This is an outstanding oped by Henry Louis Gates. He illuminates the past and shows its relevance to the present moment.

Whoever wins the Democratic Party nomination will face the challenge, among other things, of uniting its moderate and progressive wings for the general election. I don’t have any hard evidence, but right now, using the eye and ear test, I believe Elizabeth Warren is best equipped to unite a diverse party as well as mobilize, what one author called, the “marginalized majority.”

Listening to Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown on Morning Joe yesterday makes me think that Medicare for All is too risky a plunge at this moment. Don’t see how union workers and others in the battleground states, where the race appears not only tight, but likely to decide who is the next occupant of the White House, will be convinced in the next several months to give up their private plans for a government plan. Many of them will say “A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.”

And whatever misgivings they might have will only be magnified in a political environment where Trump, Fox News, and the rest of the Republican opposition will demagogically zero in on this “socialist, tax hiking, big government, heath care destroying” demand.

In this election there are no pyrrhic victories. There is nothing heroic about fighting the good fight. If we lose, we really lose. Neither piecemeal nor transformative demands for universal health care or anything else will have a place on the agenda in a Trump second term. We will be on the defensive and on the run.

Everything then, including the election platform of the current aspirants for the Democratic Party presidential nomination and the eventual nominee, should be subordinated to what it will take to win.

Perhaps I’m wrong here. But if so, I will only be persuaded by facts and sober minded politics, not slogans not revolutionary zeal.

A strategy for progressive and left activists in this election cycle that accents upping the programmatic ante at every turn, turns the building of the “power of the left” into the foremost consideration, and insists on litmus tests to determine whether to support one on another Democratic Party candidates is strategically misguided.

The imperative at this moment, if we hope to defeat Trump and his gang of wreckers next fall, lies in the further building of an expansive unity of the broad democratic movement and Democratic Party. No one grouping on its own can defeat Trump and his acolytes in the Republican Party. If we have learned anything from last night’s elections, it is that a big and an open ended tent is necessary.

What we can glean from last night’s election results in Virginia and Kentucky is that only an expansive and diverse coalition can defeat Trump and his Republican gang. If this is so then the overarching task between now and next November is to further expand, deepen, and activate this vibrant coalition. Obviously, this will take tactical flexibility and compromise on all sides.