Policy compromises will aid Democratic Party unity
After a bitter primary season, Bernie Sanders has urged his backers to support Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign
Hillary Clinton was officially nominated by the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia yesterday as the party's 2016 presidential candidate. Clinton's nomination marks the end of the 2016 Democratic campaign. Her primary challenger, Senator Bernie Sanders, withheld his endorsement for some time, but has vocally supported her since July 12 and urged his backers to vote for her on November 8. Democrats have sought to bridge the personal and policy divides between the leftist and moderate camps in the Democratic Party and focus attacks on Republican nominee Donald Trump.
What next
Although the Sanders campaign did not win concessions on all its major policy points with the Democratic Party platform committee, the show of unity and fear of a Trump presidency will likely encourage many Sanders backers to vote Clinton on November 8. Hardliner opposition is more likely to come from independents who simply backed Sanders in the Democratic primaries, rather than a mass defection of long-standing Democratic loyalists on whom Clinton is relying to secure 'swing states'.
Subsidiary Impacts
- Many Democratic policy platform commitments would have difficulty passing Congress if Clinton wins.
- Some Sanders supporters will back a third party or not vote for president, but Trump faces similar problems with his Republican opponents.
- The ideological importance of Supreme Court appointments will encourage partisan loyalty at the ballot box.
Analysis
After a bitter primary battle, Sanders -- as the member of the Vermont delegation -- moved yesterday after a roll call vote of states that the convention nominate Clinton by acclamation.
The move ends a month-long period in which the two candidates, and the Democratic Party, have tried to determine how to work together between now and the November election and, in a hypothetical Clinton administration, on policy issues.
Sanders's earlier silence on endorsement was an effort to push the Clinton campaign to adopt the entirety of his proposals, despite having lost the primaries, as the price for his endorsement (see UNITED STATES: Sanders will make exit cost Clinton - May 9, 2016).
Primary season conclusion
Clinton won the national popular vote, a majority of pledged delegates to the convention and the overwhelming majority of 'superdelegates', largely based on a campaign centred on her experience and appeal to core Democratic constituencies.
Meanwhile, most of Sanders' policy positions, particularly on economic issues, challenged Democratic Party centre-left orthodoxy established in the 1990s by former President Bill Clinton (see UNITED STATES: Election reopens financial reform issue - January 5, 2016).
The Democratic Party's platform committee, which writes its programme for the next four years, helped bridge the Clinton-Sanders divide in an effort to unite the party.
While Clinton will lead the party as its presidential nominee, and will hold significant influence over various policy issues, many items contained in the platform were either taken directly from Sanders's positions or were Clinton positions modified through a Sanders 'lens' to yield a progressive set of proposals.
Domestic policy implications
The merger of Clinton and Sanders is most prominently displayed on domestic issues.
Equal rights
Both candidates fought strongly for enhanced civil rights for traditionally marginalised groups and the platform calls for unequivocal equality for women, non-whites, LGBT individuals and immigrants.
This equality not only calls for reintroduction of the Equal Rights Amendment -- a draft constitutional amendment originally proposed in the 1970s that would mandate equality of sexes -- but also for enactment of measures that would eliminate the economic disparity between traditionally privileged communities and traditionally marginalised communities, a major Sanders campaign point.
Sanders has successfully pushed the Party leftward on domestic issues
Fiscal and economic policy
On fiscal policy, the merger is especially pronounced, with Clinton having influenced proposed investment programmes in communities of chronic poverty, and Sanders having influenced a tax plan that is more aggressive on multinational corporations and the wealthy.
Both Clinton and Sanders called for increased investment in education, and the platform reflects this, with Sanders getting a line item about eliminating student debt for certain students, and requiring that all student loans charge a special discounted rate of 1-2%, rather than the current 4-7% (see UNITED STATES: Student debt may trigger crisis - May 15, 2015).
On economic issues, the two candidates largely agreed, with some notable exceptions that came to the fore in the end.
Both called for enhanced investment in infrastructure construction, both as a necessary requirement for the US economy and as a sustainable employment programme.
In addition, the platform calls for an infrastructure bank, a publicly owned investment vehicle to finance major infrastructure programmes independently from government budgets.
Both called for new investment in training or re-training to help workers in declining sectors, such as coal mining, transition into growing sectors, such as specialised industry or highly skilled services (see UNITED STATES: Full employment will boost wage growth - March 30, 2016).
The 15-dollar minimum wage, a key progressive proposal, also entered the language of the platform.
Sanders won support for proposals to stop so-called 'corporate concentration' and expand the federal government's anti-monopoly powers to ensure a diversity of business and more reasonable prices for goods and services.
Environment
The environmental elements of the platform include a call for a national carbon tax, a win for the Sanders camp. However, the Democrats' position on hydraulic fracturing more closely reflected Clinton's insistence on more stringent regulation and deference to local communities, with a Sanders-backed moratorium on the practice failing to pass the platform committee in a 7-6 vote.
Foreign trade
On trade, Sanders did not win support for a wholesale rejection of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), which he and his supporters not only believe would siphon jobs from the United States towards South-east Asia, but that the relocated jobs would be subject to worse labour and environmental standards.
The platform instead reflects the fact that Democrats are split on the terms of TPP, especially President Barack Obama, who has called for TPP ratification in its current form (see UNITED STATES: TPP faces major hurdles in Congress - October 19, 2015).
The platform implicitly calls for a renegotiation of the labour and environmental standards, a gradualist position closer to Clinton's than Sanders's.
Sanders backers failed to position the Democrats against TPP ratification
Many Sanders supporters believed the TPP issue to be non-negotiable, but it is unlikely to be a central focus of the campaign, given significant domestic obstacles to ratification in its current form and suspicion of free trade agreements featured in this election season (see UNITED STATES: Protectionism faces multiple checks - June 28, 2016).
Foreign policy implications
On foreign policy, the platform was predominantly influenced by Clinton and supports most of the Obama administration's positions (see PROSPECTS H2 2016: US foreign policy - June 13, 2016).
It calls for a modernised military that shifts investments back to force readiness rather than costly military technologies, and criticises Trump's foreign policy positions as 'abandoning' US allies (see UNITED STATES: Politics will check retrenchment abroad - March 21, 2016).
Clinton's dominance of this area can be seen in the blocking of language critical of Israel, which Sanders allies sought to insert into the platform, and placed the party in opposition to "any effort to delegitimise" the Israeli state, explicitly mentioning the UN and the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Movement.
