As he tends to do, President Trump woke up Sunday morning and began tweeting. Sometimes his tweets contain statements he cannot back up as factual. However, one part of a tweet he wrote Sunday needs no defending. It’s totally true.
“The Democrats have no message,” Trump wrote. If Trump was wrong, it is only because he understated the problem.
Over the weekend, the nation’s progressive left met at a conference in Chicago. It has been a year since Bernie Sanders conceded the Democratic presidential nomination to Hillary Clinton. He was the star of, and essentially the organizing principle for, the three-day event.
In the history of American political parties that are out power there is always some level of soul-searching about what problems exist and what solutions can be agreed upon. Often this is the classic debate about whether the party needs to be more attuned to the base or be more moderate and electable.
What is notable about the Democratic Party in 2017 is how institutionalized the rift has become and how indifferent some are about walking away from the party.
For example, when the head of a nurses’ union said on a video shown to conference attendees not to “assume the activists in California and around this country are going to stay with the Democratic Party,” the statement drew big applause, the Washington Post reported.
Those who backed Clinton in the primary were largely shunned and booed when mentioned. Conversely, when the Clinton-linked Center for American Progress held its own conference with potential 2020 candidates earlier in the spring, Sanders was not invited.
There isn’t a lot of party healing going on. And to Trump’s point, there is no agreed-upon Democratic message.
At the moment, there are simply battle lines. But an election on Tuesday might give the first clue as to which side is winning.
Voters head to the polls in Virginia to decide who the Democratic nominee will be for governor this year. One candidate has ties to the Clintons. The other is the progressive upstart with ties to the Sanders wing of the party. Polls show the race is tight.
Democrats are far from having a unified message beyond simply opposing Trump. If history is a guide, they probably won’t have a new message until they decide on their 2020 presidential nominee. Until then, the battle at every conference and every Democratic primary will be over the message.
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