Liberal activists take aim at Democratic leaders
Groups seek to push party further to left, oust longtime stalwarts
WASHINGTON — Four days after Donald Trump’s surprising White House victory, the liberal organization CREDO Action fired off a frantic warning to its 4.6 million anxious supporters.
Their worry wasn’t the new president. It was his opposition.
“Democratic leaders have been welcoming Trump,” the email said. “That’s not acceptable. Democratic leaders need to stand up and fight. Now.”
Amid a surge of anti-Trump protests, boycotts and actions, liberals have begun taking aim at a different target: Their own party.
Over the past few weeks, activists have formed a number of organizations threatening a primary challenge to Democratic lawmakers who offer anything less than complete resistance to the Republican president.
“We’re not interested in unity,” said Cenk Uygur, the founder of Justice Democrats, a new organization that’s pledged to replace “every establishment politician” in Congress. “We can’t beat the Republicans unless we have good, honest, uncorrupted candidates.”
While party leaders have urged Democrats to keep their attacks focused on Trump, the liberal grass roots sees the fresh wave of opposition energy as an opportunity to push their party to the left and wrest power from longtime party stalwarts.
The intraparty pressure is reminiscent of the tea party movement, where conservative activists defeated several centrist Republican incumbents.
Like Uygur, many founders of the groups are supporters of Sen. Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign, eager to continue their effort to remake the Democratic Party.
Uygur’s group says they’ve already found 70 possible candidates who will refuse corporate campaign donations while running for Congress— challenging elected Democrats if needed. Those people are now going through candidate training.
Democratic officials from more conservative states worry that those primary contests will result in the party holding even less power in Washington.
Sen. Joe Manchin, a West Virginia Democrat likely to face a tough re-election in a state won overwhelmingly by Trump, said the effort will make Democrats a “super minority” in the Senate.
A coalition named “We Will Replace You” is urging Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer of New York to remove Manchin from his new role in the party leadership after Manchin expressed openness to working with Trump.
Even without primaries, the party faces a challenging political map in 2018.
Republicans will be defending just eight Senate seats, while Democrats must hold 23 — plus two filled by independents who caucus with them.
The activists say they’re willing to trade power for conviction.
They point to a postelection shift among Democrats as a sign that their efforts are working.
Initially, Schumer and even liberals such as Sanders and Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren cautiously spoke of working with Trump on certain issues. After the wave of liberal fury, most Democrats have shifted into full opposition mode.
Last month, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee installed full-time organizers in 20 swing districts, with the goal of building stronger connections with activist groups.
Their message: “We can’t add by subtracting,” said the committee chairman, Rep. Ben Ray Luján of New Mexico.
That may be a hard sell for some of the new anti-Trump organizations.
“Something the tea party was really smart about early on was not giving a big bear hug to the Republican National Committee,” said Ezra Levin, the executive director of the new anti-Trump group Indivisible. “Keeping the political parties at arm’s length is crucial to remaining an outside political force.”