As the Sanders presidential campaign gained momentum over the course of the early primaries and caucuses, the fear and loathing of the Democratic establishment toward it began to border on psychosis. The Democratic National Committee (DNC)’s chief media arm, cable TV’s MSNBC, nearly lost it on the eve of the Nevada caucuses, with “Hardball”’s Chris Matthews engaging in an apoplectic rant against Sanders that ended with the blathering host ready to be measured for a strait-jacket.
Matthews’ colleagues were somewhat more restrained in their remarks, but the consensus view was one of impending doom should the Berniecrats seize control of the primary process and nominate their man. There was much talk of the rumored depredations of the “Bernie Bros,” whose mythic evil powers torture the fevered thoughts of Democratic regulars. There was also much handwringing over the supposed plans of Vladimir Putin’s hackers to digitally arrange for a Sanders nomination to ease Donald Trump’s reelection.
Special angst was reserved for Sanders’ suggestion that he be given the Democratic nod should he reach the party’s national convention with a plurality of delegates, thereby short-circuiting the king-maker role of the super delegates empowered to impose their will on the second ballot. But most of all, there was all-out panic expressed regarding the failed emergence of a so-called moderate able to derail the Sanders train to Milwaukee and thereby save the day.
Here, a brief aside is in order. The term “moderate” is one of those mealy-mouthed expressions that functions for establishment Democrats the way “death tax” does for Republican haters of the estate tax. Moderate, according to the dictionaries, is the opposite of extreme; politically, it’s a label attached to someone opposed to radical views or measures. A moderate is neither of the left nor the right, neither liberal nor conservative. A moderate is, in other words, a centrist, a product of the mushy middle and the type of political candidate sensible Democrats are said to want in their heart of hearts. The frightening opposite, a left-leaning progressive, is an “extremist” sure to take the party down to defeat.
The Democratic establishment’s fear of candidates who stray very far from the dead center of the political spectrum dates back to the Nixon-McGovern election of 1972, when progressive populist George McGovern lost the presidency in a landslide. Any Democrat would have lost that year — Nixon benefited from a good economy and a spurious promise to instantly disengage from the unpopular Vietnam War — but Democrats have been running from their progressive roots ever since, having internalized the accepted evaluation of McGovern as a Jonah whose leftist ideology must evermore be rejected.
The result since then has been a steady procession of uninspiring moderate Democratic nominees, ending with two troubled presidencies, Clinton’s and Obama’s, whose checkered legacies have been both a blessing and a curse. Clinton, who came from the right of his party, readily acquiesced in the conservative Reagan revolution and adapted to it by triangulating — playing off the liberal Democrats in Congress against the resurgent Republicans and splitting the difference (as a good moderate should) on such issues as taxation, deregulation, and welfare reform.
Obama used the same moderate playbook in addressing the financial crash and Great Recession, seeking compromise with the hard-right GOP, always taking half a loaf, and accepting with few reservations the globalist neoliberal zeitgeist inherited from the 1980s. The president’s personal rectitude, charm, and articulateness disguised the fact that his moderate or centrist presidency, the third such Democratic administration in a row counting Carter’s, accomplished little of substance besides a deeply flawed and corporatized health-care reform and a watered-down financial reform.
Obama’s tenure also weakened his party and cost it hundreds of legislative seats because of his reluctance to fix blame for the economic crisis, engage in partisan politics, and pursue the nuts and bolts of party building. Still, as we entered the 2020 presidential sweepstakes, the Democratic moderates, failing to see that their inadequate policies paved the way for Donald Trump’s victory, stubbornly insisted the next party nominee must be one of their own kind; nothing else was permissible. (Their symbolic spokesperson is Hillary Clinton, bitterness personified, who can’t let go of 2016 and whose publicly expressed hatred for Bernie Sanders threatens to tear the party apart.)
Barack Obama, meanwhile, has remained scrupulously neutral in the presidential-primary fray, although there’s little doubt where he, too, stands. His few critical comments on the process have been aimed at the left of his party — that is, at Sanders and Warren. He’s issued barely veiled warnings against ideological purity tests, against tearing down the system, and against pursuing “crazy stuff” like, presumably, Medicare for All.
It’s an open secret that Obama, who feels most comfortable in the company of moderate Republicans and high-tech entrepreneurs, has never warmed to the Democratic left; he wouldn’t even nominate Elizabeth Warren to head her own creation, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). And the ex-president’s limited speaking forays as titular head of his party have focused less on Donald Trump, about whom he’s been remarkably silent, than on the threat posed by Democratic progressives.
As Super Tuesday approached and with it the denouement of this year’s internecine warfare in the Democratic Party, observers glimpsed what appeared to be the party establishment’s last stand. The moderate hopes, Biden, Buttigieg, and Klobuchar, had provided little excitement and no vision of the future, having become a stop-Sanders contingent whose only recommendation was that one of them might possibly be “electable.” With the onset of the midnight hour, the despair of Democratic moderates became almost palpable.
In apparent desperation, they turned their lonely eyes to billionaire financier and ex-Republican (until 2018) Michael Bloom-berg, a deficit hawk whose resumé includes opposition to both Medicare for All and a wealth tax, criticisms of Social Security and paid sick leave, past support of George W. Bush for President, an antipathy toward labor unions, and an extensive record of generously funding GOP Senate campaigns.
Bloomberg has been running nationwide TV ads implying that Barack Obama is a strong supporter, and Obama has tellingly registered no disapproval. Meanwhile, the moderate-dominated DNC has included Bloomberg in debates despite his not being on primary ballots. If these thumbs on the scale indicate anything, it’s the utter bankruptcy of the Democratic establishment.
Wayne O’Leary is a writer in Orono, Maine, specializing in political economy. He holds a doctorate in American history and is the author of two prizewinning books.
From The Progressive Populist, April 1, 2020
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