there are some significant fractures in the Democrat party, And I don’t think they are likely to just go away.
Still, out of the asp’s the asp’s hole comes a cockatrice and all…
Even so, while it is not my nature, there is some reason to be optimistic. Democrats face some real challenges. They really are a consortium of groups that have been cobbled together to vote a certain way. The problem with that now is that if group A gets their way, group B necessarily does not. And there just is no way around that. There is simply no other way to slice that pie.
There are indeed some upsides to that kind of a coalition approach. And those upsides have carried the day until very recently. It works great in the short term. But there are also some rather severe liabilities, and we are starting to see that now.
The Democratic Party’s internal fractures are no longer simmering beneath the surface—they’re erupting into open warfare. The latest salvo comes from within the party’s own ranks, as the far-left wing grows increasingly emboldened to challenge the establishment’s authority. What we’re witnessing is not just a disagreement over policy or tactics, but a full-blown civil war for the soul of the Democratic Party.
… What’s truly astonishing is the Democratic leadership’s inability—or unwillingness—to confront this rebellion head-on. Instead of standing up to the radicals, too many establishment figures are cowering in fear, hoping the storm will pass. But appeasement only emboldens the insurgents. Every time a figure like Mamdani gets away with slandering party leaders, the fringe left grows stronger and more brazen.
What has held them together in the past is a strong desire to see the party prevail. But that is not necessarily the case anymore. As the Democrat party has become more and more balkanized, people have become more and more willing to destroy the party itself in order to further their own ends–their allegiance is to their own ends, not to the party per se.
OTOH, Conservatism binds people together because they have allegiance to certain principles. These principles include moral agency, freedom from coercion, a historical empiricism, and traditional morality. The allegiance is to those principles, and the party is merely an embodiment of those principles.