A Tea Party of the Left?

Are Democrats getting their own Tea Party?  Several posts here at NewGathering have discussed the recent Democratic Illinois 3rd District Congressional primary, in which Dan Lipinski edged Marie Newman, who had primaried the incumbent Lipinski from the left.  Peggy's recent post on the race included a link to an interesting, if somewhat disorganized, post-mortem by David Weigel that appeared in the Washington Post, entitled, in part, "A Tea Party of the Left?" 




The term apparently had been used by Lipinski in the campaign:

When Lipinski bemoaned the “tea party of the left,” Newman’s supporters asked what the problem was; the tea party movement had won. In a January fundraising email for Newman, Ilyse Hogue, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, described the Lipinski district as safely blue, implying that Democrats had to police their ranks just as Republicans had policed and purged theirs.

I agree that intra-party policing and purging were key activities of the original Tea Party.  But I question whether, over the longer term, the movement has been as successful as Hogue claims.

A few days earlier, Nathaniel Rakich at the FiveThirtyEight blog had raised the same question that Weigel's headline writer had posed: "Are We Seeing the Start of a Liberal Tea Party?"  As one would expect from that metrics-driven outlet, Rakich presents statistics to try to paint a picture of what the original Tea Party had accomplished from an ideological perspective, but he also offers a pretty perceptive description of that movement, as well as what it did (and didn't) accomplish:

A loosely defined mélange of grassroots conservative activists and hard-right political committees most prominent from 2009 to 2014, the tea party famously demanded ideological purity out of Republican candidates for elected office. In election after election during this period, tea party voters rejected moderate or establishment candidates in Republican primaries in favor of hardcore conservatives — costing the GOP more than one important race and pushing the party to the right in the process.

Yes; the original Tea Party playbook seemed to be more about primarying incumbent Republicans than winning general elections.

Personally, I believe the comparisons between the rise of the Tea Party, and what is happening now in progressive politics, are pretty apt.  In both cases, grassroots activists are organizing, creating events, generating interest and excitement, and arguably motivating both voters and candidates to get involved.  In this case, the energy seems to be emanating from the left wing of the Democratic Party, and it seems to be focused on moving the party leftward.  The student-led gun-control marches in Washington DC and New York surely are the most recent examples, but the series of Women's Marches over the last year seem to be part of a liberal "loosely defined melange".  We could add to that list the pro-immigration marches and airport-based activism that erupted in the wake of President Trump's first immigration ban executive order.  And let's throw in the brief government shutdown from earlier this year.  The similarities to Tea Party enthusiasm - and, arguably, anger - are pretty evident.

I believe that Democratic leaders need to put some thought into the best way to harness this enthusiasm.  The March for Our Lives events that received the most media coverage where I live were those that took place in Washington DC, New York, Chicago and LA.  Women's marches also have tended to target the major cities.  There is nothing wrong with, and much to admire about, young people and women engaging in political activism.  But regarding those sites: Hillary Clinton already has demonstrated that a Democrat can rack up huge majorities in all four cities and yet lose a presidential contest.

If the goal of this incipient Tea Party of the Left is to generate enthusiasm in core liberal areas in order to move the Democratic Party to the left, then that approach is right out of the Tea Party playbook.  In that case, we should expect to see more primary challenges in which relatively conservative and moderate Democratic incumbents have to face more liberal upstart challengers.  That would have the effect of moving the Democratic Party leftward.  As someone who is conservative, I'd prefer that not happen; but certainly it is the party's business, not mine, whether or not it wants to be more liberal.

But here is my friendly critique: in my view, the best way for Democrats to neutralize Donald Trump is not to move leftward per se, but rather to capture one or both houses of Congress.  Republicans did so in 2010, and President Obama's progressive agenda was essentially stymied for the remaining six years of his presidency.

But if that is to be the Democrats' focus - capturing Congress - then is the Tea Party playbook what Democrats should be following?  Consider that, had Newman defeated Lipinski, the Democratic delegation in Congress would have inched incrementally to the left - but Democrats would not have picked up a net new seat in Congress.  A sitting Democrat would have been replaced by a new Democrat.  (I'm assuming here that a Democrat will win the seat this fall.  In theory, a moderate Republican might have some electoral success in the Illinois 3rd, especially if the more liberal Newman had been the Democratic nominee, but Republican leaders in the Chicago area weren't bright enough to recruit a credible candidate.  Lipinski's token opponent this fall is a Holocaust denier who ran unopposed in the GOP primary.  Republican leaders are sprinting away from him as fast as possible.  GOP stupidity is a topic for another post.) 

Democrats will reach a majority by making inroads in districts that currently are held by Republicans.   The reality of congressional seats is that there is a bloc that is safely Republican, and a bloc that is safely Democratic.  And then there is a bloc of districts that could go either way.  The party that does best in that last bloc holds the majority in the House.  The playbook that Democrats should pursue, in my opinion, is the Conor Lamb playbook: choose candidates that can win in districts held by Republicans, especially those swing-bloc districts.  That means nominating Democrats who may not pass progressive purity tests.  Lamb is pro-gun-owner, personally opposed to abortion and has rather moderate views on immigration.  But that is a "package" that works in that district.  And because of his win, the Republican majority in Congress is one seat smaller today than it was last month.

No doubt, having Democrats like Lamb in office is not ideologically or emotionally satisfying to progressive Democrats.  But sometimes that satisfaction must be subordinated to the good of the party.   The two goals - ideological purity and a party majority - are not necessarily opposed; being the majority party means that Democrats chair, and have the majority on, every committee in Congress. Many of those chairmen and majority members will be progressive.  Avenues for progressive policy-making open up that currently are closed off.

That is the risk of Tea Party movements: rather than harnessing party to the service of ideology, they put ideology and party in opposition to one another.  The original Tea Party movement resulted in Republicans losing a few Senate seats that could have been winnable; those seats are now occupied by Democratic incumbents, and unseating an incumbent is among the most difficult tasks in politics.

The Weigel article includes this colorful quote by Henry Cuellar, D-TX, a conservative Democrat who also has had to face down primary challenges from the left:

LBJ used to say: What’s the difference between a cannibal and a liberal Democrat? Cannibals don’t eat their own.

The original Tea Party sent a lot of members to Congress, but it did so largely by eating their own.  Once there (and a good number of them still are there), they've stayed relatively pure but also have been pretty ineffective at governing.  And now their party has been subject to a hostile takeover by Donald Trump, and also is on the verge of losing control of Congress.  My advice to Democrats is: think carefully before adopting the Tea Party playbook.  It feels great in the short term, but in the longer term it's questionable at best whether it's best for the party and the country.