It’s Over
With Hillary’s victories in at least four and most likely five of the primaries today, she has effectively won the Democratic nomination for president. Barring a collapse of unprecedented proportions, which could only come about because of some major unexpected event, her pledged delegate lead of 300 is insurmountable. Like Clinton did eight years ago, Sanders will win some caucuses and primaries between now and Pennsylvania. But he’s totally unlikely to win by large enough majorities to overcome or even get that close to Clinton’s pledged delegate lead. And if he can’t do that, he won’t convince many super-delegates to switch to him. It’s over.
Sander’s Impact on Our Politics
Sanders’s campaign has had a major impact on this race and will have a major impact on the Democratic Party in the future. He’s brought the issue of inequality to the fore in a way that is now inescapable. That is a huge achievement. Despite the numbers that demonstrate the extraordinary growth of inequality in America since the 1970s, it has been difficult to find the language with which to describe growing inequality in a way that resonates with voters and that connects their personal troubles to broad changes in our political economy. Sanders has done that very well. And, in addition, he’s articulated the frustration of a generation that has seen bad economic times, a stagnant job market, and high student debt. The extraordinary impact of the Sanders campaign is seen every day in the language Clinton uses on the campaign trail. His campaign will shape the Clinton presidency for the better, and the way every Democrat in America speaks and acts long into the future. No one would have expected when his campaign began.
The Limitations of Sanders’ Theory of Change
But in terms of its own theory of change, Sanders probably should not be the Democratic nominee. His political and policy strategies have been predicated on creating a movement that would not only sweep him to victory in the Democratic nominating process but bring enough Democrats to power (and scare enough Republicans) to overcome the barriers to rapid change created not only by the opposition of the corporate elite but our constitutional and political structures (that is, the separation of powers and checks and balances which make it necessary to create concurrent majorities in a House and Senate elected by different electorates and, in the case of the Senate, at different times, as well as the filibuster). He was absolutely right that he needed a movement of the kind that arguably has only happened once in American history, in 1828, to overcome the inertia in our politics. (America sometimes sees huge political victories, as in 1932, 1964, 1972, and 1980. But those victories were rarely the result of ideological changes in the electorate but were either produced by bad times (1932 and 1980) or outlying candidates (1964 and 1972). The Sanders campaign mobilized young people and many others around an ideology, that I have suggested, will shape our country. But it did not capture a majority for Sanders as a candidate or for the details of his policy agenda in the Democratic Party let alone the country as a whole.
Clinton and the Democratic Coalition of the Future
While Sander’s campaign has set the agenda for the future, Clinton’s campaign has mobilized the Democratic coalition of the future. To my mind, the Sanders’ campaign was too backwards looking in expecting that his class politics would bring white working men (and married women) back to the Democrats. (And to some extent it was based on a false history. The New Deal Coalition was never based entirely in class but was also a coalition of interests.) Our commitment and success in pursuing cultural liberalism—the efforts to bring Blacks, Latinas, women and members of the LGBT community fully into our political community—was always going to make a class based politics difficult. And Trump’s appeal to the racism and nationalism of less educated whites shows us the limits of Sanders strategy. The Democratic coalition of the future lies in the rising American electorate—the broad coalition of Blacks, Latinos, single and (married feminist) women—in coalition with progressive whites. Demographic change will keep this new Democratic majority in power for a long time. And in appealing to that coalition, concerns about economic inequality will be most effectively articulated not in terms of class warfare but as the effort break down barriers to opportunity, whether they are rooted in class, race, or gender. That’s the kind of language that comes more naturally to Clinton. I expect she will embrace it more fully and effectively as the campaign continues and that President Obama fully engaged in the campaign, we will see that Democratic coalition prevail.
Clinton’s Skills and the Current Moment
Thus the heightened concern with inequality that Sanders has crystallized in our politics will thus have to find expression not in a radical alteration of public policy but in the kinds of incremental change focused on a variety of discrete problems that has usually characterized our politics. Clinton, given her experience and her policy agenda, is probably better suited to carry out that kind of change than Sanders would have been.
Victories Now and in the Future
I’ll set out what that policy agenda is likely to look like another time. I’ll just conclude by saying I’m optimistic about what is achievable if not in the short than in the medium term. I expect Clinton to defeat Trump for the Presidency by a large margin. Together with the Supreme Court issue, that should give Democrats control of the Senate and a pickup of enough seats in the House to enable her to win some legislative victories. As the Republican Party keeps self-destructing, more victories in elections and Congress will follow in 2020 and then, after a successful redistricting, in 2022. That means that we will gradually institute the public polices that make our country far more equal than it is today. And the Sanders campaign of 2016 will have done much to make that possible.