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The Democratic Party is less a political party in pursuit of particular policy goals than a professional association organized to defend and advance the careers of its most valued members.
Say what you will about the Republican Party, but we all know exactly what they& #39;re driving at and what they& #39;d like to see this country become. Just about all of them share that vision and it animates everything they do. https://twitter.com/OsitaNwanevu/status/1149915544327471104">https://twitter.com/OsitaNwan...
The Democratic Party, by contrast, wants majorities not because they deeply want to accomplish anything in particular with them, but because everyone gets to keep their jobs that way. https://twitter.com/OsitaNwanevu/status/1149916254888693761">https://twitter.com/OsitaNwan...
There are structual factors shaping strategy and thinking in both parties that shouldn& #39;t be downplayed. The system is genuinely tilted against the Democrats in ways that incentivize timidity.
In any case, in the past couple of years we& #39;ve seen Republicans take on a number of wildly unpopular policy efforts -- the tax cuts, Obamacare repeal, etc -- simply because they believed they should be done. It is very hard to imagine Democrats doing the same.
What grates leadership about AOC and the others is that they& #39;ve had the temerity to suggest that certain issues - climate change, immigration policy under Trump, and so on -- are too important for Democrats to address from a place of defensive complacency.
None of this is fundamentally about primary challenges. Justice Democrats didn& #39;t invent them. People primary people. Always have, always will. It& #39;s not about caucus and party unity. No one& #39;s looking to excommunicate Tim Ryan or Seth Moulton or Kathleen Rice.
We& #39;re witnessing this deeply embarrassing public spectacle from House Dems because a handful of people have come in with the temerity to ask that the Democratic Party be more than what it is.
I& #39;ve said this before, but I think the Conyers & Franken situations are instructive. There was no moral or strategic reason for hesitance on the part of leadership in either case. The foot-dragging only makes sense if we understand the party as a club. https://twitter.com/OsitaNwanevu/status/1008015463517970433">https://twitter.com/OsitaNwan...
Anyway, if you think this mess looks stupid now, be sure to revisit it in a decade& #39;s time. https://twitter.com/mattdpearce/status/1123252422015512577">https://twitter.com/mattdpear...
