We’re now in the midst of one of these now and again collective Democratic meltdowns, filled with dooming laments, drama, intra-party attacks and insults, rending of clothes, “reckonings” and more. But there’s a fact, little discussed and under-appreciated, that is nestled in these collective freak-outs. This may sound nonsensical or perhaps a semantic point with no real meaning. But it’s foundational to how the Democratic Party functions and why it functions differently and often disappointingly compared to the GOP.
We hear lots of arguments in Democratic politics that the party’s base is its left wing. There’s a certain logic to that. It’s a center-left party so it’s left wing is its base and it’s filled out by more fair-weather voters or less ideological ones. In a sense it’s really their party or they’re the legitimate owners of it as soon as corporate interests and softies and other interlopers can be kicked to the curb. But it’s not. The most obvious reason is that are just too few of them. But they are also very different, sociologically, ideologically, demographically from the rest of the party. This isn’t just a dig on the left. The same applies to white liberals. There are dramatically more of them. But they are still really, really different from much of the rest of the party.
The closest thing the Democratic Party has to a base is Black people. They make up between 20 to 25% of its voters. Their attachment to the party is consistent, intergenerational, communal and deeply embedded in historic strategies of communal self-protection going back well over a century. But a quarter of the party’s voters is still not that large. And even more important the Black community is still very different from the rest of the Democratic Party — demographically, ideologically, religiously and combining these all together just in terms of historical and present-day lived experience.
To pick just one of potentially countless examples, white liberals are among the least churched people in American society. Black people are among the most churched. And they are key pillars of the same party.
One can also argue that the modern Democratic Party is a basically female party. Its voters are disproportionately female. Its mores, iconography, ideas about power, aggression, empathy are increasingly gendered, whereas the GOP is increasingly organized around a kind of hyper-masculinity, or, less generously, rapists. But again, this can’t be a party base since a huge minority of women consistently vote Republican. And the partisan split is heavily dependent on race, religiosity and marriage.
To the extent that anything unites these groups it is that they, as groups, at least historically, are mostly outside the country’s core centers of power.
Why does this matter? Certainly every party or large societal group has various factions and pressure groups. It matters because lots of groups have the sense that the Democratic Party is fundamentally theirs or that they should have some pride of place in its direction. But in a purely descriptive sense this is simply not true. And that leads to what we might call chronic discourses of betrayal running through all its factional struggles. We’re seeing one of those now, unfolding in multiple directions.
It’s also why the party’s leadership seems chronically weak.
I’m here banging the drum endlessly about how the top leadership of the Democratic Party needs to be persuaded and reshaped into embodying more “fight.” I believe that as much as I believe anything. But we can believe that while recognizing that this chronic weakness isn’t an accident or just the product of the poor character of particular leaders. Because the party is a coalition party (and that’s not just a throwaway phrase), it’s inherently fractious and hard to hold together. Because, as we noted above, it’s made up of these very different groups. If you move decisively in one direction there’s a good chance you’ll lose one of them. So that makes you very cautious. Very focused on not upsetting the apple cart.
It’s often a cliche that the Democratic Party is a coalition party, or it used to be. But there’s not a lot of unpacking about what that means.
How is this different from the GOP? They have factions, right?
It’s actually quite different. The GOP is made up of white, conservative, Christians. Increasingly, it is made up disproportionately of men. Of course, there are non-whites and non-Christians. There are lots of Republican women. So you might be a Republican and not be white or Christian but you know (or should know) that you’re living in the white, conservative, Christian house. That may work for you. It probably does or you wouldn’t be a Republican. White, conservative Christians call the shots. You know that. There’s lots of talk about factions in the GOP — today, MAGA, Carlsonites, Wall Streeters and Silicon Valley. Half a century ago it was “fusionism” — pulling together traditionalists, laissez capitalists and foreign policy hawks. But there was far less attention to the fact that these purported factions were different ideological flavors, areas of interest of white, conservative Christians.
The GOP base is also big, more than big enough to call the shots in internecine battles and, critically, is demographically, culturally, and racial similar to the rest of the party. So they are a sine qua non of anything the party might want to do. And when they say how things have to be, the rest of the party tends to follow because they’re fairly similar to them. When Republican leaders are more instinctively obstructionist, happier to take hostages, happier to kick ass, this is a big part of the reason why. It’s simply an easier party to manage. Not easy, I’m sure they’d agree. But easier.
What does this all mean? It means there’s a reason the Democratic Party is difficult to lead. It’s fractious. That breeds a timidity among its leaders and you have to at least understand the roots of that timidity if you’re going to try to change or ameliorate it. It also means most of the folks who insist they’re the base of the Democratic Party simply are not, not in a meaningful functional sense. It’s a coalition of really, really different kinds of people.