Your Regularly Scheduled Programming: The Annual Self-Evisceration of the Democratic Party

“I’m reading last night about the fall of France in the Summer of 1940,” MSNBC anchor and former Democratic speechwriter Chris Matthews said on Saturday as results rolled in from the Nevada caucuses, “and the general calls up Churchill and says, ‘It’s over.” Comparing the conquering of the French people by the forces of the Third Reich to the caucus win by Bernie Sanders, Matthews lamented: “It’s over.”

As jaw-dropping as Matthews’s comparison was, it fit right in with MSNBC’s coverage of the Sanders victory in Nevada. Correspondents audibly sighed as they watched voters side with the Vermont Senator. Hosts and pundits alike questioned how the rest of the field could catch up to him and possibly gain momentum. They did the math, dug up whatever polls seemed like they might help their argument, and then theorized that if everybody except a single, anointed “moderate” - and how that single candidate would be chosen is literally anybody’s guess - then a Sanders nomination could be mercifully avoided.

Of course, the conversations and hand-wringing were wildly off-base and only served to illuminate the fact that, yes, MSNBC is the more liberal cable news channel, but it is still a corporate entity that, while giving voice to several liberal commentators and causes, is still mostly a center-left organization dedicated to metropolitan ideas and largely status quo conservatism. And, in this pursuit, MSNBC has helped to create the Sanders phenomenon as much as it has tried to quiet it.

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For those who are new to presidential politics, and there are certainly many who are keeping close tabs now that Donald Trump, a dangerously unstable and authoritarian figure, is president, this strange process by which the Democratic Party is publicly destroying itself in a grand and troubling spectacle must seem very…troubling. Within seconds of turning on cable news or switching on Twitter, a Democratic voter or supporter is inundated with ceaseless in-fighting, rhetorical wars, and, without end, attacks on one another that often turn into bold-faced harassment.

Worry not. What you are watching is a proud, proud Democratic tradition.

The very nature of the modern American Democratic Party is to wage war within itself from now into eternity. It is a big-tent body with little in the way of organization or direction and it rages from the left to the right in seismic struggles that often alienate voters and leave its members dangling in the wind. Since the modern Democratic Party has created following the Civil Rights Movement that saw racist, segregationists flee the party for the Republicans and the safety of Barry Goldwater, Ronald Reagan, and Richard Nixon, Democrats have warred over the correct path back to power while trying, and often failing, to attract those white voters they have lost along the way.

Beginning in 1972, when reforms created the modern primary system and resulted in South Dakota liberal George McGovern capturing the nomination, the party itself has played a bizarre, self-harming role in undermining its liberal and radical wings, in McGovern’s case all but capsizing his candidacy completely after making the determination that they could more easily work with Richard Nixon than capitulate to McGovern and the liberals.

A return to the present as Chris Matthews, in the hours leading up to the Nevada caucuses, considered a potential Bernie Sanders win and theorized on-the-air that “I’m wondering if Democratic moderates want Bernie Sanders to be president. Maybe that’s too exciting a question to ask. Do they want Bernie to take over the party in perpetuity? Maybe they’d rather wait four years and put in a Democrat that they like?”

Matthews is many things, but a novice is not one of them. As a worker under Ed Muskie, one of the men McGovern bested for the nomination in 1972, he was well aware of how the party made its tactical decision to punt to Nixon over gifting McGovern more power. When he looks at a potential Sanders nomination, he sees the same strategy coming together behind the scenes.

But, as are most things in the era of cable news, very few things actually occur behind the scenes anymore.

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In criticizing media coverage, it’s important to remember the separation between what we see on our screens and the candidates and issues those programs are meant to represent. In the case of the 2016 Election, the schism between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders was largely a media creation that was carried out in accordance with the Democratic National Committee’s documented preference in candidates. Despite Sanders outperforming projections and expectations, his coverage, on every network, it should be noted, not just simply MSNBC, was treated as an aberration versus a manifestation of a movement within the country.

And what happened with each outperformance?

His base grew angrier and more disillusioned with the Democratic Party and its corresponding media.

Fast-forward to 2020 and the developing story of the Democratic Primary: the war for control over the future of the party brewing between moderates and economic liberals. MSNBC has not been quiet about its discomfort with Sanders, including primetime slots for Chris Matthews to air his troubling concerns and a standing invitation, and feature-length spotlight, for Bill Clinton adviser James Carville, who has used his time on air to call Democratic voters “stupid” and liken their using their votes to call for change to the apocalypse.

It would be one thing if this situation merely affected Sanders, who has built-in numbers leftover from 2016, but it has actually hurt the one candidate who might catch him: Senator Elizabeth Warren. Warren and Sanders agree on large swathes of policy, particularly a drive to reform the economic system and make it fairer and more humane, but Warren, in presentation and methods, is certainly more moderate than Sanders, even if it’s only in perception.

But MSNBC and other center-left outlets have carried out a systematic erasure of Warren, including bizarre moments of leaving her out of polls, not mentioning her in their social media, and all but forgetting her existence. Despite strong showings in the early contests, a propensity for raising money, and a now-legendary destruction of Mike Bloomberg in the final Nevada debate, they have refused to elevate her or focus on her movement for fear of the economic reform she and Sanders are both advocating.

What we are seeing here is yet another manifestation of the ongoing civil war within the Democratic Party that has caused it to lose one winnable election after another while also dooming the populace to ridiculous and damaging economic policies. Since the schism that sent Dixiecrats to the Republicans, Democrats have tried in vain, time and time and time again, to reach out to what they now refer to as “the electorate,” a nameless, anonymous, probably nonexistent constituency of conservative white men who may or may not be gettable in terms of their votes.

The problem, and this is the crux of the civil war, is that the Democratic Party has always been terrified of movements that rely on diverse coalitions united by populistic economic reform.

And why?

For several reasons, including the fear of losing “the electorate,” a faceless, anonymous, possibly nonexistent collection of conservative white men, as well as a fear of actual economic reform. Entities like MSNBC are corporate bodies and the message of taxing the rich and leveling the economic playing field are not messages that land well with corporate bodies. Sanders is a complete non-starter for these corporations, and the only rival who could catch him, Elizabeth Warren, is also unacceptable to the guardians of the status quo.

Unfortunately, this circumstance has replayed itself over and over in the modern political era. Many liberal Democrats have emerged with populist bases and momentum, only for the party to crush them with “electable” candidates who would go on to lose their elections, or to nominate them and then submarine their chances. In the process, the party has only created more animosity and distrust, which has only led to more infighting and a more hostile big tent.