With the Democratic intra-party battles of 2016 still raw, mainstream Democrats who backed Hillary Clinton are hoping for a “blue wave” in this fall’s congressional races that will give the party control of the House. But the Bernie Sanders supporters of the left wing envision an even deeper shade of blue as they work on ousting mainstream Democratic incumbents in the upcoming primaries.

Michigan Democrats will be caught up in these continuing fissions and party officials here should be worried about the wall that’s building between old-school moderates and Millennial-backed liberals in several other states.

The problem on a national scale became rather obvious in recent weeks when the California Democratic State Convention declined to endorse 25-year Dem Sen. Dianne Feinstein for re-election. Feinstein won just 37 percent of the convention vote, her opponent, Kevin De León, won 54 percent, which also fell short of the 60 percent necessary to win the party’s endorsement.

In a hotly contested primary like this one, the snub of Feinstein shows how California has shifted even further to the left —  and how more Democrats are embracing candidates who check the right boxes on liberal ideology: single-payer health care, pro-choice on abortion, expanded social programs, and solidly in favor of gun control measures.

In addition, Sanders announced that he will not endorse Feinstein, his Senate colleague, and instead will remain neutral. That follows Sanders and his Our Revolution group declining to support Democratic Virginia gubernatorial candidate Ralph Northam last fall in the commonwealth’s general election (Northam still won).

Feinstein is clearly a moderate (at least) by California standards and a conservative on foreign policy and counterterrorism programs. She voted for the 2002 Iraq war resolution, supports the Patriot Act and backed President Trump’s 2017 cruise missile bombardment of a Syrian military base after the Assad regime launched a chemical weapons attack on civilians. The senator also favors the death penalty and opposes single-payer health care while taking liberal stances on the environment, taxes and gun control.

Identity politics at play

The California Senate race may not represent the most striking example of left-wingers eager to oust mainstream Democrats. That distinction may be playing out in the identity politics on display in the Boston area, in territory once represented by John F. Kennedy, where a liberal Democratic congressman, Michael Capuano, faces an unexpected, tough primary challenge from an even more liberal challenger, Ayanna Pressley, the first black woman ever elected to the Boston City Council.

Another House race, this one in suburban Chicago, pits a longtime Democratic incumbent in a traditionally Polish-Irish area against a newcomer who is courting the black and Hispanic communities that are changing the face of the district. Moderate Democrats are angered that Sanders and two Illinois House Democrats have backed primary challenger Marie Newman over Rep. Daniel Lipinski.

The issue here is Lipinski’s anti-abortion stance, a litmus test similar to the one proposed by Sanders supporters in Michigan – essentially a demand by the party’s progressive wing for ideological purity.

Lipinski has hit back by claiming his detractors are fomenting “a tea party of the left” that is pushing liberal “fantasies” — free college, free day care, Medicare for all, and an instant increase to $15 for the minimum wage on a national scale

Michigan left seeks control

In several Detroit area congressional races, a similar dichotomy between old and new Democrats has taken hold as it seems that each is a race to see which Democratic primary candidate can move to the left the fastest.

Dennis Lennox, a northern Michigan GOP political consultant, in a guest column for The Detroit News, wrote that he sees the Sanders’ influence wounding the Democratic Party in the November general election to replace term-limited Republican Gov. Rick Snyder:

The divide between the party’s base and the general election voters it
desperately needs in swing congressional districts and states goes
well beyond guns or abortion.

… In California and here in Michigan, Democrats are confronted with a
choice between a doctrinaire Democrat and a leftist who in his heart
of hearts is a socialist. That’s the dynamic between Sanders socialist
Abdul El-Sayed and doctrinaire Democrat Gretchen Whitmer in the
campaign for the party’s gubernatorial nomination.

In the Texas primaries held last week, some political observers saw “bitter internal strife” on display among Democrats, to the extent that Sanders populists may stay home on election day in congressional districts where the party’s nominee does not measure up to their standards.

That could dampen the party’s perceived enthusiasm advantage in the fall in several key states. What’s more, even if the Dems seize control of the House, they could face a 2019-20 battle with a rogue element on Capitol Hill, a left-wing version of the tea party, that would make the Democratic majority ineffective, even in the face of their universal distaste for Trump.