Compared to their past, the Democrats of today are remarkably united.
Ross Douthat kicked up a bit of an internet dust storm last week when he penned a column arguing that the Democrats would be in total disarray without the star power and leadership of Hillary Clinton, even going so far as to compare the Democratic Party to the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Personally I think the column made a better argument for why metaphors are overused in political writing, but it did prompt a lot of push back.
Matt Yglesias wrote the most comprehensive reply pointing out that Hillary’s dominance is a sign of party unity not a cause of it, that there is very few disagreement over issues in the Democratic camp at all, and that on the whole both parties have been getting stronger and more ideological homogeneous over the past few decades. In addition Paul Krugman pointed out that Democrats have remained remarkably united largely because President Obama has succeeded in enacting many of the policies the Democrat coalition has long supported:
This means that the conflict between “the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party”—exemplified these days by Elizabeth Warren—and the more pro-big-business wing is relatively muted: the liberal wing knows that Obama has gotten most of what could be gotten, and the actual policies haven’t been the kind that would scare off the less liberal wing.
Rounding it out Paul Waldman said that the scorched earth tactics of the GOP during the Obama years has been a big reason why Democrats remain so united as well.
I think these are all excellent points. But they are missing one big thing: liberals that have been critical of Obama and the Democratic Party in recent years just don’t seem that interested in engaging in the actual hands on business of politics.
A defining characteristic of politics in the age of Obama has been liberal anger and disappointment both with President Obama and Democrats in general. Indeed as Jonathan Chait pointed out a back in 2011, liberal disenchantment with President Obama predates the Obama Presidency. Some of this is to be expected, all presidents disappoint their parties and supporters to some degree, even Lincoln was unsure if his party would re-nominate him in the winter of 1864. But some of the liberal anger over Obama seems to be especially pronounced in this day and age. Hence the Obama White House doesn’t just criticize bloggers who demand unreasonable things, they engages in “hippie punching.” Hence the fact that the President disagrees with you isn’t proof that he’s a centrist Democrat not a radical, it’s a “Death Of Dreams.” A list of over the top rhetoric and unreasonable expectations written about liberals and Obama written by Glenn Greenwald could go on for pages.
The interesting thing here is that while the rhetoric about Obama coming from many liberal circles is quite loud, nothing is actually coming out of it in terms of actual political action. Despite all the sound and fury about doing so, nobody actually ever bothered to primary challenge Obama back in 2012. And despite all the disappointment, rage, and bitter tears shed over the past six years liberals demanding change have failed to find a presidential contender, other than a few vague rumblings about Elizabeth Warren, who so far has denied she’s going to run.
This is totally different from the conservative side of things. It’s hard to remember now but the whole idea of Tea Parties was started by a conservative talking head on his TV show. Indeed Eric Cantor’s recent defeat was helped along by talk radio hosts urging their listeners not to get mad or read history books, but vote in a contested primary.
This is not to say that it’s wrong that liberal writers don’t really engage in the hands on business of politics, lots of people don’t get involved in politics. And writers should follow their own reasons and make their own choices. Plus politics is actually pretty boring. The ideas are simple: talk to voters and get them to vote for you. It’s the execution that’s hard: build and organization that can speak to 200,000 voters in the next four months with these limited resources. But still it’s telling that so many liberal writers chose to write about the policy of single payer health care, while ignoring the political question of how to build a political question of how to build a political movement to do such a thing. Other than ask President Obama to do it for them of course.
Which gets back to the question of Democratic unity. The people who have been breaking ranks over the past six years just aren’t really doing anything in terms of money, candidates, or elections. Meanwhile the party faithful are largely falling in line. Which is almost a textbook example of a party united.
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