This is election cycle has me thinking about the Democratic Party’s current infighting, particularly the tensions between establishment Democrats and the growing number of DSA and progressive candidates, and something about it feels historically familiar to me.
It’s not because I believe these moments are identical. They aren’t.
It’s because history gives us some lessons about what happens when movements are deeply divided over ideology, leadership, and strategy.
Look at the civil rights movement.
Young SNCC’s activists didn’t always agree with the elder leaders in the SCLC. They challenged the SCLC leadership often. CORE had its own strategies and disagreements. There were arguments about tactics, leadership, direct action, electoral politics and what liberation should actually look like in that moment.
And here’s the thing I keep coming back to:
They could disagree about the road without forgetting the destination.
They all understood that Jim Crow had to be dismantled.
And that brings me to another historical lesson I’ve been thinking about from Anne Nelson’s Red Orchestra—the resistance to Hitler.
The people opposing Hitler were not one unified political movement. They (Communist and Democratic Socialist Parties) had ideological differences, strategic disagreements and very different visions for Germany’s future.
They were divided, fighting each other; Hitler was busy consolidating power.
That’s the warning I take from that history.
Internal disagreement isn’t the problem.
Democracy needs the friction of disagreement from engaged and informed citizens. Movements need debate. Political parties should be challenged, lest they grow stale. Young people should challenge elder established leadership. Grassroots movements should make demand of their electeds and ask more from the system and institutions.
The danger comes when our internal battles become so consuming that we lose sight of the larger threat —autocracy! I think Democrats of all stripes need to be very careful now and consider the cost —Lose all our rights and ability to dissent.
Let’s live to fight another day and have these serious discussions on a new direction. DSA candidates are telling the Democratic establishment something it doesn’t want to hear. It doesn’t mean they shouldn’t listen. I think American voters really are demanding a more ambitious economic and social agenda with strong leaders to get it done. It’s clear the status quo will no longer suffice.
Perhaps the Democratic Party has become too comfortable with incrementalism but there’s vast ground to be had between slow incrementalism that and the “tear it all down.” The latter leaves a dangerous void, ready to be filled and usually not for the better.
Those questions deserve to be debated.
But progressive candidates also have to answer a difficult question:
How do you build a coalition broad enough to govern?
Because it’s not just about winning the argument inside the Democratic Party, it about winning enough voters in the country to actually win the election.
So for me, the question isn’t whether Democrats should fight.
Fight. Debate. Challenge each other. Push each other.
But we must not forget, winning is about addition not division.
Don’t forget what is at stake.
Because history teaches us that sometimes the greatest danger isn’t that people disagree. It’s that they become so consumed by their disagreements that they fail to recognize the moment they’re living through and what they’re actually figthing for.
Keep your eye on the prize.
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