TALKING ABOUT BERNIE’S HISTORIC 2016 race and the impact that he and his millions of supporters are having on politics would not be complete without some discussion of the 2020 presidential race.
The 2020 race will look very different from those in 2008 and 2016. The most visible difference will be the much larger field of candidates. Many of them will not be well known at the beginning and will have to work to establish themselves as viable choices. That is exactly the position in which Bernie found himself at the beginning of the 2016 campaign. It is critical that if the forces of progress are to win in 2020, each of these candidates must have a fair chance to introduce herself or himself to the Democratic rank and file in a process that is as fair as possible. We cannot lose sight of the fact that job number one is defeating Donald Trump.
On issue after issue his administration has betrayed the people he asked for support. He promised to drain the swamp but has filled his administration with Wall Street insiders. He promised better health care and then tried to add millions to the roles of the uninsured. He promised to favor the middle class over the elites but pushed a tax agenda that would benefit the super-rich and endanger funding for schools, health care, and transportation. As of this writing he couldn’t even keep his promise to release the government’s JFK assassination files, a decision derided by the Republican Senate judiciary chair and a federal judge. People all across this country rightly wanted change in 2016 and still do. However, this is not the change that working people thought they were getting when Trump sold them a false bill of goods in 2016.
In addition, the Trump administration has demonstrated its incompetence at the most basic level of governing. For many of us this has come as a mixed blessing. President Trump’s lack of competence has meant that agenda items like the repeal of the Affordable Care Act have failed. But no one can argue that it is good for our country to have an administration that at times looks more like the Keystone Cops than the leadership of the free world.
There are some auspicious signs that we can in fact replace the most divisive, pro-corporate-elites, anti-working-family president in modern American history in 2020. But it is not a given. President Trump still enjoys support in the Republican Party as a whole and in many regions of the country. He will have access to mountains of billionaire-class dollars. And he will have the very powerful weapon of the bully pulpit of the presidency. There can be little doubt that the media will not have learned anything from 2016 and will once again give him billions of dollars more in free airtime than his opponents will get. The business imperative that drove the coverage of the empty podium has not gone away. Despite what the media believes, the moral indignation repeatedly expressed by commentators and TV hosts over Trump’s behavior and untruths does not compensate for the wall-to-wall coverage he gets. Trump knows that better than anyone else and will use it to his advantage.
What are we to do in this historically important moment? What we cannot do is to continue what we have been doing. That failed in 2016, and it has failed for nearly a decade now with consistent losses at the local, state, and federal levels. Being “not Trump” is not going to cut it. Now is the time for Democrats to demonstrate what they are for, not just what they are against. That has been difficult for a number of reasons.
All of the serious contenders for the Democratic nomination in 2020 are rightly focused now on resisting the Trump agenda rather than putting themselves out as the alternative. The American people don’t want to live in a world of perpetual political campaigns. That said, the run for the 2020 nomination has already begun. Everyone testing the waters will not ultimately be a candidate. But like a chess game, the pieces are moving, and in the early part of the game the pawns get positioned first.
Some are still relitigating the 2016 election. Some are doing so out of bitterness at the outcome either because they thought they were going to win, they thought the election was stolen from them, or understandably to protect the legacy of Hillary Clinton. Her career in politics is itself historic in many ways, and her accomplishments are many. Her loss to Trump in their eyes mars that lifetime of hard-fought achievements. I don’t agree but I understand it. Campaigns are fought in a historical moment that candidates have no control over. 2016 was a change election (as 2020 will be). Hillary Clinton was not viewed as the candidate who was going to make enough change—by working-class people of all races, by young people, and by independent voters—to be elected easily to the presidency in 2016. At another historical moment that might not have been true. That is not unique to her. In my view, Bill Clinton would not be able to secure the Democratic nomination today. The grass roots of the Democratic Party has rejected neoliberalism.
But except for the Clinton-world insiders and some of her most strident supporters, the relitigation of 2016 increasingly has nothing to do with 2016 and everything to do with 2020. There are already highly organized online operations—reminiscent of the Brock trolling program discussed in chapter 7—whose mission it is to attack Bernie and his supporters. In truth, it never really stopped after the primaries. Too many at the top of our own party are scared to death of the regular people in every corner of the country that Bernie Sanders gave voice to in 2016 and continues to give voice to.
Consistent polling shows Bernie Sanders as the most popular active political figure in America, which has those people in a panic. But what is below those top-line numbers is even more panic-inducing. Bernie Sanders is most popular with voters of color. That flies in the face of what can only be called a lie of Trumpian proportions: that progressive change only appeals to rabid white, male, hipster Berniebros. It’s not true now and never was.
This reality is a threat to politicians whose views are out of sync with the rank and file of the Democratic Party but who want to be elected anyway, and to the political and economic elites in the Democratic Party who want to cling to power. They are willing to do most anything to turn back the clock, even if it means in practical terms that we are in a weaker position to defeat Donald Trump in 2020. To hold onto power, they must tear apart the grand coalition that we need to build if we are to beat the Republicans and create a more equitable and inclusive society. They have to drive a wedge between progressive voters of color and progressive white voters, a wedge between progressive women and progressive men. They have to erase the very existence of the 77 percent of black voters who have a positive view of Bernie Sanders. In other words, they have to engage in the same divisive tactics that Trump relies on—and frankly that the neoliberals in the Clinton administration played with welfare reform, the crime bill, and DOMA. Divide and conquer.
Let me give an example of how this disgusting politics played out this past fall. I was attending a Democratic Party Unity Reform Commission meeting in Las Vegas in October 2017. It was scheduled to precede the Democratic Party’s semiannual meeting. DNC chair Tom Perez had just made new at-large appointments to the DNC and its various committees.
There was a perception that Perez had purged those who had supported his opponent for chair or who were viewed as too close to the progressive wing of the party. (Calling it a wing really understates it. Among the rank and file it’s getting to be almost the entire bird.) The purge included some DNC members with decades of service to the party, including New Hampshire party chair Ray Buckley (who had run for DNC chair and then endorsed Keith Ellison’s bid) and DNC member Jim Zogby (who supported Bernie’s bid for president and has been a vocal proponent of increased transparency and accountability at the DNC). While both remained on the DNC, they were demoted on important committees. There was some unhappiness about it.
So the two of them decided to run for open positions within the DNC that would put them on the executive committee. Zogby, in particular, was objectionable to the establishment because he has not backed down in his opposition to what I call the imperial DNC chair. Rules and bylaws of the party constrain the chair’s powers and require consultation with the executive committee and other committees. Those rules are routinely ignored now as they were by the previous chair, and I suspect chairs before that. But that doesn’t make it right. Zogby’s goal is to make the Democratic Party more democratic.
I decided to leave Las Vegas after the Unity Reform Commission meetings were concluded and not stay for the larger DNC meeting. I was sitting in the airport terminal grabbing a quick bite before my flight when a call came through from Symone Sanders. Symone had been the national press secretary on Bernie 2016 and had worked on the Clinton campaign during the general election. She had also just been appointed as an at-large member of the DNC.
“Well, hello, Ms. DNC committee member,” I said playfully as I picked up the phone.
“Well, maybe not for long,” she replied.
“What’s up?” I said, my tone turning more serious.
Symone explained that there was a rumor circulating around the DNC that Jim Zogby was trying to have Symone, Leah Daughtry, and Minyon Moore—all black women—removed as at-large members of the DNC and replaced with Bernie supporters. It didn’t make any sense.
First of all, Symone had been a Bernie supporter. Second, the deadline for nominations for at-large delegates had passed. Finally, I had just spent the past couple of days with Jim Zogby, who is also on the Unity Reform Commission, and the rest of the Bernie appointees to that commission. There was never a single word expressed about such a thing. Nor could I imagine there would be. Jim has been leading the call for the party to be more inclusive of various communities, not less. I told Symone I would check into it and get back with her. Something stunk badly. I sent a text to Larry Cohen, the vice-chair of the Unity Reform Commission and a Bernie appointee. He responded quickly that there was no truth to it.
I had to get on my plane, but during my layover I hit the phone to track down this false rumor. By the time I landed in Detroit on the way back to DC, the rumor had changed. Those peddling it must have realized the internal inconsistency of Jim Zogby trying to get rid of Symone Sanders, a former Bernie staffer. So now the rumor was that Zogby was trying to get rid of Leah Daughtry, Minyon Moore, and Donna Brazile. That may have improved the consistency of the slander against Zogby and Bernie supporters in general, but didn’t make it any more true.
This amateurish attempt at dark political arts took another hit when it came out that Zogby had decades-long friendships with Leah, Minyon and Donna that went back to their work on Jesse Jackson’s 1984 presidential campaign. Whoops! Leah Daughtry for her part publicly embraced Jim Zogby and endorsed his run for the executive committee. Minyon Moore put out a statement saying she did not believe that Zogby would do such a thing. And in my conversation with Donna Brazile, she could not have been more clear that she did not believe it either. The lie was unravelling.
So the rumor changed again in one last gasp to keep it alive. Instead of Zogby, other Bernie supporters were said to be the source of it. The fact that we know the whole thing was made up didn’t mean it wasn’t effective in the short term. In an environment such as a DNC annual meeting, where everyone is meeting in small groups and receptions, rumors like this spread like wildfire and are easier to spread than to undo. Jim Zogby narrowly lost his bid to get on the executive committee.
I was not content to let this scandalous tactic go without further investigation. In my more than a dozen conversations with members of the media and DNC members from all factions, it appears that this shocking smear originated with top DNC staffers who claimed to have personally overhead discussion of this nonexistent plan to depose Leah, Minyon, and Donna (or was it Symone?). To me this was 2016 revisited, when DNC staffers were scheming to attack Bernie’s religion.
This episode foreshadows the type of self-destructive politics that we can expect to see from establishment elements of the party in 2020. They understand the fault lines in the party. They understand that many African Americans rightly perceive that their consistent support for the Democratic Party is taken for granted. They also understand that starting a lie about black women being targeted would find some resonance. Black women and many other constituencies are used to being sidelined both within the party and without and are therefore vigilant. Using lies to play on that justifiable anxiety for political advantage is, to borrow a term from Hillary Clinton, deplorable, and Donald Trump thanks you for it. Only by dividing by race (or gender, sexual orientation or identity, religion, country of origin, and so forth) people who want and need transformative change the most can these insiders hang on to their petty trappings of power while the country continues to elect the far right.
This episode also highlights one of the reasons why, despite all his betrayals and incompetence, Donald Trump may be reelected in 2020. The Titanic may be going down, but as long as the establishment have the first-class cabin everything’s okay.
Whoever is the standard bearer in 2020 must be committed to uniting the country around an agenda of common aspirations while recognizing the unique challenges every community experiences in realizing that ideal. Our standard bearer’s message of change cannot just be change from Trump and the Republicans, but also of change from the same old same old that has too many people falling behind. Any honest appraisal of the 2016 general election shows where we failed. Working-class voters in the so-called blue wall left us, and younger voters of color chose to stay home.
Many of those voters were unhappy with their choices for president, but many were also turned off by what they justifiably perceived as an unfair process. To that end, the DNC’s role in the next presidential nominating process should be completely hands off. Let the candidates speak to the rank and file and may the best candidate win. Insiders claim there needs to be an active role for establishment players. After all, the Republicans did not have sufficient insider checks and balances, they argue, and Trump was able to win the nomination.
But in terms of picking the most electable general election candidate, it turns out that a process left solely to the rank and file like that of the Republicans produced a candidate, however distasteful, that empirically was more electable than the anointed choice of the Democratic establishment. It is after all the people who elect the president in November. Doesn’t it make sense that they, including independents, are the best judge of who will appeal to them and their neighbors?
The Democratic Unity Reform Commission is currently working to reform the superdelegate system, a highly undemocratic element of the Democratic nominating system. By the time you read this that reform will hopefully be adopted and the number of unpledged superdelegates will be greatly reduced. If it is not, it will be a strong signal that there is no serious appetite for letting the people control the party.
In addition, the DNC should have no part in setting up or sanctioning debates. They add needless bureaucracy to the process and, as we have seen, open up the process to mischief by partisans. The candidates and the sponsors of debates can negotiate directly just as effectively.
The DNC should not enter into any joint fund-raising agreements with any candidates until the primary season is over. In 2016, those agreements were used to skirt federal election laws to the benefit of one candidate. If candidates want to help raise money for the party, that’s fine. But the candidate herself or himself should not be part of the agreement. As an aside, the DNC should pledge to no longer loot state parties as it did in 2016. This was another circumvention of federal election law and has the long-term effect of destroying the viability of state parties in much of the country.
As evidenced by the Las Vegas meeting, senior DNC staff seem unable to refrain from taking sides. Some of the most disgusting attacks seem to originate there—whether attacks on a candidate’s religion or lies meant to paint loyal party members as racist. In addition, it was DNC staff who actively conspired with the Clinton campaign to rig the debate schedule. Until the primaries are over, no DNC staff should have contact with representatives of any campaign without representatives of every other campaign present. No exceptions. If the chair needs to speak with the various campaigns, he or she can arrange it through the candidates themselves. Too many Democratic operatives seem to put their own professional, personal, or petty interests ahead of the party and the country when they are supposed to be neutral actors.
Finally, no strategic contractor or vendor who represents the DNC should be allowed to work for one of the campaigns. In the 2016 campaign we saw a top lawyer at the firm representing both the DNC and the Clinton campaign giving advice to DNC staffers about how to respond to our campaign’s criticism of the questionable joint fund-raising agreements. This happened despite a firewall that supposedly existed at the law firm to prevent such a conflict.
There is a role for the DNC during the primaries. The DNC should ensure that every possible voter in the Democratic coalition can participate in the nominating process. As we saw, the participation of young African Americans lags way behind other racial groups. That is bad for the party and bad for the country. Contributing to that problem are the closed primaries that lock out independent, Democratically aligned black youth in New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Florida, and elsewhere. The same is true of young Latino and white voters.
Testimony before the Unity Reform Commission revealed that the Democratic Party has the power to force Democratic nominating contests open to nonaligned voters even when state legislatures refuse to act. If state parties refuse to remedy the disenfranchisement of the next generation of voters of color, the DNC should step in. It should publicly lobby Democratic governors and legislatures to make changes. It should also go to court to force those primaries open and to aggressively fight every other kind of voter suppression and disenfranchisement.
Just a word about the candidates. If the DNC removes itself as a partisan in the nominating process, it will be important that the candidates carry on their campaigns in a way that allows the candidate with the most support among rank-and-file Democrats to win and for the party to come together to win in November 2020. One way to accomplish that is for each campaign to pledge to a list of principles.
The first is that every candidate should pledge to not participate in a debate if every bona fide candidate for the nomination is not included, as Bernie did in 2016 when one network wanted to exclude Governor O’Malley. A minimum threshold could be established, such as polling at 1 percent in some number of respected public polls.
Each candidate should also pledge to wage their campaign with only hard money. We don’t need super PACs funded by a few rich donors interfering in our nominating contest or propping up candidates who have no base of support other than a rich patron. It makes the process much more base when candidate-affiliated super PACs are used to launch dirty attacks on their opponents. In the current campaign finance environment, the eventual nominee may have to rely on a super PAC against the Republicans because they will use them. But that does not mean that we as Democrats have to taint our own nominating contest.
The third principle is that each campaign should refrain from the kind of negative campaigning that turns off so many voters. Understandably there will be a lot of sharp elbows in the nominating process. The line between policy and personal is sometimes blurry. I find nothing wrong with hard-nosed comparisons of candidates’ positions and records. It should not be acceptable, however, for candidates to adopt the disqualify-defeat-and-worry-about-unifying-the-party-later mantra that the Clinton campaign adopted in New York. This approach does long-term harm to our party and the political process in general. Candidates should focus more time on why voters should support them and their policies rather than why voters should not support their opponents.
Finally, let me be up-front about what I am sure is painfully obvious. The polling in 2016 was right. Bernie Sanders was the stronger candidate against Trump. Bernie would have won. Period. It’s not a view I am shy about.
I also believe he is the strongest candidate to reclaim the White House in 2020 in this moment in history. His authentic message of positive change and his appeal to a broad range of voters gives Democrats the best opportunity to put together the coalition that can reclaim elected offices at all levels. That being said, he has not decided to run again. I am sure that is the case with all the potential 2020 contenders. But he has not decided not to run either. Run, Bernie, Run!