Six months after President Trump breached long-standing political boundaries to win the White House, the nation’s major political parties still muddle in his wake.
On the sun-swept lawn of the Hotel del Coronado two weeks ago, national Republican leaders sipped cocktails and listened to San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer, one of the party’s brightest lights in the most populous state, praise a brand of moderate Republicanism that looks nothing like the versions coming out of Washington — either the populism of the president or the more orthodox conservatism of congressional leaders.
A week later, Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom Perez talked in a Sacramento interview of the “remarkably constructive” debate under way in his party, characterizing its divisions as largely in the past. Within hours, he and other party leaders were booed as they welcomed delegates to a state convention that would be filled with persistent internal warfare on healthcare and other issues.
No political party is immune to disagreement; indeed the path to power often relies on combustible ideological diversity. But Democrats and Republicans alike seem particularly adrift and quarrelsome these days.
Part of the reason is the magnetic power of Trump, who has attracted Republicans and repelled Democrats with such force that the parties often seem to be defined solely in relation to him, for or against. That has left both parties’ images blurry rather than sharp.
Source: LA Times
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