Unity Is a One-Way Street
By purging Sanders backers from top positions, the DNC has shown what it means when it talks about "unity" and "compromise."
Tom Perez on April 21, 2017. Gage Skidmore / Flickr
Ever since the 2016 presidential primary, “unity” has been the watchword of Democratic Party politics. As soon as it became apparent that Hillary Clinton had clinched the nomination, establishment Democrats warned the party’s grassroots that the stakes were now too high for intraparty bickering. In that spirit, at the Democratic National Convention, a Unity and Reform Commission was established to help bridge the rift between the Sanders and Clinton wings of the party.
Yet, at its meeting last week in Las Vegas, the Democratic establishment, under the leadership of Democratic National Committee (DNC) Chair Tom Perez, demonstrated yet again that for all its vaunted talk about “unity,” it remains committed to relegating Berniecrats and other progressive Democrats to the margins.
The Purge
At that meeting, Perez ousted from leadership positions four long-serving officials who represent the so-called “Sanders wing” of the Democratic Party. These officials all had backed Minnesota Rep. Keith Ellison over Perez, the Obama administration labor secretary who had previously been elected to a seat on the Montgomery County Council in Maryland, in the tussle over the DNC chairmanship.
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