The 25-year-marriage of convenience between Bernie Sanders and the Democratic Party is on the rocks, as the Vermont independent senator is threatening to take his millions of supporters with him in the separation.
Sanders has made it clear he will his lead his army of committed activists into battle against presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump, but that doesn’t mean he’ll do it under the Democratic Party’s banner. That should give Democrats reason to worry about the long term implications of his political revolution on their party.
This week, Sanders supporters booed his mention of the Democratic Party at a rally in California, while the party’s chairwoman accused the senator of “excus[ing]” death threats made by his fans against another party leader.
Amid the tension Tuesday night, Sanders’ policy director announced on Twitter that he had donated money to DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz’ congressional primary opponent. “[A]fter tonight, it’s way too late for establishment politics,” he explained.
As the controversy over a raucous state convention in Nevada stretched into its fourth day, Democrats across the country are increasingly worried about about a tumultuous national convention in July and a lasting fissure in the party.
“We have a multi-faceted, multi-layered concern,” said New Hampshire Democratic Party Chairman Ray Buckley, shortly after landing in Philadelphia for a meeting of state party chairs, at which the Nevada convention chaos is sure to come up.
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Buckley was there when Sanders officially became a Democrat in November. The chairman personally accompanied Sanders to the secretary of state’s office to make sure the independent senator had no issue getting on the Democratic ballot in the first-in-the nation primary state.
While Buckley said he’s confident the issue can be resolved ahead of the National Convention in Philadelphia with greater education of the process to Sanders supporters, he acknowledged that the potential for trouble is unusually high.
“This is my ninth convention and I’ve never even had to contemplate” ejecting disruptive delegates from the convention, Buckley said. “I’ve never even witnessed that kind of thing. We are entering an entirely new level of discussion and preparation.”
Meanwhile, Sanders supporters increasingly view the institutional Democratic Party as conspiring against them.
“When you lose a fair fight, then you’re sad and disappointed. When you lose rigged fight, then you’re angry and you hit the streets,” said Charles Chamberlain, the executive director of the liberal group Democracy for America, which supports Sanders.
Even if party agrees to Sanders supporters’ pre-convention demands, which include greater representation on the committees that write the party’s platform and rules, there may still be trouble.
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“I think a little bit of disruption is exciting. That’s democracy,” Chamberlain said. “The reality is without that, all you have is boring parliamentary procedure and everyone falls asleep. So I think it’s exciting and it’s actually healthy.”
Still, Chamberlain said concerns about an unbreachable rift are overblown, and that the party will heal, just like it does after every contentious primary. “We’ll see the democratic establishment and the political revolution working together to defeat the Republican billionaire bigot in November,” he said, referring to Trump.
Presidential primaries are always contentious. The 2016 Democratic primary probably doesn’t rank anywhere near the top in terms of vitriol. Typically, primaries end with the losing candidate and their supporters falling in line to be a good partisan soldier in the end. The vast majority of Sanders supporters, who are liberal Democrats, will come into the fold this year, as well.
The difference, however, is that Sanders and many of his hardestcore revolutionaries are not loyal to the Democratic Party.
“Generally, there’s so-called unity because the candidates are not really that far apart. This time, there’s a fundamental difference,” said Jonathan Tasini, who ran unsuccessful primary challenge against then-Sen. Hillary Clinton in 2006. He now supports Sanders. “While people seem to think it’s just a slogan, there is really a political revolution going on and this revolt is not going to stop after this election.”
Afterall, Sanders’ first successful political campaign came at expense of the incumbent Democratic mayor of Burlington, Vermont, whom he unseated in 1980. Democrats on the city council vociferously opposed the new mayor’s agenda, until his allies defeated many of them, too.
Tensions were so high between Sanders and Vermont Democrats that when in 1984 he attended “a formal Democratic Party function for the first and last time time in my life,” a woman slapped him across his face, he wrote to his autobiography.
Sanders continued running against Democrats until 1988, when he came in second in a three-way congressional race ahead of the Democrat. Two years later, he and the party struck a truce. Democrats cleared the way for him to win a congressional seat, and later one in the Senate, where he caucuses with and votes with the party to this day.
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But that relationship seems to be fraying now amid acrimony over process concerns, which have sometimes eclipsed Sanders’ policy agenda.









