Wow.
Very strong words in today’s Chicago Tribune, echoing what many of us have been saying for months now: while Hillary has the inside track for the 2016 nomination, Bernie’s movement is just getting warmed up. Today, second place (perhaps) in the Democratic Presidential contest. Tomorrow, the party is ours.
In a syndicated column entitled “Bernie Sanders probably won't win, but his revolution is just getting started”, the case for a pending takeover of the Democratic party is laid out by seasoned political journalist Joshua Green. Unlike some MSM columnists, Green is no Bernie hack, and he is no lightweight. Formerly of the Atlantic and the New Yorker, Green has spent 20 years writing on American politics, profiling figures ranging from Hillary Clinton to Karl Rove.
Green argues that the Beltway conventional wisdom on the Democratic race is wrong. Bernie’s surprise surge is not because Hillary is a weak campaigner, because of her dubious Wall Street connections, or because of her struggles attracting supporters under 45 years old. No, Green writes, the real source of Bernie’s success lies elsewhere:
He gives voice to a set of policy ideas that lie closer to the hearts of most Democratic voters — and especially the Democratic voters of the future — than Clinton's do.
Referring to old DK favorite — the somewhat less than prescient as yet tome The Emerging Democratic Majority — Green puts forward the case that America’s emerging Democratic demographic shares not Hillary’s politics, but Bernie’s.
Millenials, minorities, and single white women “all favor a more activist and interventionist government”, as multiple studies and polls have shown. These core Democratic groups not only want the government to engage in the economy more, they are in fact more and more impatient for it to do so more aggressively, according to both Green and Ruy Teixeira, Democratic Majority co-author.
Others agree:
"There's growing evidence that these groups are open to the boldest possible reforms," says Democratic pollster Stanley Greenberg. "But they won't engage unless they think you're leading from the outside and willing to break down this system in which moneyed interests dominate government." Sanders fit the bill.
Green notes that Hillary Clinton has been adept at responding to these shifts in the Democratic electorate, toughening her campaign rhetoric on Wall Street regulation, same-sex marriage support, criminal justice reform, protecting entitlement programs, and resisting corporate-written “free trade” deals like TPP.
The question now is, should she win the Presidency, can she shift far enough fast enough to satisfy these core constituencies, who polls show are increasingly restless for significant change?
However Hillary makes out, progressivism is on the rise within the Democratic party. Moderate and conservative Dems are running out of time to hold it back. Green points out that by 2020, millennials will easily outnumber baby boomers in the American electorate.
In closing, Green returns to Democratic Majority co-author Teixeira in a stirring vision of what the near future holds:
The important thing to understand is that Sanders is a vehicle, not the catalyst, for the increasing liberalism of the Democratic electorate. No one should make the mistake of assuming that just because he'll go away, the agenda he speaks for will too. "Sanders isn't just a flash in the pan," say Teixeira. "His success indicates something much deeper. For better or for worse, the Democratic Party is a party in flux and moving in a more progressive direction. And if you're going to lead the party, you ignore those elements of discontent at your peril."
A vehicle, not a messiah. A harbinger, not a cult leader. Not me, us. If Democrats would listen, the voice of the party to come has already been making itself heard in this election. It was never about Bernie alone. Not one man, no. It’s about a tidal shift in what the Democratic party stands for, and how it operates. And there will be no stopping it.
Change is coming.
Keep working to win every delegate for Sanders that we can. Keep the pressure on the party to keep moving left, in word if not yet in deed.
But remember, the 2016 Democratic primaries are only a prelude.
What happens next will be much bigger. Join us.