Tribal vexations: what's wrong with those people?

Why Democrats Are So Bad at Defending Democracy That's a headline on a David Brooks column from January 6. I don't know whether I can blame Brooks for the headline, but I sure recognize the sentiment it expresses. This is a concise statement of what Never-Trumpers and other right leaning refugees from the Republican Party ask all the time -- they observe something about how Democrats in positions of elected power act which they find unfathomable. I spend a lot of time reading these folks (for example) because I really believe that, faced with racist fascism, we need to inhabit the biggest tent possible to have a chance.

But I remain bemused by the question. The answer seems obvious to me.

Pure preening time-servers aside, Democrats seek elected power in our democracy because there are policies they want to see enacted that make improvements in how people live. They care about the intricacies of providing health care, child care, education, infrastructure, public health and so much more. They want to change how the country uses its wealth in order to curb climate crisis. Democrats always appear "in disarray" to outsiders because they disagree about priorities and program details. There's lots of scope for argument. But they seek elected office primarily because they want to make changes for the common good.

Pure lazy time-servers aside, Republicans seek elected power in order to have power. The present iteration of the party literally has no policy platform (Trump dispensed with such an antique artifact in 2020). They have a few limited policy instincts: govern as little as possible and provide tax cuts to the wealthy. They do usually want to ensure security for themselves, their base, and to some extent the nation (though they can seem remarkably stupid about where security comes from, but that's another subject.) Since they seek elected office primarily in order to have power, they are often smart about getting and keeping power. That's what they do. No wonder they often think Dems merely incompetent.

Democrats are fortunate to have members who care about power because, for them, access to some power is a matter of survival: people of color, queers, immigrants, and other marginalized constituencies. So much of the energy of Democratic Party politics comes from the margins ... Ex-Republicans have a hard time seeing this too.

If the Republic is to survive its current white nationalist discontents, some muddle of all these tribes will have to understand each other a little more and work together, however uncomfortably.