Things are going pretty well. The economy refuses to stop growing. The stock market continues to set records for soaring, not crashing. At long last, wages are creeping upward. President Trump isn’t pulling up stakes around the world and isolating the country, as many feared he would. Nor has he started a war.
But you’d never know it from the way 2020 Democratic presidential contenders are acting. In their rhetoric and policies, they’ve moved sharply to the left, as if the grounds for a revolution exist in America. Those grounds don’t exist, though Bernie Sanders claims the need for a “political revolution” has been building for nearly a half-century. More people are satisfied than not.
Why have Democrats scrambled so far to the left in the past few years? I think there’s one overriding reason and a handful of smaller ones.
That big reason is simple: The Left is the place where the folks who run the Democratic Party want to be. It’s the home field. They have big ideas and plans. And when Republicans demand to know how they expect to pay for everything, they know they’re on the right track. But they’re careful to avoid answering the question of how much the new projects will cost.
Small ideas have no appeal to liberals. Joe Biden and Michael Bennet want to improve Obamacare. Liberals regard that as tinkering. They’re eager to impose “Medicare for all” on everyone. It’s a gigantic idea. The millions who prefer to keep their employer-paid health insurance would be out of luck. But they’re just enriching insurance companies anyway, Elizabeth Warren explains unsympathetically.
To see how happy the sprint to the left makes liberals, you only had to watch the first two Democratic presidential debates. The candidates, the vanguard of the Left, were having a wonderful time. By my count, only two tense moments — when Kamala Harris ambushed Biden and Julián Castro zinged Beto O’Rourke — interrupted four hours of camaraderie. They proudly raised their hands when asked if they’d provide free healthcare for illegal immigrants.
The candidates seemed to be especially pleased with themselves. Kirsten Gillibrand gushed about her plan to drive money out of politics. As a New York senator, she surely must know money will always find its way into politics. But she didn’t wink to let us know she’s no fool.
Warren got the opening question in the first debate and talked about her plans to curb capitalism and enlarge government. After a few more comments, she rested on her laurels, a candidate too important to force her way into the battle for airtime.
What are the smaller reasons for the Democratic left turn? One is the party’s drift away from the political center in recent years. It’s not new that young people are usually more left-wing than their parents, but in the past two decades, they embraced the idea of socialism.
Another reason is the splintering of Democrats into identity groups. They’ve always been a coalition party, but groups based on race, gender, and lifestyle reflect a big step to the left. Each of these groups focus on grievances, the list of which is never-ending. And they’re increasingly intolerant of naysayers.
Trump’s election enraged liberals, who were joined by those who saw themselves as old-fashioned Democrats. No more. The party coalesced into the resistance on the day of the Women’s March on Washington, the day after Trump’s inauguration.
The resisters are committed to not playing ball with Trump. They refuse to compromise with him. Any negotiations with his administration consist of Democratic demands followed by zero concessions. And when a Democratic leader backs a Trump bill, as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi did on border financing, there’s hell to pay.
The effect of the resistance has been to open a wide path to the left. Since reaching agreements with Trump is forbidden, there’s no other direction to go. Besides, the instinct of Democrats is to go down that road anyway. The center is out of bounds.
The media has played a role in radicalizing Democrats. Consider the Democrats it has made famous, starting with freshman New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. The media has transformed her into a power player, a rival of Pelosi. And two of her fellow young guns are regularly defended despite their anti-Semitism.
The ideological shift has its enemies in both parties.
The Never Trump clique of Republicans fears a left-wing Democratic presidential nominee will ensure Trump’s reelection. Moderate Democrats generally agree with that. I suspect they’re right. As for the Democratic new leftists, they think the country has changed and that a leftist can beat Trump. That thought warms their hearts.
Fred Barnes, a Washington Examiner senior columnist, was a founder and executive editor of the Weekly Standard.
