The Age Of Array 

For years, the Democrats were defined by the bitter battles of the 2016 election where the feud between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders essentially split the party into a sharply defined progressive and moderate wing. Now, with the new leadership of Kamala Harris and her running mate, Tim Walz, there are signs the party is entering a new era, where the demons of 2016 have been exorcized. 

The 2016 election was one that never seemed to end for Democrats. That’s because it essentially continued for years through a series of intense primary campaigns that functioned as proxy wars for the party’s major factions. 

In “The Truce,” the book I wrote with Luppe Luppen that explored the various elements of the Democratic Party heading into this election, we discovered that no less of an authority than former President Barack Obama was convinced the divisions that erupted in the 2016 primary had enabled the rise of his successor, Donald Trump. The split — and the media’s obsession with it — was even immortalized in a meme: “Democrats in Disarray.” 

President Joe Biden was quite cognizant of these fissures and he worked diligently to heal them. As we chronicled in our book and here at TPM, Biden and his team worked to cultivate relationships with the Democratic Party’s left flank. They ultimately emerged as some of his most reliable allies and partners as he passed an ambitious first term agenda. That’s part of why progressives like Sanders and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) were some of Biden’s staunchest defenders as he faced pressure to give up on his reelection campaign. 

Of course, in the end, Biden made the decision to step aside. He promised to merely be a bridge to the next generation of Democratic leaders as he defeated Trump in 2020. However, Trump did not leave the stage and, though he didn’t exactly go willingly, Biden ultimately did. And even though the alliance Biden formed with progressives was a strong one, it had bergun to show strain in recent months, particularly due to his support for the Israeli government and its war in Gaza which has left tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians dead. By January, Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA), the chairwoman of the Congressional Progressive Caucus and a key Biden administration partner, was warning that his coalition had “fractured.” 

All of that raised the specter that the divide between the party’s major poles might have endured. However, in the weeks since Biden ended his second White House bid and endorsed Harris, we have seen clear signs that the alliance he began to build is now, actually, stronger than ever. After Biden’s exit from the race, Harris secured the Democratic Party nomination without a serious challenger. While there are still intraparty primary fights, those have largely been fueled by lobbying groups focused on Gaza rather than warring factions within the ranks. And Jayapal and other progressives have expressed optimism about Harris’ position on Gaza and indicated they believe she is more sympathetic to the plight of Palestinians. 

“I think that you’ve already seen that with her language. Even as she was calling for a ceasefire early on, her language was stronger, very empathetic towards the Palestinian people, towards the two state solution,” Jayapal said of Harris in a conversation with TPM yesterday. “The reality is, she just doesn’t have the same sort of relationship with [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’ and the decades of work that the president had done with Netanyahu as chair of the Foreign Relations Committee. And so, I think there’s just a lot more openness to potentially re-looking at U.S. policy and making sure that we get to peace that is supportive of Israel’s right to exist and the Palestinian people’s right to have their own state, their own freedom.”

And the Gaza issue isn’t the only area where Harris has progressives feeling hopeful. When Harris tapped Walz as her running mate she made a selection that progressives and labor leaders clamored for. In many ways, Walz is a pure manifestation of a fully formed alliance between progressives and the leadership of the Democratic Party. 

However, Walz is more than that. While he has championed progressive policies and has progressive support, he is hardly a democratic socialist like Sanders or Ocasio-Cortez. Indeed, in Congress Walz represented a Minnesota district that has since turned red and, as governor, he ran a state that is fairly purple. Walz may be beloved by the left at the moment, but he is not of the left. 

Walz’s selection drew praise from across the Democratic Party spectrum including from centrist leaders who have been major antagonists to progressives like Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ) and Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV). It was a vivid indication that, with Harris at the helm, the 2016 era of the party may be over. For now, the Democrats and their new standard bearers are in array. 

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