Why are Democrats better at party discipline than Republicans?
Commenter “physicsguy” writes:
The Dems have moved so far left, and now regard party loyalty far above the basic concerns of the country. It’s even penetrated down to the local level (at least in CT), where party loyalty and adherence to the leftist ideology trumps all other concerns in their political decision making. The rigid party discipline that the Dems seem to impose and is accepted, is really astonishing to me. While the GOP is more like the Dems of 40 years ago, they do differ in the level of party adherence and discipline.
Where are the Scoop Jackson’s and JFK’s? They don’t seem to exist anymore.
As physicsguy himself observes, the Democratic Party has moved to the Left. Not that there weren’t always leftists in the party (even secret Communists), but as more leftists took on the Gramscian march through education, media, and the press with great success, more of the public was primed to accept and actually applaud a leftward drift.
The example of what happened to Joe Lieberman—going from VP nominee to outcast in just a few short years—was both emblematic of that switch and a warning to anyone who would dare consider remaining (like Joe had been) a Scoop Jackson-like figure within the party. Don’t ever underestimate the power of power as well as personal ambition to intimidate and change minds in a hurry. Lieberman’s fate was a message telling all who were listening (and all were listening) that this sort of behavior would no longer be tolerated, and if you wanted a political future in the Democratic Party you’d better toe the line.
But there’s more to it than that. I have noticed that Republicans and especially conservatives are far more concerned with means (as opposed to mere ends) than liberals and leftists are. Leftists in particular consider that rules were made to be used to advantage if possible, but bent or evaded or redefined or broken if not. The real point is the end point, the point of it all (in addition to self-aggrandizement and power itself, of course).
For conservatives and even quite a few middling Republicans, means are, if not as important as ends, at least very important, because it is through adherence to those rules that we preserve liberty (especially when we’re not the party in power, as has happened more often than not since the 1930s). Now, there are most definitely Republicans who are mostly into self-promotion and money, and are corrupt in various ways; no doubt about that. But there are also a higher number of people than in the Democratic Party who respect procedure and process as being very very important, and who feel that law and the Constitution are not infinitely elastic things that they can reinterpret in order to achieve certain results.
How does this tie in with party loyalty? If you have a pool of people—in this case, Democrats—who largely believe that rules and the Constitution are not as important as results (and that they are smarter than the opposition as well as morally superior) then presenting a united front in order to get to certain end goals is both important and easy to justify. It helps, too, if you have an example right in front of you of someone who didn’t follow that path and was ostracized and ultimately stripped of power.
If you have a pool of people—in this case, Republicans—at least many of whom believe that rules and the Constitution are more important even than a particular result here and there, then presenting a united front is of little importance, and sticking to principle (or what they see as principle) is more so. And so among Republicans you will always have some who refuse to follow the leader. These people won’t always be principled, not by a longshot. Some will follow the money or some other expediency. But you are likely to have others whose motives for bucking the party are more pure. And the entire thing makes for a much less cohesive party.
Evil is always better disciplined than good. Evil has a single focus – to destroy the good. Good is out there trying to live life. It takes times to realize they are in a war, and then to mobilize and plan. Look at all of our foreign wars. They typically begin disastrously and proceed badly.
This is our first real domestic war (the Civil War was a special case).
Good Americans are only now even contemplating the unbelievable fact that their neighbors and so called fellow citizens are fighting to actually destroy everything they cherish.
The Orcs from Morder – i.e. Democrats – always get the jump. Always. They don’t always win, and even when they do they lose….but they do always get the jump.
They are evil people with nothing else to do that is real, and so they do what they are, and they become more and more what they do.
I think that what you wrote makes sense but it ignores the lefts ideological splits on very minor points (as per the Monty Python sketch discussed here previously). While the left might be less concerned with the process they will split on the end goal (conservatives are not immune to this either). There is evidence of this in the rise of Bernie.
The acid test on party loyalty will be on how Schumer (Chuck; not Amy) votes on this Iran deal.
If a Jewish Dem Senator in a state with a large Jewish population that contributes to his campaign and that suffered a devasting attack on 9-11-01 from Radical Islam doesn’t vote against this deal, then our country is sunk.
Knowing Chuck, Barack and John, they are counting votes to figure out how Schumer can vote against and still get the result Obama wants.
Maybe the plan is to give Schumer the credit when the hostages are released on 9-11-15.
I’m not a cynic; just a realist.
London Trader:
I didn’t mean to imply that the Left is ideologically in complete unity. But this post is to discuss why it is that they usually act as one, especially on any important votes in Congress.
Schumer will pull a Jesse Jackson. Fly into Tehran with Ben Affleck and bring our boys home.
More on the lack of discipline on the left:
http://legalinsurrection.com/2015/07/progressive-racial-fissure-ruptures-at-netroots-nation-nn15blacklivesmatter/
I think the reason is that the Democratic Party is the party of government, that’s what they do for a living. As Axelrod(?) pointed out, there is a professional left from the low level protesters who turn out like clockwork with their union printed signs to the myriad do-gooding NGOs constantly working to get their agendas enacted into either law or regulations. It was and is most blatantly obvoius with the big Democratic city machines that made sure their candidates won so that the bosses and their foot soldiers could enjoy life at the expense of the taxpayer. It takes party unity to achive those results with unity enforced by punishing dissenters who might cause a loss of power.
In what is basically a two party system to represent the great myriad of interests of two hundred million voters it is inconsequential to democracy that there be party disunity. It’s no less the measure of a healthy party than a healthy democracy that differences of opinion in both substance and priority are great. It would suggest little of transformational, i.e., fundamental change is possible as the status quo trumps all schemes to change things, however much the schemes may be cloaked in do-gooder-ism, such as ‘for the children’. This had all pretty much changed some time ago, perhaps, as far as the GOP is concerned, with Nixon. The GOP eventually bought into the Great Society programs, routinely voted to expand them, and took up, if not trying to outdo Democrats, to at least match them. Dubya Bush saw the raise and raised again — No Child Left Behind, and, whatever it was called — the meds for old folks billions.
It is quite evident that the GOP had become a faction of one Party rule — the Slowly, Slowly Catchy Monkey’ faction. It took the likes of Obama to make the GOP once again truly contentious — generally, those who would oppose Obama’s overreach but were otherwise content with GOP compliance with the burgeoning welfare state, and burgeoning administrative leviathan, on the one hand, and on the other, those who not only opposed Obama for his transformationalism, but also opposed the decades long GOP buy-in for a seat at the table and… a turn at shuffling the deck and dealing the cards. I haven’t much doubt who’s going to win. The guys who’d been raking it in playing gin rummy aren’t going to agree to seven card stud. That wouldn’t be prudent. After all they’re the Evil Party not the Stupid one.
Cornhead:
I agree that Schumer will not defy Obama.
Once you equate indiscriminate killing (e.g. elective abortion) and human rights; establish selective exclusion as “equal”-ity; promote class diversity in lieu of individual dignity; there is absolutely no combination of positions, even diametrically opposed, that cannot be reconciled. The Democrats have the advantage.
My own theory is a general kind of Theriomorphism.
Humans mimicking the behavior of either Solitary Predators/Pack hunters vs. Herding Animals (prey/fear based animals).
Think Herding Cats. Not all Republicans/Conservatives (etc.) apply but for the most part, they think like Individuals. With the exception of pack animals, most predators are Individuals. Most decision making outside of reproducing is based on hunting for food.
Whereas, the left side, being primarily Authoritarian and Facsist (though they spend vast amounts of time and treasure trying to project those labels onto their enemies) are Herd Animals. The Herd’s safety comes first. The individual’s needs are inconsequential. Most decision making, outside of eating/reproducing is Fear based. If it’s time to run, it’s time for everyone to run. If it’s time to change direction, you all change direction.
That’s been my theory anyway…
The left is composed of ideologues, who while disparate in the particulars are in agreement that the world must be made better and that, the morality of the means employed is determined by the political correctness of the goal.
Lieberman is my favorite example because I volunteered in his last campaign. But the chameleon Clintons are a better measuring stick of the Dems’ top echelon.
Neo: “the Democratic Party has moved to the Left”
This is a stubborn conception that’s mostly accurate, but the premise is not quite right, which leads to a not quite right interpretation.
You’re not wrong to say the Dems have “moved to the Left”, but that wrongly assumes a greater measure of dominant control by the party in its evolution. The more accurate characterization is the Left’s ‘Gramscian march’ has subsumed the Dems like other social nodes.
The Dems as a competitive entity are not intrinsically better competitors than the GOP. The Dems’ advantage is they are empowered and controlled by the Left.
The Left is greater than the Dems. From within and around the party, the Left performs the purges and twists the levers of control to enforce party discipline.
The difference between the GOP and Dems is stark even at the pre-electoral level on college campuses, including – and especially – the difference between their respective relationships with Left or Right-side campus groups.
The GOP has no such analog with the Right empowering the GOP while enforcing party discipline.
Simply, the activist game is the only social cultural/political game there is. Electoral politics are a lesser included element. That has been true since our nation’s founding by activists.
To focus principally on the electoral GOP/Dems framework perpetuates the disadvantage by eliding the principal activist grounds of competition.
The solution lies not with the GOP, at least not primarily.
The only viable solution is a fully committed Marxist-method Right activist social movement that competes with the Left head-on across the spectrum of social nodes, defeats the Left everywhere, and then vigilantly guards the social cultural/political dominance won in the arena. The contest never ends because real Marxist-method activists never quit.
Thereby, the Right can impose the same party discipline on the GOP that currently gives the Dems their competitive advantage due to the greater Left’s empowerment and control.
It’s not pretty. It’s not preferred. It’s necessary. It’s competition.
Good points by everyone. It is these differences between the Left and Right that make me disagree with frequent commenter Eric’s call for an activist movement by the Right. Ain’t gonna happen, ever. And for quite a few reasons. And, if somehow, it ever began, the media just won’t report on it. Kind of like how they ignore the Right to Life march every January.
Remember the Communist “Party Line”? Remember show trials of “deviationists”? Dems do that, too, though there will be some striking out on their own idee fixe.
Eric: good timing. I was writing before I saw your post.
LondonTrader: “lefts ideological splits”
There’s a difference between Left as ideology or ideologies and Left as competitor. Neo is addressing the latter.
Paul in Boston and GB:
To add to your comments, for the Progs politics is personal, it consumes their lives and pretty well defines the meaning of their lives. And oftentimes hypocrites.
My own brother is a perfect example. He is a somewhat prominent Leftist. His claim to “fame” is his decade long campaign to “defund” conservative talk radio; Rush Limbaugh in particular. He thinks he has been successful. He and his #StopRush gang pester and hound advertisers and try to blackmail them into stop advertising on the show.
He was bragging about it just last week on his blog. I nearly wrote a comment to the effect that the First Amendment is a core American liberty; deeply ingrained in our history. Compare SSM.
He also rails against Big Banks. His wife works for a Big Bank.
So we were together after our mother’s funeral and my brother or his wife recall some family holiday dinner where my Mom allegedly said something vaguely racist. Or they thought it was racist.
I was totally mortified. I nearly told them STFU. For once, I held my mouth.
What is wrong with these people? They never stop. All politics all the time.
And a cousin of my Mom’s flew a great distance for the funeral and he was talking to my sister about my mom’s cousin and his words were,”I will put Obama up against anyone.” I regret I didn’t call the cousin to apologize for my brother.
Insane.
Months later and our uncle is trying to beat us out of some money on some real estate and we had a big conference call. I had spent hours with the title company trying to solve the problem. I actually had drafted a complicated lawsuit as a Plan B. And to hear him talk in a non-political way I could only conclude he is delusional.
I got all of our money for my siblings. Zero cost to them.
Rush found out about the Stop Rush gang: a group of about a dozen hard Leftists who use algorithms online to send thousands of fake “protests” to the advertisers.
Good for him.
I hate lynch mobs.
@ Paul: “I think the reason is that the Democratic Party is the party of government, that’s what they do for a living.”
There is no materiel difference between your statement and saying that they are fascist pigs or communist tyrants or Sharia totalitarians.
None.
Mike, I can’t agree with you more on your original points, the Left has been taken over by their ideological pole. Meaning the are totaltarians and that is evil.
Beth, 11:21 pm — “[T]he Left has been taken over by their ideological pole. Meaning the are totaltarians and that is evil.”
. . . and as usual, they project. They swear that the Republican side is in the pocket of the rightest of the right, that they (Republicans) dance to the right’s tune, and that they (Republicans) do whatever the right tells them to do. We here (speaking for most of us, anyway) know better. A lot better.
Can’t help but observe that over on the Democrat/Socialist side, they know full well how the extreme left is calling the major shots, and they naturally figure it’s what’s happening, mirror-image, on the Republican side. They really do believe it — while at the same time, denying vociferously that they’re not leftist/socialist, just ordinary mom-‘n’-apple-pie Americans innocently trying to lend a helping hand.
Ri-i-i-i-i-ight.
Why was Jim Jones better at disciplining his children and followers than some absent at home father? Shrugs, same issue.
I got all of our money for my siblings. Zero cost to them.
They’ll sell you out as soon as their God Emperor Hussein orders them to, zero cost for them.
Is the left really more “disciplined”? Or is it that their quarrels are not highlighted and mocked by the MFM the way those on the right are? The MFM is still my silver bullet.
The Demoncrat party, of demons, have had this kind of unity since 1850, even before the US Civil War happened.
How do they gain that much obedience from their serfs and slaves? Well, you just have to look at how holds the reigns of power in their society.
The MFM existed in the Deep South circa 19th century?
agree; but there is also the problem of social pressure.
The left can make you feel like racist for not supporting their policies… or like tea party or religious right are really nuts and extreme… so you want to distance from them…
so its easy to divide up republicans, conservatives, and libertarians. They buy some of these messages even though they’re sent from their adversaries.
The dems on other hand; they won’t talk or think about any possible negative messages about their side. Fox news isn’t real news man.
“The Demoncrat party, of demons, have had this kind of unity since 1850, even before the US Civil War happened.”
False. Three examples off the top of my head:
1860 – Lincoln is elected as the first Republican President in part due to the Democrats splitting into Northern and Southern factions on the eve of the Civil War (Douglas and Breckenridge). Republicans hold the presidency for all but 16 of the next 72 years.
1948 – Not one but two major Democrat candidates run in the general election to oppose the party’s nominee President Truman – Henry Wallace and Strom Thurmond. Truman manages to win in spite of this.
1968 – A violent and divisive Democrat convention, with bloody riots in the streets and seated delegates shouting down convention speakers, leaves a bad taste that contributes to Republican wins in 5 of the next 6 Presidential elections.
These are political disputes, just like Hussein smashing Hillary or Palmer. They mean nothing when war unites them.