Shove. Bernie or Bust.

"If an old establishment Democrat is the nominee Bernie-crats will sit out, break away or create a new Party this time around. . . . Without major concessions on critical issues I could not vote for any of the usual suspects, Biden, Booker, Harris, even O'Rourke."                  

             Andy Seles, Sanders supporter and political activist

Democrats have lots of choices. Everyone thinks they are deserving and owed this time. A mess is shaping up.

Two days ago this blog wrote about scales for measuring Democratic candidates and listed five.

   1. Left to centrist.

   2. Race: White, Latino, Asian. Black. 

   3. Gender confrontation intensity, MeToo to more relaxed.

   4. Business orientation: Anti-capitalist to corporate.

   5. Generational. Old to young.

Today I add three more, because they reflect the current divide within the Democratic coalition.

  6. Sanders or not-Sanders.

  7. Relation to elites: populist to establishment.

  8. Central focus: economics or race/gender identity.

Personal. Bernie Sanders created a large body of people who are loyal to him, personally. If he runs he will consolidate this block. He will distinguish himself from Warren, Harris, Castro, and other candidates on issues of policy. Sanders' message is a moral one, a matter of right and wrong. Age, race, and gender are incidental, but if Warren, Beto, Biden, disagree on a policy issue, then it is a moral failing. Moral issues cannot be compromised.

Sanders has a niche to defend

Populism. All the Democratic contenders are transitioning to a populist message. Populism of the right--e.g. Trump--defends "the people" against foreign or domestic racial or religious impurities. Populism of the left--current Democratic Party style populism--defends "the people" against corrupt elites who have rigged the system to benefit themselves. This is Sanders' message, now voiced by other Democrats, but not as purely as by Sanders. 

Leftists are seeking out flaws in Sanders' opposition. Warren was a Harvard professor, an archetype of elitism, and the DNA test worked out weirdly. Beto O'Rourke's father in law is a billionaire and the Texan didn't really oppose fossil fuels. Harris, Booker, Biden, and others each have powerful businesses in their states which needed to be accommodated. Meanwhile, Sanders was from rural Vermont and no one faults him for liking Ben and Jerry Ice Cream. Others fall short of Sanders.

Economics or identity. The Sanders-oriented left wants to focus on economics, not prejudice. They remember FDR as the populist hero who took on the wealthy and pushed through the New Deal. But FDR's coalition was possible because of the segregated "Solid South," and its white political leadership. FDR tolerated cruel white supremacy laws and customs. Social Security excluded black servants.  Blacks were kept out of federal jobs. 

It was populism for whites. 

After 1963 the Democratic Party made a consequential choice. Racial justice mattered. And then gender justice. Democrats began losing the votes of white men. 

Sanders' supporters skew white and male. Andy Seles wrote me, "we Medicare for All, New Green Dealers won't forget identity politics, however the focus is economic because it underlies everything else." This attitude is widely expressed within Facebook chatter by other Sanders partisans. 

FDR is their hero, not Martin Luther King. Sanders has the white progressive vote in college towns, but did much less well with women and people of color in the 2016 primaries. Women and people of color are essential to the Democratic coalition.

This has consequences. 

Sanders moral framing of left populism created a perfect-or-nothing mentality within the various constituencies of the political left. All are embolden by Trump's presumed weakness. Our way or nothing. We want one of our own.

Sanders is a white male from a lily white rural state.

Seles says the socialist left constituency has the upper hand in the struggle among the Democratic groups.  Women, blacks, Latinos, Asians, moderates, and centrists will all settle for Sanders rather than elect Trump. But Sanders people would boycott anyone other than Sanders. So Sanders wins, Seles predicts.

Maybe not.

Sanders is under attack by women. Sanders is an old white man. He apparently paid female staffers less. Partisans wonder, what does he know about driving-while-black? What does he know about sexual harassment? Sanders doesn't "get it."

Demand perfection. Condemn heresy. We saw the attitude at work with the defenestration of Al Franken by Gillibrand and others. We see it with Seles' comments on centrists. 

Sanders may not survive to endure Trump's criticism that he is a "crazy, money-confiscating Socialist." Sanders may discover his greatest challenge is from the left. Every group in the Democratic coalition wants one of their own. They, too, may dig in.

Oddly, the solution to the Democratic mess may be for Trump's poll numbers to rise. Then Democrats will get real.