Will Democrats get their act together?

THERE was a sense among many Democrats on the eve of the 2020 presidential election that the revolution was coming, that the future belonged to them and that nothing would be the same after what they expected would be a landslide victory of their candidate.

Not only would the members of the "resistance" finally achieve the prime goal of removing their political nemesis from office but the Democrats would supposedly also be in a position to advance the kind of radical social-economic agenda that their party's powerful progressive wing has been advocating. The right-wing populist nightmare of Trumpism would be relegated to the dustbin of history, and replaced by a left-leaning and European-style social democratic vision of the future.

Indeed, since the Democrats had regained control of the House of Representatives after the 2018 election, much of the media attention has been focused on the emergence of a new breed of young activists committed to diversity and inclusion led by the Latina Representative from New York, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) and four other Democratic congresswomen elected that year, aka the "Squad". They symbolised what pundits predicted would be the Democratic Party's turn to the left, the demise of its centrist establishment and the party's takeover by the next generation of leaders.