Markos Moulitsas: Dems can do better

It shouldn’t be hard running an appealing Democratic presidential campaign this year. The formula is quite simple, actually: Run on an economic populist platform seeking to reverse decades of increased income inequality, alongside a socially progressive agenda seeking to redress systemic injustices among people of color, gays and women. 

Not only is this formula right on the policy and morally justified, it is popular with the American public. We are not Republicans, forced to appease a primary electorate clinging to unpopular, reactionary policies like marriage inequality, more war and increasing the ranks of the uninsured. The Elizabeth Warren wing of the Democratic Party is on firm polling ground, from the issue of student debt relief to higher taxes on the richest among us. It’s never been a better time to be a true Democrat. 

So why are the Democratic contenders blowing it? 

{mosads}The prohibitive front-runner, Hillary Clinton, has been on solid footing on immigration and has been OK on the issues of importance to the #BlackLivesMatter movement, but she just can’t seem to get it together on economic issues. Her refusal to join her party’s grassroots in fighting against the job-killing Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal didn’t just place her out of step with the economic populists that animate much of the Democratic Party base today, it gave opponent Bernie Sanders the gift of an opening — one the Vermont senator exploited masterfully.

We have a party electorate that objectively likes Clinton but isn’t sold on her economic bona fides, given, among other things, the (objectively) job-killing trade deals her husband signed into law and her tenure on the board of (objectively) job-killing, worker-exploiting Wal-Mart. Her refusal to oppose the TPP gave fuel to those fears, and swelled Sanders’s ranks of supporters. It was a self-inflicted wound, and an unnecessary one. 

Meanwhile, Sanders kicked off his campaign for president apparently unaware that the nation looks little like lily-white Vermont. His long announcement speech failed to mention immigration reform or #BlackLivesMatter. 

On stage at Netroots Nation last weekend, he was shocked and angered when confronted by African-American protesters demanding he repeat the names of victims of police executioners and speak to their issues, and the best he could do is offer bromides about the importance of jobs in the black community. Yes, that is obviously important, and a laudable focus, but it doesn’t speak to the pain the black community faces in a world in which it is gunned down by police with alarming frequency. 

As activist-writer Shaun King wrote, “Bernie likes to talk about improving the economy, and making health care available for all, and making education more affordable, but Sandra Bland was an educated, employed black woman. What she faced last week [death in police custody under suspicious circumstances after a routine traffic stop] wouldn’t have been stopped by a more equitable economy or universal health care. Not at all.”

At least Sanders wasn’t as tone-deaf as Martin O’Malley, who responded to protesters by saying “Black lives matter. White lives matter. All lives matter.” Of course all lives matter, but it’s not whites currently under siege. It was breathtaking to see how unprepared Sanders and O’Malley were in addressing an issue that has gripped the progressive movement since Michael Brown’s murder in Ferguson, Mo., nearly a year ago. 

Whatever the reasons for their disconnect, these candidates need to better align themselves with their party mainstream today. The better they can do it, the better Democrats will do November 2016.  

Moulitsas is the founder and publisher of Daily Kos.