The Democratic Party’s “Civil War”: Socialists vs. Centrists. Sabotaging Sanders

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The shady developments surrounding the Iowa Caucus prove beyond any reasonable doubt that there’s a civil war raging in the Democrat Party between socialists and centrists, one that’s so fierce that it recently saw party insiders indirectly sabotaging what could have otherwise been Sanders’ first victory in order to boost his rival Buttigieg, which goes to show that nothing’s changed with the centrist Democrat establishment in the past four years because they’re still terribly afraid of their party’s growing socialist base.

Sabotaging Sanders A Second Time

Bernie Sanders was more than likely robbed of what could have otherwise been his first victory earlier this week during the Iowa Caucus after a shady app built by a company amusingly called “Shadow Inc.” supposedly malfunctioned and prevented the state’s Democrat Party from officially declaring a winner Monday night. That didn’t stop Pete Buttigieg from proclaiming himself the winner, though, which is all the more interesting because it was soon revealed that his campaign had given tens of thousands of dollars to “Shadow Inc.” over the past year. Adding to the intrigue, internet sleuths also discovered that some former high-ranking Clinton campaign staffers created the questionable app, leading to a rise in so-called “conspiracy theories” that the Democrat establishment was once again sabotaging the socialist senator just like they did four years prior. RT’s Danielle Ryan wrote a concise report about these latest developments titled “Not a great look: Failed Iowa caucus app is deeply linked to self-declared winner Buttigieg… and Hillary Clinton“, which is a must-read for getting caught up on the facts if one isn’t already aware of them.

Socialists vs. Centrists

From the looks of it, it convincingly seems to be the case that victory was once again stolen from Sanders, which wouldn’t be surprising since the the Democrat Party is in a state of civil war between its growing socialist base and its centrist establishment. The first-mentioned are largely comprised of younger voters and believe that they’re inevitably going to become the future face of the party, while the second is more “traditional” and is terribly afraid that this trend could spell the Democrats’ electoral doom by scaring away the so-called “average American”. It’s with this fear in mind that the establishment believes that the socialist surge must be stopped at all costs, hence the possible motive for screwing with the Iowa Caucus results so that Buttigieg could proclaim himself the victor amidst the chaos and therefore receive an invaluable boost ahead of the other primaries. He seems to be the establishment’s favorite considering his indirect connection to the Clintons through each campaign’s differing degrees of involvement in “Shadow Inc.” and thus this week’s historically unprecedented primary season scandal.

The Establishment’s Argument For Buttigieg

From the centrist establishment’s perspective, Buttigieg is much more electable than Sanders. He’s not a socialist so the “average American” isn’t afraid of him, and he’s also a former military serviceman so he could theoretically appeal to some of the conservative-inclined Democrats who voted for Trump during the last election. He’s also homosexual, which is fashionable nowadays in the US and treated as somewhat of a protected — even privileged — class. Being younger and without any previous health problems, there are also no credible concerns that he might pass away in office like Sanders could given his age and recent health scare. To top it all off, Buttigieg was also the mayor of a relatively small town and has no experience on Capital Hill, so while “inexperienced”, he also can’t be accused of being part of the “swamp” like Sanders can. On paper, all of this contributes to the party establishment viewing Buttigieg as the “perfect candidate”, at least at the moment (and that could definitely chang depending on forthcoming developments), which explains why some of Clinton’s formerly high-ranking operatives might have connived with him to stage the latest scandal.

The Base’s Argument For Sanders

Viewed from the perspective of the party’s growing socialist base, however, Sanders is the Democrats’ only hope. They’re convinced that the supposedly inevitable moment of the “democratic socialist revolution” is at hand, and that this election is really a battle between Sanders’ socialism and Trump’s capitalism. Considering their dogmatic ideological beliefs, they can’t fathom for a second that America as a whole wouldn’t vote for a socialist over a capitalist if given the chance. After all, their thinking goes, Sanders is promising to benefit the vast majority of the country at the expense of its wealthy minority, so they’re sure that pure numbers are on their side if they can frame this election as a “class war” in the event that their candidate wins the nomination. Although Sanders enjoys support from all demographics, his most zealous acolytes are stereotypically considered to be mostly younger folks either still in college or fresh out of it and who were likely inspired to back him as a result of their college experiences (which critics describe as “indoctrination”). In their eyes, Sanders is the savior of the Democrat Party, not the symbol of its impending doom.

“Saving The Party From Itself”

The Democrat’s centrist establishment believes that the relatively higher rates of youth political activism and consequent participation in the primaries could skew the party’s primaries, thus resulting in the nomination of a “radical” candidate who doesn’t represent the party as a whole and could therefore stand a greater chance of losing the election to Trump. It’s patronizing and condescending, but the establishment believes that it must “save the party from itself” and “meddle” as needed in order to see that a centrist candidate (such as Buttigieg at this moment) wins instead, just like they did with Hillary the last time around. In their view, the primaries are a political playground of the party’s youth since they think that older and “more traditional” (centrist) voters might choose to stay home despite pledging to come out and vote for whoever the eventual nominee is. They might not, however, accept Sanders, being scared of his socialist promises and thus refusing to vote or — even worse — possibly voting for a third party candidate instead, if not Trump. The party will do whatever they can to prevent that scenario from happening at all costs, whether by hook or by crook, hence the latest scandal that just transpired during the Iowa Caucus where Sanders was likely robbed of his rightful victory.

Trump’s Strategy

As could have been expected, Trump definitely has an interest in the outcome of the Democrat Civil War, though it’s less about a single candidate and more about sowing confusion and ultimately political apathy among his opponents exactly like they’ve accused the Russians of doing the last time around. His sympathetic statements of support for Sanders are insincere since he simply wants the socialists’ supporters to lose hope in the party and vote for a third candidate in protest. In the unlikely event that Sanders succeeds in clinching the nomination despite the Democrat establishment’s best efforts to stop him, then Trump thinks that he’d win in a landslide because he interestingly shares the same views as the party’s “old guard” in believing that America would never elect a socialist to the presidency. It’s almost counterintuitive to an extent then that he’d signal support for Sanders knowing all the while that other Democrats might interpret this as a signal to vote against him in the primaries for a centrist like Buttigieg instead, though Trump still stands to gain even in that scenario since all that he’s trying to do is divide the establishment from its base and weaken his opponents as a whole.

Democrat Dilemmas

Democrat voters have now been thrust on the horns of several dilemmas. They can’t ignore Trump’s interest and active “meddling” in their primaries, yet they also want to vote as independent individuals according to their own political preferences in spite of the president’s strategic designs. They’re also increasingly confused by what happened Monday night since they were assured that the establishment wouldn’t sabotage its base again, a naive belief if there ever was one but nevertheless a train of thought that many of the incredulous reactions on social media prove is representative of a sizeable amount of Democrat voters. In an ironic reversal, it’s usually socialists that trust in the party and centrists who trust in its base, yet now it’s the socialists who trust in the base whereas the centrists are placing their trust in the party. This is the result of internal party dynamics after the 2016 experience and the immense pressure put upon all Democrat voters to unseat Trump in November, which is becoming increasingly difficult to do given his astounding domestic economic achievements and their party’s ever-worsening state of civil war.

Concluding Thoughts

In hindsight, Trump’s (unsurprising) 2016 election might have destroyed the Democrats once and for all despite the Mainstream Media earlier predicting that it was Obama’s 2008 election that forever destroyed the Republicans. It exacerbated the growing factionalism within the “left” after Hillary’s centrist establishment allies stole the nomination from Sanders’ socialist supporters, after which each mutually antagonistic wing of the party moved further apart ahead of the 2020 primaries. The Iowa Caucus scandal convinced the grassroots that the establishment was back to its old tricks, which reduces the chances that they’ll vote for any candidate other than Sanders if this year’s nomination is stolen from him a second time no matter if their socialist leader once again pleads with them to back whoever the party decides upon. Trump stands to win from all of this infighting regardless of the ultimate outcome since he believes that he’ll handily smash Sanders in a landslide or easily defeat a centrist opponent if their base remains so divided. That said, anything can still happen, but from the looks of it, Trump might casually coast to re-election in less than nine months’ time.

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This article was originally published on OneWorld.

Andrew Korybko is an American Moscow-based political analyst specializing in the relationship between the US strategy in Afro-Eurasia, China’s One Belt One Road global vision of New Silk Road connectivity, and Hybrid Warfare. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

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Articles by: Andrew Korybko

About the author:

Andrew Korybko is an American Moscow-based political analyst specializing in the relationship between the US strategy in Afro-Eurasia, China’s One Belt One Road global vision of New Silk Road connectivity, and Hybrid Warfare. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

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