No matter what it is called it is still socialism.
MIAMI – In another year, Donna Shalala might have had an easy ride to Washington.
Running to become a first-time congresswoman in a Miami seat at age 77, Shalala has long been a member of the Democratic Party elite, with a deep resume that includes supervising U.S. health policy for former President Bill Clinton. Her slogan, printed on the back of her staff’s t-shirts, could have come from Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign playbook: “Ready on Day One.”
But this season, Shalala’s record has put her at odds with the surging progressive wing of the Democratic Party. Once derided as the most liberal member of the Clinton administration, Shalala now faces attacks from challengers who contend she is not nearly progressive enough.
Taking nothing for granted, Shalala delivered hot dogs to voters at a campaign barbeque on a recent steamy Saturday. “I’m running like I’m 20 points behind,” she said.
Less than three months before the midterm elections, a rising progressive movement is roiling the Democratic Party – fueled by fury at Republican President Donald Trump’s administration, a growing populism among voters impatient for seismic change, and resentment of party leaders who have presided over a losing streak in national elections.
Republicans disparage Democratic progressives as wild-eyed radicals led by a 28-year-old political neophyte, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, whose take-down of senior Democratic leader and 10-term incumbent Congressman Joe Crowley in a June 26 New York contest rocked Washington.
“We have a Democratic party that’s lurching far to the left,” said Representative Steve Stivers, chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee. Michael Byerly, a spokesman for the Congressional Leadership Fund, another Republican group, predicted Democrats’ “ultra-progressive views” will be a hard sell with middle-class voters.
Yet Ocasio-Cortez is only the most visible symbol of a grassroots insurgency that has sprung up across the country, including in spots far from deep-blue Democratic strongholds. Most embracing the progressive label share a disdain for corporate money in politics and favor more government-run healthcare, subsidies for college tuition and wage hikes for laborers.
Progressives have a mixed record in early nominating contests, more often than not losing to more mainstream Democrats.
But they have moved the party sharply to the left, particularly on expanding the government role in healthcare, a Reuters review of Democratic positions in the most competitive congressional races found.
Across 41 battleground House of Representatives districts, two-thirds of Democratic nominees want to expand the government’s role in healthcare, the review shows. About a dozen support “Medicare for All,” for many a reference to a single-payer system that would largely replace private insurance. In Congress, most House Democrats support a Medicare for All bill, with six members of the Blue Dog caucus of fiscally conservative Democrats signing on as co-sponsors.
Much of the progressive movement has its roots in the nationwide volunteer network built by Bernie Sanders’ 2016 presidential run. Several groups that sprang from the failed Sanders campaign are now pushing for progressive candidates in the midterms – including Brand New Congress, formed two years ago on the dream of running hundreds of progressive political newcomers to oust establishment incumbents, Democrats and Republicans alike.
In some ways, the splintering in the Democratic Party is simply a new round in the 2016 fight between Clinton and Sanders supporters. Progressive insurgents believe Clinton’s defeat, on top of losing control of Congress and most state governments, proved them right. They aspire to overthrow conventional wisdom that Democrats must stay safely in the middle to compete.
“Democrats have been fixated for 20 years on this elusive, independent, mythical middle of the road voter that did not exist,” said Crystal Rhoades, head of the Democratic Party in Nebraska’s Douglas County, where a progressive candidate, Kara Eastman, is trying to wrest a competitive congressional district from a Republican.