According to the headlines this week, there's turmoil in the Democratic party. Like that's anything new.
To the surprise of exactly no one, the party managed to in-fight it's way to the loss of at least one, possibly two as of this writing, governor's mansions in this week's off year elections. Good thing this wasn't the mid-term.
There's still a year to be able to look at the American public and say "see what we did for you". But that will require breaking up that circular firing squad they've got going in DC.
Wonder if things had been different if that infrastructure bill the Senate passed in early August had gotten out of the House? What's the chances we would be talking about lost elections on Wednesday if they hadn't punted one more chance to pass it on Friday?
What the national Democratic party hasn't seemed to figure out is Republicans will vote Republican no matter what, most Democrats, except whichever faction is butt hurt on that day, will vote Democrat if they show up, but independents will only show up for you and vote if they see you getting something done.
And independents control most election results in the country today.
We should get an idea if the turmoil in the party is escalating or just a snapshot of business as usual soon. My hope is the elected Democrats in Washington put down their pea shooters and get the infrastructure and spending bills on Uncle Joe's desk in the next couple of weeks.
Of course, if you look at things from a different angle, one might see the issue. I'm thinking Elizabeth Warren and Joe Manchin don't frequent the same restaurants. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Jim Clyburn probably don't share Spotify playlists. Even Joe and Kamala share about nothing in common.
Except political party.
Imagine trying to get fifty random people in a room and convincing them to agree 100% on some kind of legislation. Your only hope of passing legislation is if all of them agree. Not 75%, not 90%, not even all of them but one. It's all or nothing.
And that's the thing. If you put 10 elected Republicans in a room and asked them ten questions, you'd get 10 copies of the same 10 answers. There's not an original idea in the bunch.
Put 10 Democrats in a room and ask them 10 questions and you'd get multiple answers for ten questions and maybe a fight on your hands. Democrats are as varied as the American landscape.
I'm not a fan of the Democratic party. I'm not a fan of the Republican party. Political parties are corrupt corporations with no redeeming values, in my humble opinion. If any entity should be taxed to the fullest, it is certainly them.
But never let it be said that the Democratic party of 2021 doesn't reflect the true America. We've always been diverse. We've always fought amongs ourselves. We've always reflected the interests of our locales in national debates. And we've always pulled together in crises to make sure we could go back to arguing about it tomorrow.
Face it folks. Democrats are us, whether you like it or not.