Politics is about identity

Progressives may not be in charge of the Democratic Party, but they have branded it

The first principle of politics is to do no harm. The second is not to marginalize moderates.

Yet in America, both parties have been drifting the poles for decades — first, the Republicans, and recently the Democrats. But as Democrats have come to be defined by their more liberal flank and by their racial progressives, they have done worse electorally with groups they previously thought were a hard lock.

This is not so easy a problem to solve. But the problem is worth stating clearly.

I am thinking about this today because of a slew of recent columns written around the subject of Democrats’ losses with Hispanics last year — and the theory that progressives had something to do with it. Ron Brownstein has a long read in The Atlantic on the subject this week, and the usual subjects over at the Liberal Patriot newsletter are also writing rather hysterically about the problem. According to Ruy Teixeira, who blogs at the site:

Latino voters evinced little sympathy with the more radical demand…