Dem Civil War: Democratic Unity Tour Officially A Failure

The reviews are in and the Bernie Sanders-Tom Perez Unity Tour is officially a failure. The tour was just a massive embarrassment when it was limited to Perez getting booed or Bernie saying he wasn’t a Democrat, but with the huge controversy over Heath Mello, the unity tour has actually managed to make the Democratic Party more divided.

This week’s problems aren’t new though. As CNN put it, the feud engulfing the Democratic Party is part of the largely Democratic civil war:

“And so it’s been and so it goes for Democrats in the age of Trump. The moderate wing of the party — derisively termed ‘liberals’ by those further left — is loath to give over power to the progressive insurgency, which holds up Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton’s loss as proof Democrats needs to fundamentally remake — and elevate — their economic message. The stalemate threatens the party’s prospects in 2018 and portends a bloody presidential primary ahead of the 2020 general election.”

The fight over Mello intensified when NARAL and the Daily Kos made their anger over his past positions vocal:

“That statement came after NARAL Pro-Choice America had condemned Sanders and Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom Perez for endorsing Mello and intending to campaign with him. NARAL’s president, Ilyse Hogue, called the campaign stop ‘politically stupid’; Daily Kos, the progressive site that had been crowdsourcing donations for a series of campaigns in red states, pulled its endorsement of Mello after admitting it was unaware of his views about abortion.”

Unfortunately for Democratic unity, Perez and Sanders haven’t backed down either. In an interview, Perez took a shot back at the groups, saying that Democrats can’t have a “one-size-fits-all requirement for every Democrat”:

“’If he were running in the People’s Republic of Takoma Park, the voters might do it differently,’ Perez, a former Montgomery County Council member in Maryland and a past U.S. secretary of labor, said in an interview from Kentucky, the second stop on his speaking tour with Sanders. ‘If we have a one-size-fits-all requirement for every Democrat who seeks office, that’s a formula for a filibuster-proof majorities in the Senate; that’s a formula for failure in many areas of this country.'”

As The New Republic summed it up, the effort to have Democrats “come together” has been a “decisive failure.” We couldn’t agree more.