Democratic rockstar Rep. Beto O’Rourke could pose a major threat to the democratic socialist movement led by Bernie Sanders should the Vermont senator decide to mount a second bid for the White House in 2020, a prominent liberal writer argues.
New York magazine scribe Jonathan Chait pitted O’Rourke, 46, against Sanders, 77, in a piece Friday, outlining how the outgoing three-term Texas congressman’s more centrist policy positions detract from the mission of supporters of the independent senator, who caucuses with Democrats, to move the Democratic Party further to the left. Chait also wrote how comparisons between O’Rourke and former President Barack Obama were giving pause to those who felt the so-called “Bern” during Sanders’ unsuccessful run for the party’s 2016 presidential nomination against Hillary Clinton.
“Baffled liberals, many still nursing wounds from 2016, see the passionate intensity of the Bernie movement as a personality cult, propelled by unthinking devotion to him (or spite at the party that they believe rigged the primary against him). It is anything but,” Chait wrote. “The socialist left belongs to Sanders simply because there is no other presidential candidate who meets their exacting ideological criteria. They see O’Rourke as a threat to their project because, in important ways, he is.”
“One of the deeper strategic goals of the left is to equate progressive maximalism with authenticity, like Sanders did. They want candidates who take uncompromising left-wing positions to be seen as authentic, and candidates who adopt more moderate lines to be seen as calculating and phony,” Chait said. “The socialist left will attack any non-Sanders candidate, but O’Rourke is especially dangerous to their project precisely because of his Obama-like personal appeal.”
O’Rourke and Sanders have routinely placed in the top three when Democratic voters have been surveyed in a number of early polls regarding who they want to see challenge President Trump for the White House. O’Rourke, despite capturing national media attention in his failed 2018 campaign for the Texas Senate seat against incumbent Republican Sen. Ted Cruz and raising record amounts of money in the process, has been criticized in recent weeks for not being liberal enough by several progressive writers, including Zaid Jilani, David Sirota, Branko Marcetic, and Elizabeth Bruenig.
