Is There Any Place in the New Democratic Party for Non-Elite, Working White Men?
In today's NYT:
“We can’t relive 2016,” said Randi Weingarten, the head of the American Federation of Teachers, referring to the split between pro-Sanders liberals and other Democrats who wanted the party to unite behind his onetime rival, Hillary Clinton. “Misinformation miscreants will have a field day with this.”
Ill will between Sanders and Warren supporters is now exploding on social media, with angry memes, conspiracy theories and harassing commentary mostly aimed at Ms. Warren. Negative attacks and doubts about party unity are exactly what Democratic leaders do not want to happen in 2020, for fear of handing ammunition to Mr. Trump, as the heated contest between the Vermont senator and Mrs. Clinton did four years ago.
Many Warren advisers and allies think the Sanders camp has long tolerated public attacks on her from his surrogates, and believe he is not reining in divisive and in some cases sexist attacks against her among Sanders supporters on Twitter.
And the Sanders camp is even more frustrated over what they see as an orchestrated, dayslong campaign by Ms. Warren to revive her bid by suggesting Mr. Sanders is a misogynist.
Sanders advisers believe Ms. Warren has hurt herself with the accusations but also put them in a no-win situation, in which they are unable to fully strike back for fear of appearing insensitive but risk incurring damage of their own without rebutting her claims.
Ms. Warren’s decisions at Tuesday’s debate to openly challenge Mr. Sanders’s denial of that remark, and then to confront him after the debate and refuse to shake his hand before the cameras, have also led Sanders supporters to believe that she is acting underhandedly.
If Mr. Sanders emerges as the nominee, he may find it difficult to energize the female Democrats who were already uneasy with him because of the 2016 race.
And should Ms. Warren become the party’s standard-bearer, she could find it hard to win back the most fervent Sanders backers, who hardly needed any further evidence to claim that the nominating process is stacked against him.
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