Live from Bullwinkle Plaza: Looks like Matt Yglesias and Paul Krugman nailed it a year ago, doesn't it?
(2014): Disciplined Democrats: "Matt Yglesias pushes back against claims, by Ross Douthat among others...
...that the Democratic Party is a fragile coalition held together only by Hillary Clinton’s personal popularity.
He’s right; I’d... like to add... policy unity has been helped by the fact that Obama has had a moderate degree of success in achieving these goals. If he had had an easy time, the party might be divided between those wanting more radical action and those not in a hurry; if he had failed utterly, the party might be divided (as it was for much of the past three decades) between a liberal faction and a Republican-lite faction. As it is... Obama has managed to achieve a lot of what Democrats have sought for generations, but only with great difficulty.... [Thus] 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. The Wall Street tantrum... also... helps.... Bankers... have thrown their support to Republicans, whining all the way that Obama is looking at them funny; this has reduced their influence... leaving a workable consensus about regulation and tax policy.... Do personalities matter in all this? Not so much....
It’s the Republicans who desperately need a hero. In retrospect, they needed W much more than they realized: he combined policy fealty to the plutocrats with a personal manner that appealed to the base.... Stuff happens; a recession in 2016 could sweep a Republican, any Republican, into the White House. But the Democratic coalition isn’t fragile, while the Republican coalition is.
: 7 Reasons the Democratic Coalition Is More United than Ever: "[Douthat,] I think, is completely wrong...
...The Democratic Party... coalition as a whole is more durable and robust than it's ever been.... If the party faced a major policy divide, someone or other would emerge to champion it.... Today we have the opposite situation... because there is no issue that divides the mass of Democrats.... The 2008 Democratic Primary was, among other things, a major argument about foreign policy.... Crucially, both sides of the argument agreed that an argument was taking place.... That Clinton ended up serving as Obama's Secretary of State makes this look a bit ridiculous in retrospect. But it seemed very important at the time.
Many intellectuals who care passionately about regulation of the financial services industry would like to believe the Democratic Party is deeply divided between a bankster-friendly establishment and its populist critics.
There is something to this, but really much less than the proponents of schism-ism think.... The allegedly bank-friendly faction of the party doesn't accept this.... They see themselves as having shepherded a massive bank regulation bill through congress, and as constantly fighting on multiple fronts... to get tougher on the banks. And the financial services industry agrees!... [And] everyone agrees on inequality....
For an example of the kind of issue that does divide the Democratic Party, look no further than K-12 education... with one faction pulling one way and another faction pulling the other way.... [But] it's not an important federal issue. Not because education isn't important, but because the federal government plays a relatively modest role.... The education divide can be quite explosive and state and local politics... but it just isn't important enough on the federal stage....
The much greater demographic diversity of the Democratic Party coalition may give it an illusion of fragility.... [But] what you would expect to see from a party torn apart by demographics is elected officials who put together very different voting records. But even though Jerry Nadler (Greenwich Village and the Upper West Side), Peter Welch (in Vermont), and Maxine Waters (South LA) represent very different people they vote in very similar ways.... Rustbelt legislators back Obama's EPA regulations, and comprehensive immigration reform was unanimously endorsed by Democratic Party Senators. American politics is becoming more ideological, and the Democratic coalition is increasingly an ideological coalition that happens to be diverse...
