That’s not a generational divide, but rather one generational divide built on top of another to create a yawning chasm and the uncomfortable appearance that change comes more quickly to the country than to the top of the Democratic Party.
It’s the exact same faces leading House Democrats — Nancy Pelosi (78) from California, Steny Hoyer (79) from Maryland and James Clyburn (78) from South Carolina — that helped win them control of the House in 2006 and lose it in 2010.
The majority Democrats built last fall to end that near-decade in the minority wilderness is extremely different: much younger, more diverse, and unapologetically progressive.
The new wave is represented by lawmakers like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (29) from New York, Ilhan Omar (37) from Minnesota, Rashida Tlaib (42) from Michigan and Ayanna Pressley (45) from Massachusetts.
These are lawmakers who often did not wait in line for their turn to run, but rather jumped into district races, winning primaries and then seats in Congress. They’re not shy about letting their voices be heard or going directly to voters on Twitter and Instagram.
And they don’t seem to mind if these debates get uncomfortable for party leaders — that seems to be part of the point.
Here’s a look at eight examples of how Democrats have clashed this year:
Israel
Omar has been accused in the past of making anti-Semitic comments, so her her questioning of US policy toward Israel over its treatment of Palestinians drew similar accusations this month. The result has been a week of heated meetings and a difficult internal debate about how to condemn anti-Semitism and anti-Muslim behavior and have an honest debate about foreign policy. Now, according to Pelosi, the House is working on a resolution that will be against
anti-Semitism, Islamophobia and white supremacy.
This is not a debate that will go away. Democrats have proudly courted candidates and voters from diverse backgrounds. Omar is one of three Muslims in Congress and among the first Muslim women ever elected to serve in Washington. But there is also a strong history of support for Israel in the Democratic Party, home to all but two of the 28 Jewish lawmakers in the House.
Impeachment
There is not majority support in the US for impeaching President Donald Trump at the moment, but it is a clear priority for many Democratic activists and for some newly arrived lawmakers. Pelosi, clearly worried about the perception of overreach, has tried to tamp down that fervor, arguing any impeachment effort should be predicated on evidence presented by an official investigation like special counsel Robert Mueller’s. That won’t stop progressives from trying.
Tlaib announced her intention this week to introduce articles of impeachment. Without Pelosi’s support, they won’t get any action.
Leadership
It wasn’t only progressives who were
frustrated Pelosi would be returning as speaker before Democrats officially took control of the House. Many new members from more moderate districts were nervous. Pelosi eventually agreed to self-impose term limits, albeit with an escape clause. That internal debate was heated at the time, but the party has moved on and rallied around Pelosi, especially as she’s tangled directly with Trump.
Deficit spending
At the beginning of the Congress, progressives tried to change
party rules about deficit spending and whether new programs should be paid for by tax hikes or deficit spending elsewhere in the budget. Pelosi, who prefers the “pay as you go” principle
won that fight and the measure was included in the rules, but a number of progressives, including Ocasio-Cortez and Rep. Ro Khanna of California, opposed it.
Green New Deal
A large proportion of Democrats might like the environmental
principles behind the Green New Deal, but it makes some moonshot promises that seem fanciful, and unlikely to become reality with a Republican President and Senate. The question for the party is whether it should be working toward passing solutions or staking out bold visions heading into 2020.
Ocasio-Cortez, who
wrote the Green New Deal, has put the debate in terms of an existential question of saving the earth from climate change, but also thrown in things like a federal jobs guarantee. Pelosi, whose task is to also do things like negotiate to keep the government open and to actually pass legislation, has seemed skeptical.
Taxes
Ocasio-Cortez suggested a
70% tax on incomes of more than $10 million to help pay for the Green New Deal. The idea of a wealth tax has also been introduced in the 2020 primary by the likes of Sens. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Bernie Sanders of Vermont. Taxing the wealthy is a generally popular idea in the US, but it’s also been used by Republicans — including Trump — to make the accusation Democrats are veering toward socialism. That will be something leaders like Pelosi will try to counteract to keep their majority, which relies on electing Democrats in districts that voted for Trump in 2016.
Medicare for All
Progressives, led in the House by Rep. Pramila Jayapal of Washington, have proposed a
Medicare for all health care system that would mostly erase the private insurance market in favor a so-called “single payer” health insurance system administered by the government. Pelosi has not signed on and there likely won’t be a vote on the proposal this year, although party leaders have agreed to hold hearings on the plan. Pelosi is more focused on improving the existing law she worked so hard to pass a decade ago.
Afghanistan
In defending Omar, Ocasio-Cortez tweeted that the war in Afghanistan, a direct response to 9/11, was a “wrong war” and that only Rep. Barbara Lee had the courage to vote against it.
Among those who tried to convince Lee to support invading Afghanistan: Nancy Pelosi. The party has long called for a new authorization for the use of military force and now that they control the House, it will be a brewing debate over exactly how much leeway Congress should give the President to protect national security as he or she sees fit.
Coming soon to the 2020 primary
This is not just a House phenomenon. Stay tuned for this same divide to play out as Democrats select their 2020 nominee to take on Trump. It’s some of the same faces at or near the top of 2020 primary polls — Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders — who were featured in elections in 1988, 2008, 2012 and 2016. Sanders is ideologically in line with the new wave, but Biden has spent his political career in a different space. Both men, for instance, were around to
vote for the Clinton-era crime bill now seen as the root of an epidemic of mass incarceration. Both voted as lawmakers for the war in Afghanistan, although Sanders voted against giving the authority to invade Iraq.
Biden will have to answer for his long record in Washington. And Democrats will have decide: does passing the Violence Against Women Act counteract the deal that was made to also lock up more Americans, many of whom were African-American. If he runs, he’ll have to face a lot of these new questions from the centrist problem-solver lane the former vice president could carve out for himself. Or as the primary unfolds, will activists search for a new name who doesn’t have that baggage?
