Monday, January 18, 2016

The Democrat crackup has been coming for some time



The Sanders-Clinton story is hitting a lot of people between the eyes, specially so many in the media obsessed with GOP divisions.   We are not denying problems on our side of the aisle. However, it’s about time for the media to check out what’s going on the left side of the street.
In other words, the cracking you hear from the Democrats is very genuine.
The Democrat started in the 1990s when the Clinton presidency threw so many liberals under the bus to survive politically.   
The crack was really evident on Election Day 2000 when 4 million liberals voted for Nader and very likely made the Bush victory possible.   
What if Gore had won in 2000? The crackup would have hit the party like a nuclear attack. A Gore victory, and the very likely possibility that he would have invaded Iraq after 9/11, would have put Nader back in the race in 2004. My guess is that Nader 2004 would have gotten more than 4 million votes and turn Gore into a one-term president. Last, but not least, the 2004 Democrat Convention would have made Chicago 1968 look orderly.   
The crackup was delayed by the Bush presidency and the Iraq War, the same one that most Democrats supported.  
In 2008, Obama came out of nowhere to give the anti-war wing a voice and something to get excited about.  
My point is that the Bush victories and the Iraq War brought the Democrats together. It gave them a Bush to hate and something to agree with.
It’s 2016 and the chickens have finally come to roost, to borrow a popular phrase from a recent election. Yes, the chickens are flying back and aiming for Hillary Clinton, as Kimberly Stroessel wrote this weekend:
These movements and activists (who also embrace the gun debate, and the women’s-rights debate, and socialized health-care debate) are now the beating heart of the Democratic Party. And they are rallying around Mr. Sanders. MoveOn.org has endorsed Bernie. The liberal Nation magazine has endorsed him. Bill McKibben, the head of 350.org, has endorsed him. Jodie Evans, the co-founder of the antiwar group Codepink has endorsed him. Celebrity activists likeSusan Sarandon and Mark Ruffalo are feeling the Bern.
Mrs. Clinton keeps insisting that she’s not “nervous at all” about the nomination. She should be. True, Mrs. Clinton has a powerful organization and strengths, and she is lurching left to capture these new progressive voters. But the blunt reality is that the Democratic Party, of which the Clintons have long been the titular heads, isn’t really their party any more.
We don’t know for sure what the Democrats will look like in six months. Hillary Clinton may get nominated by super delegates who will force her on the party. However, it’s hard to see how she picks up the pieces that started to break up when her husband was president.
Which party is cracking up? My money is on the Democrats cracking up between an active left wing and a shrinking moderate base. It’s hard to see how you put these groups on the same side to live happily ever after.
 
P.S. You can listen to my show (Canto Talk) and follow me on Twitter.
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