Thanks for the response. Even though you’re disagreeing with some of the ways I’ve framed the topic, I find it encouraging that you and others have chosen to engage the issues I’ve raised. Taking your points in reverse order…

Yes, there’s some dispute over whether any group within mainstream American politics really stands onthe left side of the spectrum. Where you fall on that question depends a great deal on what you mean when you talk about the left, and I see no particular reason why that shouldn’t change depending on your context. Like “big” and “small,” left and right are relative terms that take meaning from the center around which they’re arranged. So, for example, while the left–right dichotomy descends from the French Revolution, with pro-monarchists literally seating themselves on the right side of Parliament while the liberalists took the left, the Cold War contest between Marxism and capitalism lent a related but different significance to the terms.

Well, fine. When I spoke of “the left” in my article, my referent was the whole range of positions opposed to an essentially conservative political outlook — a point I made more explicit in an earlier draft, but ultimately edited out in order to reign in the essay’s scope and range. I’ll readily acknowledge that there is little in mainstream American politics to match the European left — and even within the American electorate there are many who scoff as Sanders’ claim on the “socialist” tag — but I also don’t see much point in assigning the dichotomy an absolute meaning. If the point is that American liberals generally haven’t incorporated Marxist teachings, then let’s say that. It’s more precise, without obscuring the fact that, historically, the left hasn’t always been the exclusive domain of Marxists/socialists.

Either way, it wasn’t my intention to argue in favor of holding the traditional Democratic coalition together. There are several reasons Democrats may want to do so, and they’ll be hard pressed to achieve that end unless they recognize the tensions I’ve described, but I suspect that there are many within the electorate who see the potential cleavage of the major parties as an opportunity to lend the vote a greater degree of precision under a system that offers up more a la carte options. Personally, I find that possibility very appealing.

What else? I’m familiar with the suggestion that “race (and identity) politics are class politics.” Implicitly, that’s one of the premises at dispute between the two factions. That comes out clearly in Ta-Nehisi Coates recent columns on Sanders’ rejection of reparations, for example. The point that several commentators teased out of Sanders’ own statement on the topic was the notion that addressing economic inequality tout court would do more to redress racial disparities than a policy that specified race could. A rising tide lifts all boats, in effect.

Part of the point here, though, is that the social justice segment of the American left is, in general, more skeptical of that premise than is the economy-first segment. So while it’s fine to point out that argument, that premise on its own is unlikely to resolve the dispute, since a growing segment of the American left, whether implicitly or explicitly, rejects the characteristically Marxist notion that the major struggles of modernity reduce to the struggle between economic classes.

Lastly, I think there is some merit to the argument that concentrating on Berniebros would unfairly marginalize the involvement of supporters who, for whatever reason, don’t fit that profile. And maybe there are Clinton supporters who use the Berniebro label as a way of deflecting sincere and civil engagement on substantive issues. As you say, though, it’s not that those assholes don’t exist, but focusing on them obscures what’s really at issue. If the focus of your liberalism is on social justice issues, then the person telling you that a narrow focus on class issues obviates the need for social justice work is effectively telling you that your concerns aren’t substantive, inasmuch as you insist on distinguishing them from strictly economic categories. Berniebros may be more aggressive and annoying in making that insinuation, but part of the reason for the growing unease between the two Democratic camps is that earnest, engaged and otherwise considerate people on both sides are increasingly willing to assert their own political allegiance to the exclusion of the other.