In this, the Crooked Media hosts have lots of allies — virtually the entirety of the Democrats allied activists and interest group organizations are demanding a hard line. This basic dynamic — outside media and activist groups driving members of Congress to use the continued functioning of the federal government as leverage — is exactly what Democrats condemned the Republican Party for in the Obama years. [...]
At the base of Grossmann and Hopkins’s book was reams of data showing that the Democratic Party was a more fractious coalition of interest groups that were primarily interested in policy concessions — as such, they took a more transactional approach to politics, prizing strategies that would get them a deal and accomplish their policy goals.
Republicans, by contrast, were a more homogenous coalition that cared deeply about conservative principles — as such, they took a more ideological approach to politics, prizing strategies that demonstrated philosophical purity and the performative pursuit of their side’s ideals. [...]
Today, Grossmann thinks the Democratic Party is changing. “There is a direct attempt to copy Republicans tactically, particularly in terms of activism and online media trying to hold leaders’ feet to the fire,” he says. But those changes are in service of the Democratic Party’s traditional constituencies and ends: There is a policy outcome of paramount importance to one of the party’s key interest groups, and they’re willing to compromise to get it done.
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