Democratic Party Identity Crisis Solved

The Democratic Party has created a committee to form it’s platform for the new presidential election. The committee was a combination of moderate members like Joe Biden, the presidential nominee, and more progressive members like Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren (https://www.abc27.com/news/us-world/politics/democratic-committee-oks-platform-with-progressives-input/). The platform is designed to fit somewhere between the moderate and the progressive ends of the party. It serves as a rallying cry for the party on both ends of the spectrum to believe in. This is significant because the Democratic primary was unnaturally large and was seen as a referendum on the moderate position that Biden and others occupies (https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/us/politics/2020-presidential-candidates.html). The primary proved that the members of the Democratic Party were not willing to embrace the more progressive candidates as the sought a challenger to Donald Trump. The party suffered serious division during the primary that was caused by this split. The need for cohesion and strength in order to offer a challenge to the president has been acknowledged by many so the party had to seek to combine these two groups (https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2020/06/18/how-to-beat-donald-trump-elect-president-joe-biden-column/3198177001/). The Democratic Party fulfilled one of it’s major functions by finding a way to represent both groups through this new platform.  

 

Political parties are meant to be representative of the electorate that gives them power. The party is to be the voice for their membership. The way that party reflects the electorate is by giving the various parts of the electorate a chance to make policy and effect the party’s efforts. The different parts of the electorate often have unique identities that change how the members act politically. The party combines the different identities of the electorate and brings them together to work for the common good. The electorate has a number of different identities that the party must coordinate between to get as much support as possible. In the case of the American Democratic Party the identities that have been in conflict recently are the progressive membership and the more moderate membership. The two groups differ less on the issues themselves and more on the response to the agreed upon issues  (https://www.voanews.com/usa/us-politics/deep-divide-between-progressives-moderates-colors-democratic-race). The progressives tend to want more drastic changes to the system whereas the moderates take a different approach. The moderates want to make incremental changes that will help solve the issues that are the focus of the party and still be acceptable to their opponents. The conflict that the Democratic Party has been struggling with is how best to represent the interests and identities that form these two groups. 

 

The new platform is the fulfillment of the need for the party to represent the electorate. It is a compromise that gave both identity groups, moderates and progressives, policy changes that they can both agree on and support. Both groups came together in order to form a cohesive identity that they will use throughout the upcoming presidential election. This combined identity is why it was so crucial to get input from both groups on the platform. It showed the party was willing to compromise within itself to create an identity that will be an asset in the upcoming election. The combined identity can then be used by the party to politicize and mobilize the membership. The membership knows exactly what they are meant to support and what policy changes the party wants to make. The party can now worry about the other key functions that increase the likelihood of a positive electoral outcome because they have shed the weight of disagreement amongst its ranks. The end result of this conjoined identity is a party that is ready to put a serious challenge for the presidency. The two groups have come together as a result of the party fulfilling its role as a representative of the membership