Establishment Democrats are Not Feeling the Bern
Jose Nino
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The Democratic Party is eating its own and Bernie Sanders appears to be the first victim of their self-purge.
Sanders’s Democratic competition is already making the case that he would be a weaker general election candidate against President Trump because of his “democratic socialist” label.
The Vermont Senator made a big splash on the first day on the campaign trail, raising a cool $6 million.
Opponents, however, have downplayed his ability to defeat Trump.
They see his socialist label as a potential limiting factor. One senior adviser to a rival campaign opined:
“I think socialist is a word that someone who wants to beat Trump should consider carefully before embracing.”
Naturally, Sanders supporters have come to his defense.
Larry Cohen, defender Sanders’s Democrat credentials:
“He’s clearly a Democrat and the party has grown enormously because of his efforts.”
Cohen went even further to suggest that Sanders has appeal beyond the traditional Democrat base:
“And his real brand is that he doesn’t just speak to Democrats. He speaks to literally millions of people that are unaffiliated. And he’s really talking about what we should aim for and where we can build a consensus.”
However, the other 2020 candidates have distanced themselves from the Sanders’s democratic socialist brand.
At a campaign stop in New Hampshire, Senator Kamala Harris dismissed democratic socialism:
“The people of New Hampshire will tell me what’s required to compete in New Hampshire, but I will tell you I am not a democratic socialist.”
Former Texas Congressman Beto O’Rouke also piled on the Bernie skepticism by asserting that he’s still a “capitalist.”
O’Rourke downplayed democratic socialism telling reporters that “I don’t see how we’re able to meet any of the fundamental challenges that we have as a country without, in part, harnessing the power of the market.”
It’s ironic that Democrats, members of a political party that supports measures from confiscatory taxation, central banking, and state control of education, are desperately trying to re-assert their capitalist credentials.
It’s not like there is much of a difference between Sanders and your typical Democrat politician these days. Heck, Sanders is now embracing Democratic talking points on gun control.
Mainstream Democrats need to take a close look in the mirror and realize that they are quite socialist themselves. Alas, perception is reality in politics.
This just highlights the tendency of the Left eating its own. The fact of the matter is that the current-day Democratic Party is a wholly-owned subsidiary of globalist interests.
As a result, they will continue to go further left as time progress. Countries like Venezuela serve as cautionary tales of what happens when a political culture fully embraces leftism. You get to a point where voters only have a choice between hardcore socialists and socialist lite candidates.
Not many options there.
Sadly, this is where the Democratic party finds itself these days.
If they’re going to be honest with their constituents, Democrats might as well come clean with their socialist policies and stop trying to run away from the socialist label.
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