As Bernie Sanders’s civil war with Elizabeth Warren rages on, threatening to split progressives, Republicans are angling to capitalize on another divide in the party: the one between Sanders supporters and the Democratic establishment. In recent days both the Trump campaign and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy have tried to turn the Sanders camp against Nancy Pelosi, accusing her of stalling on impeachment in an attempt to keep its candidate in Congress and out of Iowa. During a Tuesday press conference, McCarthy alluded to a recent Des Moines Register poll showing Sanders in the lead and acknowledged that he “actually has a chance to win, but not now that Nancy Pelosi has held these documents.” He went on to claim that the “true political nature” of Pelosi’s strategy is “to harm one campaign and give a benefit to another.”
Republican National Committee spokeswoman Kayleigh McEnany went a step further, explicitly claiming that Pelosi is “rigging” the primary and insisting that “the Democratic establishment” will never let Sanders become its nominee. “The DNC rigged the election against him in 2016, and now Nancy Pelosi might be rigging the election against him, holding those articles of impeachment, conveniently turning them over to the Senate to keep Bernie out of Iowa,” she said during a Monday appearance on Fox Business.
The narrative from Trumpworld that the Democratic establishment ratfucked Sanders, and will continue to ratfuck him, is a holdover from 2016, when Donald Trump overtly sympathized with “Crazy Bernie.” He’s accused the Democratic National Committee of carrying out a “quest to destroy” the Vermont senator—a claim he made in a 2019 tweet urging Sanders to show “a little more anger and indignation when you get screwed!” At the time, his show of support—adopted only when it might cause disarray in the Democratic ranks—was pretty transparent. But it was certainly an attempted play at the deep paranoia of Sanders’s base, exacerbated by leaked emails from the DNC showing that some Democratic officials were strategizing to undermine the senator in 2016. This time around, Trumpworld’s latest shot at pitting Sanders and his army of supporters against the Democratic Party goes beyond stoking partisan infighting. It’s aimed at turning progressive voters against impeachment, all while the White House braces for some Republicans to side with Democrats on allowing witnesses to testify in Trump’s Senate trial.
If the timing wasn’t enough of a giveaway, the second prong of McCarthy’s argument made his angle even more transparent. The way he sees it, the only way to ensure fairness in the process is for Joe Biden to “make a pledge not to campaign while Bernie Sanders cannot,” sitting out key stops in Iowa while his compatriot is stuck in Senate hearings. Biden, it should be noted, is the candidate Trump believes will win the nomination. The fact that McCarthy did not make the same ask to candidates who pose less of a threat, like Pete Buttigieg, Michael Bloomberg, and Andrew Yang, suggests that his opining might be a little more opportunistic than just standing up for an outsider candidate.
This time around, the president again seems to be in on the ploy. McCarthy first recycled Trump’s Sanders-vs.-corrupt-party narrative on Sunday, the same day the president cryptically tweeted, “Wow! Crazy Bernie Sanders is surging in the polls, looking very good against his opponents in the Do Nothing Party. So what does this all mean? Stay tuned!” The Trump campaign has offered similar unsolicited advice in the past, advising Sanders to pull his endorsement of Hillary Clinton and suggesting that he run on a third-party ticket—a move that would, of course, splinter the Democratic voting bloc. Trump repeatedly propositioned Sanders supporters in 2016, welcoming them “with open arms” and later accusing Democrats of “cheating Bernie,” which is the type of across-the-aisle play he could be laying the groundwork for in 2020, with new-and-improved “rigged” talking points.