It is called the United States of America for a reason, and that never used to be a problem for the Democratic Party. That party used to win the Senate and the Electoral College. They are not the problem. It is.
The Republican Party still allows at every level that full range of social and cultural views which now rarely presents itself above local or state level across the aisle. Donald Trump himself is a donor to Planned Parenthood who supported same-sex marriage before Barack Obama or the Clintons did.
Republican Senators voted to confirm Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court after he had promised Susan Collins that he would uphold Roe v. Wade, Doe v. Bolton, and Obergefell v. Hodges.
Thus did they secure a Justice with the most egregious record on torture, Guantánamo Bay, mass surveillance, workers' rights, consumer protection, environmental responsibility, treaties with Native Americans, and healthcare for people with pre-existing conditions.
Republican Senators voted to confirm Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court after he had promised Susan Collins that he would uphold Roe v. Wade, Doe v. Bolton, and Obergefell v. Hodges.
Thus did they secure a Justice with the most egregious record on torture, Guantánamo Bay, mass surveillance, workers' rights, consumer protection, environmental responsibility, treaties with Native Americans, and healthcare for people with pre-existing conditions.
On any one of those issues, Kavanaugh could have been blocked. But the other side chose to make it about #MeToo instead. The confirmation of Kavanaugh will be the only lasting legacy of the #MeToo phenomenon.
Whatever individual members' social and cultural views, the Democratic Party needs to return to its historically normative and electorally dominant definition of itself as united by the economic policies that united Americans, rather by any social or cultural policies that divided them.
But until it does that, then it will be doomed to win the House but not the Senate, to win the popular vote but not the Presidency, and to have no intellectual or political resources with which to block Supreme Court and other nominees with even the most horrendous records on issues such as torture, Guantánamo Bay, mass surveillance, workers' rights, consumer protection, environmental responsibility, treaties with Native Americans, and healthcare for people with pre-existing conditions.
Whatever individual members' social and cultural views, the Democratic Party needs to return to its historically normative and electorally dominant definition of itself as united by the economic policies that united Americans, rather by any social or cultural policies that divided them.
But until it does that, then it will be doomed to win the House but not the Senate, to win the popular vote but not the Presidency, and to have no intellectual or political resources with which to block Supreme Court and other nominees with even the most horrendous records on issues such as torture, Guantánamo Bay, mass surveillance, workers' rights, consumer protection, environmental responsibility, treaties with Native Americans, and healthcare for people with pre-existing conditions.
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