Analysis: What Ilhan Omar and Dean Phillips tell us about the future of the Democratic Party
District on the map with her championing of Democratic socialism, her fellow freshman Max Rose, a combat veteran who won a major upset in the 11District by playing to the cultural conservatism of Staten Island, is forced to answer for his party’s lurch to the left.
That Phillips is Jewish and Omar is a Muslim—the only such neighboring members of Congress in American history—makes their intersection all the more intriguing, particularly in light of recent events. The grandson of renowned advice columnist Abigail Van Buren , he traffics in relationships and common ground, viewing no problem as too big for people collaborating in good faith. The first group he joined in Congress was the Problem Solvers Caucus, a club of business-minded centrists that accomplishes little legislatively but provides something of a spiritual oasis for moderates in both parties.
The second thing that distinguishes Phillips is his allergy to labels. He talks frequently of “outcomes” but can prove impossible to pin down on policy details, the result of a studied effort to avoid being typecast either as a wild-eyed progressive or a weak-kneed moderate. This is not to accuse Phillips of duplicity or doublespeak. Like many rookie lawmakers—at least, those of his moderate tribe—he doesn’t want to rock the boat. Those Democrats who flipped red districts campaigned on promises not to clash emptily with Republicans; the irony, of course, is that they arrived in Washington only to realize that the greater threat to their jobs is coming from the left flank of their own party.
But her guard doesn’t stay up for long. Though she is just 37, with delicate features, a puckish giggle and a strident social media voice that reflects her relative youth, Omar is a woman in a hurry. As she saw it, the party ostensibly committed to progressive values had become complicit in perpetuating the status quo. Omar says the “hope and change” offered by Barack Obama was a mirage. Recalling the “caging of kids” at the U.S.-Mexico border and the “droning of countries around the world” on Obama’s watch, she argues that the Democratic president operated within the same fundamentally broken framework as his Republican successor.
What remains to be seen is whether Democrats follow the comparison to its natural conclusion, with the insurgent activist wing swallowing up the party’s establishment. It’s a thought that paralyzes lawmakers like Phillips—and animates those like Omar. “We look at the negative aspects of the Tea Party and not really at the part of them that spoke to the American people, that made them feel like there were people actively fighting for them,” she says. “There’s a resemblance there.
Facing another round of denunciations, including from some of the most powerful members of her own party, Omar refused to back down.
And yet, if the divisions within the House Democratic caucus are a proxy war for the identity of the party, these insider battles are shaping up to be unfair fights. The intensity of the freshman progressives aside, leading Democrats hail primarily from areas of the country where working with Trump on virtually anything is a non-starter.
Inside the Mall of America on another snowy February night, a pair of local 25-year-old women, Duyen Lieu and Jeannie Farrell, can’t stop talking about the freshman congresswoman from Minneapolis. They praise Omar as courageous, trailblazing, a progressive visionary.
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