Yesterday we transitioned from last Tuesday night’s exhilaration in the wake of Democratic electoral victories to the dispiriting reality of the national Democratic party’s craven caving in the matter of the government shutdown. The shutdown was ended with a “deal” that gave Democrats a mere figment of a fig leaf—the promise of a future vote in the Senate which they would probably lose, and without a promise of a future vote in the House. Party elders engineered the cave-in by having Senators who were either not running for re-election or running for re-election three or five years hence vote for the cave-in, while those up for re-election in the nearer future voted against it in a transparent stunt they hoped would shield them from their constituents’ anger. A stunt that will inevitably fail.
This Democratic failure signals the onset of a full scale civil war within the party. Every Senator who voted for this cave-in will be primaried if and when he or she runs again, no matter how many years in the future his or her re-election lies, and every Senator who colluded with them will be primaried as well. It is past time for the party to retire Senator Schumer as Senate minority leader and replace him with someone with a backbone, an ability to communicate, and the will to fight. It takes just 23 Democratic senate votes to do that, and Democrats will take note of who is willing to vote to retire him and who is not.
This civil war will not be fought out over the short span of a year or two, but will extend at least until 2030 when the last of these senators will be up for re-election. The civil war will either succeed in replacing the old guard, or the party will die of irrelevance and a third party will rise to take its place.
This does not necessarily have to be a civil war being progressives and moderates, although in many places it will be just that. It will be a civil war between those who recognize fascism when they see it and have the stomach to fight, and those who think this is just politics as usual and that one can cut imagined “deals” with fascists. New Jersey governor-elect Mikie Sherrill, a Democrat as moderate as they come, called the Democratic cave-in a form of “malpractice.” Centrist Democratic House member Ritchie Torres said “that’s not a deal. It’s unconditional surrender.” There’s room in the Democratic party for progressives like Mamdani and AOC, and room for centrists like Sherrill, Spanberger, and Torres. What there isn’t room for are people who delusionally believe they can fight the party of Trump the way they used to fight the party of John McCain and Mitt Romney.
As a Buddhist, I’m not in favor of “fighting civil wars” or venting rage and anger, but I am in favor of recognizing reality, and of reinventing and rejuvenating the Democratic party—and if that cannot be done, nurturing an alternative to it. Impermanence is the first law of Buddhism, and as Bob Dylan once said, “he who is not busy being born is being dying.” We are always at the dawn of new era, and the Democratic party of tomorrow will not be the Democratic party of today. We could say that yesterday a Rubicon was crossed and tomorrow will never be the same, but that’s true of each and every moment. It’s just that some moments make the inevitability of change more visible.
And since I quoted Dylan earlier, let me close with quoting him again:
“Come senators, congressmen
Please heed the call
Don’t stand in the doorway
Don’t block up the hall
For he that gets hurt
Will be he who has stalled
The battle outside ragin’
Will soon shake your windows
And rattle your walls
For the times they are a-changin’”