Beneath the Harmony, Tension Lurks Between the Statist and Market-Friendly Wings at the DNC
Democratic unity against Trump is genuine but likely temporary given that the party harbors two dramatically different economic visions
I went to Chicago looking for strife and division.
That’s the host city for this year’s Democratic National Convention, the multi-day political spectacle the Democratic Party convenes every four years to formally adopt its platform and officially select its nominee ahead of a presidential election. (Its Republican counterpart, which ran from July 15-18, was held at the Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee, less than a two hour drive from Chicago’s United Center, the site of this year’s DNC.) The Democratic convention, which began on Monday and wraps up tonight, will culminate in Vice President Kamala Harris formally accepting her party’s nomination for president.
Expecting strife and division at the 2024 DNC was certainly justified. Just a month ago, the party had an altogether different presumptive nominee for president. It seemed a tall order to expect effusive—and immediate—cohesiveness from a party containing members who variously wanted the winner of this year’s Democratic primaries to remain the nominee, members who wanted an open convention to decide who the next nominee should be, members supportive of Kamala Harris, but also members more critical of the current vice president. Making matters worse, fears abounded that a not insignificant part of the story this week would be driven by ample visual documentation of the jarring disconnect that exists between leftist critics of the Biden administration’s policy toward Israel during its war in Gaza and the party’s liberal base. To be sure, the loudest voices warning that a 1968-level political conflagration would descend on Chicago during the convention over Gaza were on the right. But a continuous loop of the chaotic scenes that were expected outside the United Center during the convention would have been hard to overcome politically. The protests, however, largely failed to materialize, and inside the convention, there was nothing but unity and an irrepressible positive energy.
Underneath, however, there are simmering tensions, especially on economic issues, that at some point the party will have to address.
The buzz permeating the halls of the United Center was palpable: people smiling, holding signs, dancing to the music, cheering at speakers. There are cheeseheads from Wisconsin, cornheads from Iowa, and cowboy hats from the Texas delegation, all brimming with the optimism of a party that collectively believes it has remedied what might have kept it from being electorally competitive this November: the rapid, age-related decline of Joe Biden, one of the party’s most accomplished political figures in recent memory and the sitting president of the United States. As I walked the convention floor, looking for signs of division and trouble, all I found was a Democratic Party riding high on a wave of enthusiasm.
All honeymoons, of course, eventually end. Even though the party is more unified than anyone imagined it would be a mere six weeks ago, there remain fault lines within the party between moderates and the left—and not just on Gaza. Another key division is between Democrats with an economic agenda focused on building and deregulating and those focused on stricter government control of the economy. Although it seemed inevitable that at some point during the convention those conflicts would come out into the open, to my surprise whatever divisions existed were hardly noticeable. Still, just because those differences did not emerge during an event specifically engineered to mass-project cooperation and togetherness doesn’t mean they won’t flare up from now to November.
How We Got Here
A month ago, the 2024 Democratic National Convention certainly seemed set for drama. In the wake of Joe Biden stepping down as his party’s nominee, questions surrounded the party. Would there be a contested convention? Would protesters drown out the messages Democrats were trying to send? Which direction would the new candidate lead the party: towards the left or the center? And would the party end up crippled by internal power struggles under Kamala Harris?
Despite those worries, the convention has been remarkably free from in-fighting. Kamala Harris quickly wrapped up the nomination and united every major faction of the party behind her, ending any discussion of a brokered convention. Outside protests have been a minuscule fraction of what was expected—instead of the anticipated 30-40,000 protesters, barely 1,000 initially showed up. On Wednesday, the DNC’s third day, the most the cause mustered was around 2,000 protesters that marched toward the United Center from a nearby park. The most viral image that the protesters have produced on social media has been the sight of thousands of unused signs dumped on the ground for lack of anyone to carry them.
Inside the convention, there’s no hint of discord. One attendee told me that the most important objective was to “keep everyone rowing the boat in the same direction.” That sentiment was repeated, in various forms, in nearly every conversation I had, whether with members of the Gun Owners Caucus or with pro-Palestinian activists inside the United Center. Democratic Socialists stood shoulder to shoulder with rural moderates. AOC got loud cheers, but so did former Trump voters who stressed the need to moderate and reach out to Republicans in their speeches. Democrats as a party are often parodied for being in disarray (e.g., the “Dems in disarray” trope), but what I witnessed was a remarkable level of unity across coalitional factions who on paper have no business getting along.
Of course, I’ll stress again that that’s precisely the purpose of party conventions. They’re meant as displays of unity, strength, and energy. Successfully putting on this show of togetherness doesn’t mean that the Democrats’ internal divisions are gone. Those divisions still exist—they’re just being successfully managed as the party draws from a burst of optimism over the possibility that Trump’s reelection is no longer a foregone conclusion, a prospect many feared in the aftermath of Joe Biden’s disastrous CNN debate performance against Trump in late June. Not even odd juxtapositions in the speaker schedule managed to provoke disunity. Bernie Sanders was cheered as he repeated old lines decrying the influence of billionaires in American politics. The next two speakers following Sanders on Tuesday night were Illinois governor and billionaire JB Pritzker and the former CEO of American Express—with Pritzker even boasting about his own billionaire status to loud cheers while insulting Trump. Nothing was going to puncture the unity that the Democratic Party was here to claim.
Two Competing Economic Visions
Still, tough decisions lie ahead. At some point post-convention, the Harris campaign will have to make a choice between two competing factions in formulating her economic policy agenda. On one side is a group focused on promoting a so-called abundance agenda—building more housing, green energy and infrastructure, and deregulating parts of the economy to make that happen faster. Moderates in the party—such as Colorado’s governor, Jared Polis, and its senior U.S. Senator, Michael Bennet, as well as most members of the New Democrat Coalition—often find themselves in this group.
This camp champions bills like the BIG WIRES Act and the YIMBY Act, which respectively would reform the permitting process to make it easier to build transmission lines and encourage dense housing development. Especially when it comes to housing, this group has made significant progress in reaching mainstream Democratic leaders—in recent days, Obama, Biden, and Harris have each stressed the need to build millions more units of housing. In his convention speech, Obama even went beyond a general call for more housing, criticizing the “outdated laws and regulations that make it harder to build homes.” This group is generally aligned with a pro-market stance and wants to make America a better place to do business. Its advocates believe that while America’s economic system needs tweaking, it fundamentally works—so long as we build an adequate safety net and allow the creative forces of the market to keep moving forward. They’re focused on fixing problems created by the way we regulate the economy and that are holding us back.
An alternative faction is focused on more state control of the economy, with crackdowns on business. Inspired by champions like Sens. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, this camp is far more likely to say that America’s economic system is fundamentally broken and in need of complete retooling. Adherents of this line of thought are more likely to come from the left-wing of the party and identify as progressives or even democratic socialists. This faction focuses on ways that the government can directly intervene in the economy. They’re often in favor of price controls—supporting ideas like Joe Biden’s proposal for a national rent control policy as well as recent “anti-price gouging” measures meant to satisfy populist anger at the price of groceries. This group often focuses on corporate greed as a cause of inflation, and favors aggressive increases in antitrust enforcement. They’re almost universally in favor of increasing taxes on the rich to fund more generous social welfare programs. This faction is more likely to blame capitalism and big businesses for the perceived ills of society and view more government action as a way to counter those ills. Theirs is a far more statist and illiberal vision for the economy.
The economic agenda divergence represented by those two groups will need to be addressed. These are two fundamentally different visions of how the economy should operate. One camp believes that too much government regulation is currently holding back the creative forces of the economy, while the other deeply distrusts those forces and believes stronger government action is what’s needed. There are policies where compromises can be made and both sides can obtain some of what they want. Vice President Harris’s housing plan has features that will please both camps—plans to boost supply and encourage lower regulations will fire up the abundance camp, while subsidies for home buyers and shots at corporate landlords will please progressives.
But a harmony between both perspectives won’t always be achievable. The Harris campaign has done a good job making both factions happy for now. But no matter how skillfully she navigates, the vice president won’t be able to please both camps forever. The fundamental assumptions are too different. The camps are underwritten by worldviews that are often in direct contrast with one another. When push comes to shove, the Harris campaign will need to choose between the liberal and the statist vision for how the economy should be managed.
“It’s Trump’s Assault on Democracy, Stupid”
For now, the conversation that dominates the DNC is the illiberal threat to democracy that Donald Trump represents—and rightly so. The lesson from this convention seems to be that the divide over economics is not nearly as important to Democrats as the divide between liberal respect for democracy and illiberal contempt for democratic norms. That, too, is a core part of the struggle for liberalism in America.
It’s easy to get caught up in detailed policy debates. Exactly what is the correct tax rate for the rich? How much bureaucratic paperwork is too much? How should we even define price gouging, much less punish it? But the prevailing mood among Democrats is that it won’t matter which faction’s tax policies are correct if Trump is once again elected. So for now the convention goers seem united and focused on that single goal.
Copyright The UnPopulist, 2024.
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This is an interesting analysis. Thank you. However, I strongly object to the word « illiberal « for the progressive wing of the Democratic Party. That word means « intolerant , » which would be an unfair and inaccurate description of economic progressivism. If you are distinguishing « progressive « from « classically liberal « economic policy, then say so clearly and accurately. Don’t use slurs. Also « statist « is a strange word to use, as it invokes authoritarian figures like Stalin. You would be more accurate to say something like « regulatory « or « government -centered » as these terms are more descriptive. Given that you use two terms for the left that are problematic, even derogatory, I have to conclude you are biased and not a trustworthy source on this issue. That saddens me, as I think you are addressing something important that warrants solid analysis.
Your choice of examples indicates that the pro-market side has already lost. YIMBY includes a bunch of things, from removal of various restrictions to expansion of public housing. BIG WIRES is more interventionist than not. If you really thought the DLC faction was still viable, you'd be talking about the Dems who are opposing Biden's industrial policy, denouncing teacher unions, criticising Lina Khan and so on.
That's not to say the Dems have become socialists. But neoliberalism of the type exemplified by Bill Clinton and the (now defunct) DNC is done for, and the abundance agenda won't change that.