Further proving the rift between liberal and centrist Democrats, Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., pushed back on the party’s embrace of liberal policies from “free” healthcare to abolishing Immigration and Customs Enforcement on Thursday.
In a defiant speech just blocks away from the Capitol, Coons declared that Democrats have to realize there’s a “difference between being radical and being bold.”
And right now, Coons said, the party is shifting too far to the left. Speaking up for the moderates, Coons said it’s not political malpractice to tout your ability “to work with the responsible Republicans.” But if Democrats want to win in 2018 and defeat President Trump in 2020, Coons said, Democrats have to figure out how to be inspiring while remaining a center-left party.
“We can be bold by saying we can make healthcare affordable, without having to say we’ll make it free,” Coons said at the Washington Court Hotel. “We can be bold by saying we will fix our disastrous immigration policies. without saying we’re going to abolish ICE.”
As potential 2020 hopefuls like Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., have pushed “Medicare for all” proposals and Gillibrand recently joined calls from the base to abolish ICE, Coons offered a very different vision for Democrats.
“If we want to a move from a party in the minority committed to ‘the Resistance’ to a party of governance we have to act like it,” Coons said. “I understand the strategy of racing farther and farther Left in a 24-7, talking head, social media chaos, controversial, combative world — pie in the sky policies and extreme rhetoric stand out, they stick.”
But it won’t win elections, Coons warned. Instead, Democrats should be talking about “college affordability,” prescription drug costs, and “individual savings and wealth building.”
As the Democratic base and progressive groups have challenged the party to tackle Medicare for all, and stop taking corporate PAC money, most moderates have remained relatively quiet.
Many of the centrist Democrats in the Senate are up for re-election and many are in Trump states this cycle. Coons doesn’t face re-election until 2020, freeing him up to fight the growing progressive wing ahead of the 2018 midterms.
Pressed on how moderate Democrats will inspire voters to turnout, Coons said a message of “dump Trump’s immigration policies” should be “every bit as inspiring as calls to abolish ICE which is “too easily mocked as open borders.”
“So, instead of having something that makes a great Twitter hashtag and gets you on Rachel Maddow,” Coons said, “we need to have something that fires people up and is policy position we can actually defend like dump Trump’s immigration policy.”
