story originally appeared on Arab American News.
