The Democratic Establishment Is Melting Down Over Bernie's Ascendance
Doom and gloom is spreading among moderates since Nevada. "Today is the most depressed I've ever been in politics," one said.
By Eric Lutz
Bernie Sanders campaigns in Texas February 23.Drew Angerer/Getty Images
The Democratic establishment, already on edge after Bernie Sanders' success in Iowa and New Hampshire, is freaking out in the wake of his resolute victory in Nevada's primary, which showcased not only his snowballing momentum but also an increasingly diverse coalition of supporters. "Today is the most depressed I've ever been in politics," Matt Bennett, of the center-left group Third Way, told Politico following Sanders double-digit win.
With a surging Sanders and a bottleneck of a center lane, the party establishment is facing the very real possibility that it could be running a democratic socialist at the top of its ticket in November—something it fears would lead to Donald Trump's reelection and ruin them in down-ballot races. "In my 30-plus years of politics, I've never seen this level of doom," Bennett added. "It's this incredible sense that we're hurtling to the abyss. I also think we could lose the House. And if we do, there would be absolutely no way to stop [Trump]."
Sanders has expanded the movement he began in 2016, generating more enthusiasm than any of his rivals and faring better with minority voters than he did the last time around. But a primary race is different than a general election, and the prevailing wisdom among the establishment is that a more moderate candidate would stand a better chance at beating Trump. Sanders, the thinking goes, is too radical to win over voters in the middle, and his name at the top of the ticket would allow Republicans to brand every candidate with a D next to their name in November as a socialist, just like him. "Before we rush to nominate Senator Sanders in our one shot to take on this president," said Pete Buttigieg, one of Sanders' moderate rivals, "let us take a sober look at what is at stake for our party, for our values and for those with the most to lose."
With Sanders rising, Buttigieg, Joe Biden, Amy Klobuchar, and Michael Bloomberg have all been sharpening their attacks, hoping to slow his momentum and to position themselves as the more realistic, pragmatic alternative to this pie-in-the-sky progressive. Bloomberg launched an ad Monday critical of Sanders' record on guns and reportedly plans to aggressively target him at Tuesday night's debate.
"I ain't a socialist, I ain't a plutocrat," said Biden, who finished second, albeit by a distance, in Nevada. "I'm a Democrat." Biden's 2020 hopes may depend on his success in South Carolina, a diverse state that has been seen as his firewall. But Sanders has appeared to cut into the former vice president's lead there in polling averages, and divisions among moderates—none of whom seem like they'll be dropping out before Super Tuesday—could allow Sanders, without a clear counterweight, to continue his surge largely unchallenged.
That's a gloomy prospect for the establishment, whose concerns about Sanders go beyond his perceived electability. Many on the center-left view parts of his agenda, like Medicare for All, as not just politically divisive, but ill-advised. Elizabeth Warren, the race's other unabashed liberal, has at least made a point to couch her progressive proposals in detailed plans. For all Sanders' grand promises, he can come off as unconsidered or even evasive when it comes to the specifics of how he'd deliver and what the broader impact would be. Speaking on 60 Minutes Sunday evening, the Vermont Senator offered vague descriptions of how much his health care plan would ultimately cost and how it would be paid for. "It is possible to estimate the costs of your policies if you want to be honest with the American people," Stef Feldman, Biden's policy director, tweeted. There are also concerns among Democrats about where his loyalties lay. An Independent senator, Sanders—and his most ardent supporters—has sent strong signals that his main allegiance lies with his own populist movement rather than the Democratic party. "I've got news for the Republican establishment. I've got news for the Democratic establishment," he tweeted Friday, on the eve of the Nevada primary. "They can't stop us."
Should he continue to be proven correct—that his momentum can't be blunted—the establishment could eventually face a choice: To accept Sanders as their party leader and rally behind him, misgivings and all, or resort to more extreme measures to thwart him. As unpalatable as establishment moderates may find the former, it's hard to see how the latter would help them defeat Trump, who enjoys the support of a largely united Republican party. Primaries are always contentious, but tend to end with everyone more or less on the same team before the convention. Still, skirmishes this cycle—not just between moderates and Bernie, but also in acrimonious side battles between Buttigieg and Klobuchar—could drag into a general election race, similar to how some party divisions in the 2016 primary, including over the role of the DNC, continued after Hillary Clinton became the nominee.
There's still a lot that can change between now and the convention in Milwaukee—a win in South Carolina could give Biden new life heading into Super Tuesday; another strong debate performance could finally translate into votes for Klobuchar; Buttigieg and, to some extent Warren, have showed solid lasting power; and Bloomberg, for his significant weaknesses as a candidate, will be able to buy himself some relevance—literally—for a while, in hopes of uniting moderates around him against Sanders at a brokered convention. That each of these moderates has some glimmer of hope to hold onto, of course, is the very thing that could represent their undoing; so long as they each see a path forward and remain in the race, Sanders is able to pull away further. As my colleague Peter Hamby pointed out last month, that might not be such a bad thing: Despite moderates' concerns about his electability, no other Democrat currently enjoys the kind of fervent support that Sanders does. With a strong ground game of committed followers, a sophisticated media campaign, and a consistent message he's been pushing for decades, it's possible he's the Democrats' antidote to a president who has a stranglehold on the GOP. Whether Democrats throw their arms around Sanders should he become the nominee, the way the Republican establishment has come to do with Trump, remains to be seen. "The establishment, which I guess I'm a part of after all these years, seems to know as much about electability as a donkey knows about calculus," Steve Rosenthal, a longtime strategist, told the Washington Post. "We always get it wrong...The voters are going to tell us who's electable."
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Eric Lutz is a Vanity Fair contributor.
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