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Summer meeting ends without resolving ICE fight, Israel rift or midterm cash gap
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AUSTIN, Texas — Democratic National Committee members spent their summer meeting projecting a united front against President Trump and saying the gathering of party leaders was about infrastructure, not ideology.
Beneath the choreography, divisions kept resurfacing, with clashes between the establishment Democrats and socialist insurgents over how to dismantle Mr. Trump’s immigration force and which side to back in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
They hit an impasse over whether to call for “abolishing” or simply “reforming” U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. By the Saturday conclusion of the three-day meeting, the solution was to pass both an “abolish” resolution and a “reform” resolution rather than choose just one.
Pro-Palestinian and pro-Israel factions traded raw, personal accounts of pain over deadly conflict. The DNC punted taking a policy stand until a report on the issue is delivered at the winter meeting, which is traditionally held in January or February — after this year’s midterm elections.
DNC Chairman Ken Martin played down the ideological divisions as part of being a “big tent” party.
“We have conservative Democrats with centrists. We’ve got progressives like me. We’ve got leftists. All are welcome in this party — all voices. But don’t tell me there’s only one way to be a Democrat. Don’t tell me there’s only one stripe to wear,” Mr. Martin told a gathering of LGBTQ activists during the DNC summer meeting at the Hilton Austin Downtown.
Asked by The Washington Times about party unity, Mr. Martin said his party would win in November.
“We’re confident, but we’re not complacent,” he said. “We’re working as hard as we can to make sure we win every election.”
Still, former Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe, a past DNC chairman, said the rifts carry big risks in a year when Democrats expect to win back control of the House majority and possibly the Senate.
“Democrats are trashing fellow Democrats. I got a simple message for you: knock it off or get off the playing field. Because we have too much work to do,” Mr. McAuliffe said Saturday. “I’m a little tired of all of this stuff you hear every day about all of these labels … moderate, progressive, whatever, liberal.”
In the end, Democrats left Austin without resolving many of the biggest issues facing the party, including a midterm election cash crunch compared to the Republican National Committee.
Source: Read the original article on www.washingtontimes.com
