Internal revolt has Democratic Party at a crossroad

WASHINGTON — The pitched battle looming over the Supreme Court, along with a jolt to the Democratic leadership at the ballot box last week, is threatening to shatter the already fragile architecture of the Democratic Party, as an activist rebellion on the left and a lurch to the right in Washington propels the party toward a moment of extraordinary conflict and forced reinvention.

For Democrats, the transformation could prove as consequential as President Donald Trump’s consolidation of power in his own party and the conservative movement’s tightening grip on the federal government.

“The Trump presidency has changed the dynamics in our party,” said Dick Durbin of Illinois, the second-ranking Democrat in the Senate, acknowledging that he could not recall a similar grass-roots uprising since he was elected to Congress in 1982.

The party’s traditional leaders absorbed one blow after another in the past week. Rep. Joseph Crowley, D-N.Y., a 20-year incumbent and potential future House speaker, was unseated by Alexandria Ocasio-cortez, a 28-year-old Latina political newcomer; Congress made clear it cannot pass even a limited immigration measure for the children of immigrants in the country illegally; and the Supreme Court handed down rulings that undermined the labor unions that are a backbone of the Democratic Party, while also limiting abortion rights advocacy and upholding Trump’s travel ban.

And then Justice Anthony Kennedy announced his retirement, effectively handing Trump the opportunity to cement a conservative majority on the bench.

Trump’s divisive and often demagogic presidency has ignited much of the liberal upheaval, driving many left-of-center voters on to a kind of ideological war footing. That has translated into a surge in outsider candidates in the midterms who are pressuring Democratic leaders to support an ambitious liberal platform that includes single-payer health care, free college tuition and the abolition of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency.

But this insurgency, which is both encouraging and alarming Democratic officials, is not merely aimed at pushing the party farther left ideologically. There is a deeper divide over how far

ERIN SCHAFF / THE NEW YORK TIMES Demonstrators, mostly women, protest the detention of migrants Thursday in the Hart Senate Office Building in Washington. The protesters called on Democrats to stop President Donald Trump’s nominee for the Supreme Court. Many like-minded Democrats are...