Becket Adams argues in a Washington Examiner column that no one should be expect Democrats to engage in the same degree of infighting that Republicans faced after their 2016 presidential nomination process concluded.
Enjoy the Democratic infighting over Sen. Bernie Sanders’s primary candidacy while it lasts. The intraparty squabbling over the Vermont senator’s ascent will last exactly up to the moment he wins the nomination and not a moment later.
Unlike the Republican Party, which splintered into warring factions in 2016 over the rise of President Trump, Democratic opposition to Sanders has nothing to do with ideology. Anti-Sanders Democrats do not oppose the senator because he is a dictator-sympathizing, left-wing radical. They oppose him merely because they believe he will make it more difficult for them to become a majoritarian party. As this is their only real hang-up about Sanders, they will all fall into line and support him if he becomes the Democratic nominee. Because it is about power.
Evidence of the Left’s halfhearted, politically expedient opposition to Sanders is never clearer than when it comes from Democrats who previously had denounced either the senator or his brand of politics, all while leaving open the door to supporting him in the general election.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, for example, was asked recently whether she was comfortable having Sanders as the Democratic presidential nominee in November.
“Yes,” she replied. “I think whoever our nominee is, we will enthusiastically embrace, and we will win the White House, the Senate, and the House.” …
… Failed two-time presidential candidate Hillary Clinton said elsewhere of endorsing Sanders should he win the nomination that “the No. 1 priority for our country and world is retiring Trump, and, as I always have, I will do whatever I can to support our nominee.”
