The Democratic Party is Actually a Coalition

I'm a proud Democratic Party leader in my little corner of the world, Northampton County, Pennsylvania. I basically believe in the governing philosophy of the Democratic Party on close to all the issues that are being debated in this country. I'm not one to believe that our elected officials have to agree with us on every single issue, every single time though. We have to have a big tent, and allow some level of discussion, to win.

The Republican Party of 2015 is a coalition of business, religious/cultural, military, and anti-government groups. While we imagine that as fairly fractious in nature, it really isn't. They don't believe in an active regulatory government, they want a culturally conservative society, and they want to respond to international issues with force. Now, we might argue they are crazy, but their organization is rather simple. The money comes from the bankers, the military contractors, and the business world, and the volunteer forces come from the conservative Christian crowd and the anti-government Tea people. There is the occasional in-house fight, but they aren't far apart.

The Democratic Party I am a member of is far more fractious right now. This isn't really anyone's fault, or necessarily a bad thing, as we are the party of diversity and inclusion. While the GOP is mostly a party of white, older conservatives, the Democratic Party reaches across racial, religious, sexuality, gender, economic, and cultural lines. Some of these groups are fairly far apart, and not really in total agreement on what matters most in government. There are "identity" driven political activists, economic driven ones, and issue driven activists. Some really only care about their main issue, some only care about a few.

I see this playing out in party politics in many different ways. I see it playing out in interest groups having more people active in their organizations than the local party, sometimes. I see it in older elected officials being "out of step" with the activists in their constituencies. I see it playing out in primaries around the country where groups go to war with each other. I see it in our Presidential Primary- where different people can't believe the other groups are backing a different candidate.

None of this is necessarily bad, but it's something to face realistically. When we say the Republican Party is a fractured mess, what we mean is the volunteer activists are at war with some of the money-interests. That's a fairly simple dispute. The Democratic divides are more ideological and more pronounced. I'm not sure it's avoidable, but it's something to acknowledge.