On Monday, the House Progressive Caucus delivered a letter to President Joe Biden urging a change of course on Ukraine. On Tuesday, they completely withdrew it. Was this confusing chain of events another case of “Democrats in Disarray,” one of the most frequently diagnosed illnesses in American politics?
The answer lies in what happened between Monday and Tuesday. The rapid closing of a potential schism within party’s ranks on foreign policy is actually a story of organizational efficiency and cohesion. It shows the unity of congressional Democrats, and the ability of the party currently in power to work out differences. The House’s top Republican, meanwhile, recently folded when faced with similar pressure. Call it “Democrats in Array,” complete with a mea culpa from the Representative Pramila Jayapal of Washington. “As Chair of the Caucus, I accept responsibility for this,” she said.
And it stands in sharp contrast to how dysfunctional congressional Republicans have become, and how fringe Republicans can bully the bulk of the party into going along with them.
Here’s the full story of what happened from Politico. The letter called for more effort into diplomacy in order to end the Russia/Ukraine war, but did not call for an end to U.S. aid to Ukraine and did not condemn Biden’s efforts. So it wasn’t a full-out rejection of the administration’s course or anything close to a full abandonment of Ukraine. Still, it was a significant break.
It produced an immediate uproar, with supporters of Ukraine and Biden’s policy — including leading House Democrats — pushing back hard, They came out against the idea that direct U.S.-Russia negotiations were appropriate at this point, especially with Russia’s recent claim to annex portions of that nation, evidence of war crimes and Russian threats of future war crimes. Most foreign policy experts agreed.
There will be serious costs for those on the wrong side of this dispute, from Jayapal and the signers to the House Progressive Caucus in general. (1) This is the kind of misstep that goes beyond a bad news cycle. It can hurt reputations, and with them bargaining power, in the future. Jayapal blamed staff for the episode, which is both difficult to believe and hardly likely to make anyone feel more confident in her.
For Democrats overall, however, what this episode demonstrates — and hardly for the first time — is the very limited influence of ideological outliers on the rest of the party.
To be sure, House and Senate Democrats as a group are quite liberal. Even the most moderate among them are best thought of as moderate liberals; twenty years ago, and even ten years ago, there were more of those moderates, and they were closer to being moderate conservatives. The same is true on the Republican side. The gap between the least conservative Republicans and the least liberal Democrats has only continued to grow.
But the power of ideological outliers is very different between the parties. Ukraine is an excellent example. Mainstream liberal Democrats, as we’ve seen this week, are not afraid of disagreements with the House Progressive Caucus. Indeed, many of them appear to delight in contrasting themselves with those who are more liberal.Mainstream Republicans, however, are terrified of any significant criticism from those who call themselves extreme conservatives — which allows those radicals to bully the rest of the party. We saw the results recently, with House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy admitting that Ukraine aid would probably be cut off if he becomes Speaker, even though the House as a whole would certainly have the votes for additional aid packages and even within the Republican conference there will likely still be a majority for continuing to support that beleaguered nation.
It’s not that very liberal Democrats have no influence whatsoever. After all, many of their proposals were included in bills passed by House Democrats during this Congress, even if in most cases they didn’t have the votes to win in the Senate. Overall, Democrats had a very liberal-friendly agenda, the result in large part of a presidential nomination process in which mainstream liberals prevailed over strong showings from Senator Bernie Sanders (and to a lesser extent, Elizabeth Warren). Just as important, those who wanted to make the party less liberal were wiped out early. (2)
But the most liberal Democrats can’t simply bulldoze their way over the rest of the party as radical Republicans in the House do on a regular basis. Nor are they willing to risk harming the party by pressing too hard on their differences. They mounted a quick turnaround in this episode, just as they accepted whatever they could get after Senate compromises on major legislation. It all adds up to a party that is surprisingly good at navigating their differences — and able to pass bill after bill despite extremely narrow margins in both chambers of Congress. The contrast to the dysfunctional Republican Party in Congress, held hostage to the whims of the most radical members, couldn’t be more clear.
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(1) Jayapal’s statement backing off said that the Caucus, not the 30 signers, were withdrawing the letter.
(2) Biden himself did not run as a moderate intent on moving the party to the center; he ran as a mainstream liberal, right in the middle of the party ideologically.
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ABOUT THE WRITER
Jonathan Bernstein is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering politics and policy. A former professor of political science at the University of Texas at San Antonio and DePauw University, he wrote A Plain Blog About Politics.
This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.
