The first 2020 Democratic debate in Detroit was about a lot of things (Medicare for All, immigration, guns), but it was fundamentally about whether Democrats should let their freak flags fly.
At center stage, you had the night’s frontrunners—Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders—who believe a progressive can win by exciting the base. Generally siding with them, though doing so in a more temperamentally moderate style, was Pete Buttigieg. Their mantra is essentially the left-wing version of the Reagan line, co-opted by Ted Cruz, about “a banner of bold colors, no pastel shades.”
Around them were moderate backbenchers—former Maryland Rep. John Delaney, Montana Gov. Steve Bullock, former Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper, and Ohio Rep. Tim Ryan—who believe a more pragmatic candidate has the best chance of defeating Donald Trump. Sometimes siding with them was Sen. Amy Klobuchar, who warned at one point that, “We are more worried about winning an argument than winning an election.”
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The opening salvo came during the very first words in the debate, when Bullock declared: “I come from a state where a lot of people voted for Donald Trump. Let’s not kid ourselves. He will be hard to beat.” He went on to warn about Democrats being “more concerned about scoring points or outdoing each other with wish-list economics, than making sure Americans know we hear their voices and will help their lives.” Most debates don’t start off with third-tier candidates, but Bullock’s opening statement was a harbinger of things to come.
During one skirmish, John Delaney echoed the sentiment, saying, “Democrats win when we run on real solutions, not impossible promises.”
To which Warren tersely responded, in the night’s defining moment: “I don't understand why anybody goes to all the trouble of running for president of the United States just to talk about what we really can't do and shouldn't fight for.”
This, in a nutshell, was what this debate was about.
Bullock went on to warn that Democrats were “playing into Donald Trump's hands,” noting that “a sane immigration system needs a sane leader. And we can do that without decriminalizing and providing health care for everyone.”
It was not an unwarranted observation. After the first hour of the debate, Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale was already framing the conversation on the other side: “First hour of debates: No more private insurance. Big government socialism. Open borders.”
And that was before Beto O’Rourke brought up the issue of reparations.
Pete Buttigieg, a temperamental moderate who actually advocates a pretty progressive agenda, dismissed the moderate pragmatists, saying, “If it's true that if we embrace a far-left agenda they're going to say we're a bunch of crazy socialists. If we embrace a conservative agenda, you know what they're going to do? They're going to say we're a bunch of crazy socialists.”
He went on to make the perfectly defensible point that Democrats should simply do the right thing, irrespective of what Republicans might say, but the effect of his argument was to take sides with the progressives.
Like every debate, there will be a debate about the debate and the media narrative about it.
One narrative will be to suggest that there is no fight between Democrats, only a media-manufactured one try and divide them.
Just as Bernie took a swipe at CNN moderator Jake Tapper, calling his question about raising taxes on the middle class to pay for Medicare For All a “Republican talking point,” one developing meme suggests that the moderate Dems (who, let’s be honest, are polling in the single digits) were strawmen—used by the moderators to try and start fights between the frontrunners.
Republicans obviously do want to portray it as another example of Democrats lurching leftward, but did the moderate Democrats help them make that case? This was an ideologically diverse stage—as evidenced by the fundamental arguments about progressivism versus pragmatism. If the goal is to suggest that Democrats are unanimously moving to the left, this debate would seem to undermine that notion.
Then again, the candidates who actually have a chance of winning were nearly unanimous. They never heard of a cause or spending program they didn’t want to endorse. Warren and Sanders resisted every attempt to pit them against each other, and all but tag-teamed critics on the stage at a few points.
The pragmatists, particularly John Delaney, did their best to hold their own but likely in vain. In professional wrestling, a “Jobber” is a character destined to be defeated by a main eventer. Maybe I’ll be proven wrong, but that feels like a fate the moderates should resign themselves to.
The energy is on the left. The excitement is on the left—a predictable backlash against the racism and rhetoric of Donald Trump. In the recent past, Democrats have chosen “safe” moderates to go up against incumbent GOP presidents. That hasn’t worked out. This time, it feels like the party wants to fall in love, not fall in line.
And, of course, this is really a warning to Joe Biden who, on Wednesday night, will have his turn in the ring, fighting against a handful of rivals. And the zeitgeist.
