We identify four factions within the Democratic Party: Liberals, Conservative Democrats, Progressives, and Democratic Socialists. Despite two years of Trump’s Presidency to unify the opposition, many of the same fissures that split the Democratic Party during the bruising Hillary Clinton vs. Bernie Sanders primary fight in 2016 have been amplified rather than diminished. Once fringe ideas like single-payer healthcare and free college tuition have been pushed by figures like Sanders and Warren into the mainstream of the party. The unanticipated loss to Trump still hangs heavily over intra-party debates as some Democrats advocate a moderate approach to win back voters, while an increasing number of party leaders seem to be making a hard break towards support for leftist policy proposals, or focusing their efforts on energizing new and minority voters with strong progressive appeals to issues like abortion access or LGBT protections. While the #Resistance has served as a rallying cry for most Democrats over the past two years, the position maps importantly show how the optics of anti-Trumpness can mask real differences in policy.
1. Liberals
Liberals blend progressive social stances with more moderate pro-business economic policies. On the map, we see how support for issues like expanded free-trade agreements and corporate tax cuts pull our Liberal candidate Diane Feinstein (California) to the right on economic issues relative the other Democratic factions—despite her support for issues like new LGBT non-discrimination laws and protections for undocumented children (DREAMers) that leave her solidly in the upper half of the map, along the progressive-conservative social spectrum.
In 2016, Hillary Clinton, emblematic of the Liberal faction of the party, won the party’s protracted nomination fight against leftist insurgent Bernie Sanders (Vermont). While many older leaders of this faction, such as Ms. Clinton and her running mate Virginia Senator Tim Kaine, trace their political roots to the centrist “New Democrat” label championed in the 90s by her husband Bill, they have grown more progressive alongside the country on social issues like gun control, abortion rights, gay marriage, immigration reform and climate change. Despite these progressive stances, Liberals still shy away from Left-wing economic policies, instead preferring business-friendly stances such as expanded free trade and lower taxation. While they level critiques at the foreign policies of George W. Bush and Donald Trump, many Liberals similarly advocate for strong, interventionist stances like new sanctions against Iran and Russia and maintaining a large military presence abroad.
First elected in 1992, Senator Diane Feinstein of California [mapped above] is emblematic of the Liberal wing of the party, her stances falling towards the center of the left-right economic spectrum while falling clearly on the libertarian/progressive side of the social dimension. While Feinstein logs support for many of the same agenda items as the Progressives, she has so far resisted calls to support key leftist efforts like single-payer healthcare.
2. Conservative Democrats
Conservative Democrats support conservative social positions—such as opposition to abortion, gun control measures, and environmental regulations—stances that may seem more at home in the Republican Party. In contrast with Republican leaders in Congress, however, these Democrats typically stake out more left-populist economic stances, supporting unions and opposing free trade agreements. While Conservative Democrats once constituted a large part of the national party, this group has seen its numbers dwindle in recent years. Recently, this group has received intense national media attention as several key figures—such as Heidi Heitkamp (North Dakota), Joe Manchin (West Virginia), and Conor Lamb (Pennsylvania- 18th)—seek to defend seats they hold in areas that voted heavily for Trump in 2016. As the political environment in the United States continues to polarize, Conservative Democrats are left in an uncomfortable position trying to mitigate the influence of the progressive wing of their party in order to still win many of the conservative white working-class areas that have swung to the Republican Party in recent decades.
Mapping Joe Manchin’s positions [above] reinforces just how conservative many of his stances are even in comparison to more moderate Republicans. A harsh critic of anti-coal environmental regulations, pro-life, and a supporter of President Trump’s border wall, Manchin purposefully breaks with his party on key votes—like the Kavanaugh confirmation—to remain electorally viable in a state that went for Trump by 42 points. Remaining faithful to West Virginia’s working class unionized roots, however, Manchin stakes out positions like increasing import tariffs that actually place him farther to the left on economic issues than the pro-business liberal wing of the party represented by Feinstein.
3. Progressives
In recent years, a new generation of leaders has emerged within the Democratic party, expressing unapologetically progressive views on both social and economic issues. Rather than appeal to centrist voters (as many Liberal, and earlier Clinton-era Democrats do), senators like Kamala Harris (California), Elizabeth Warren (Massachusetts), and Kirsten Gillibrand (New York) focus their attention on leftist policy proposals like enacting a “single-payer” state-run healthcare system, higher minimum wages (“Fight for $15”), and corporate tax increases to pay for expanded social services. Progressives are also not afraid to rebuke politicians and the state for exclusionary or conservative social policies—with issues such as transgender bathroom access, racism in policing, and the abolishment of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement authority (I.C.E.) as key rallying points. While identity politics do heavily inflect how Progressives approach their opposition to the Trump administration, there are differences of opinion within the camp about whether Democrats should focus more of their rhetoric on populist economic issues like income inequality, or on cultural politics to motivate a coalition of women, minorities, and young people.
Progressive leader Elizabeth Warren’s economic policy positions place her clearly to the left of Liberals like Diane Feinstein [see map]. While Progressives share their criticism of free trade initiatives like the Trans-Pacific Partnership with Conservative Democrats like Joe Manchin, their social progressivism places the group in the upper-left corner of the ideological map, unlike Manchin. As the ideological map demonstrates, Progressives share many positions with the “Democratic Socialist” Bernie supporters—their differences often lying in disagreements over whether leftist change can emerge from within the structure of the Democratic Party, or not.
4. Democratic Socialists
Bernie Sander’s 2016 primary campaign introduced American voters to more radically left positions than the Democratic party dared previously take, in turn spawning a small but influential “democratic socialist” political movement. The group can take credit for moving left-leaning proposals like single-payer healthcare and free college tuition from being fringe to mainstream progressive ideas. In 2018, several Sanders-backed candidates identified as “democratic socialists” like Rashida Tliab (Michigan-13th) and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (New York—14th ) scored primary victories setting them up to win their heavily-Democratic districts this November. Many “democratic socialist” candidates have received endorsements from Sanders’ Our Revolution political action committee, or are members of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), the rapidly growing, and largest, socialist political organization in the United States. Self-described “democratic socialists” have a complicated relationship to the Democratic Party, viewing it both as an obstacle to a leftist “revolution” in American politics, yet also as the only viable vessel to political power in a two-party system.
Interestingly, Democratic Socialist figure-head Bernie Sanders falls quite close to Progressive Elizabeth Warren on an ideological map—the two sharing many of the same left-progressive policy positions. The “democratic socialist” wing is unafraid, however, of aggressively challenging traditional norms in American politics on issues such as American support of Israel or corporate governance structures. Although Democratic Socialists are extremely progressive on cultural issues, much like Progressives, Democratic Socialists approach most issues with a clear Marxist-influenced focus on class-inequality. While, in theory, the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) platform calls for the abolition of capitalism and the replacement of the private sector with state-owned enterprises and worker-controlled firms, many “democratic socialists” would be better classified as “social democrats” in a European context.