Among the Democratic rank-and-file, the more consequential divide is between those willing to trust the existing establishment and those who want entirely new leadership. It’s a divide that Democratic Party leaders ignore at their peril.
As part of a report I wrote for the Democracy Fund Voter Study Group, I looked at divides between enthusiasts for Senator Bernie Sanders and supporters of Hillary Clinton. For many policy issues I couldn’t find much difference of note, except for a little disagreement over the benefits of foreign trade. Most Democratic voters generally agree on first principles: Economic inequality is a problem; government should do something to help the less advantaged; diversity is a strength. That’s why getting to a shared “Better Deal” agenda was relatively easy.
But I did find one area of notable discord between Clinton and Sanders supporters — their degree of disaffection with political institutions. Support for the political system correlated with positive feelings toward Mrs. Clinton, while voters who felt negatively toward the political system tended to feel positively toward Mr. Sanders.
Most members of the Democratic Party establishment are pragmatists who made it where they are by working within the system that exists, not the one they wish existed. They often have frustration bordering on contempt for those who lack their hardheaded realism.
For those outside the centers of power, it’s far easier to disdain the trade-offs inherent in leadership. After all, voters can look at the political establishment and see a whole lot of consultants and lobbyists getting rich (win or lose).
Such divisions reflect a malady facing both parties: In a word, as the political scientists Daniel Schlozman and Sam Rosenfeld note, our parties are “hollow.” The parties, they write, are “neither organizationally robust beyond their roles raising money nor meaningfully felt as a real, tangible presence in the lives of voters or in the work of engaged activists.”
