It’s become almost a commonplace in recent years, and especially in the last four months, that the divisions among Democrats are less progressives vs “centrists” or liberals than one between institutitonalists and what we might call Team Fight. There’s a separate issue which is that it needs a lot more elaboration or articulation about just what “centrists” or “moderates” even are. It tends mostly to be an electoral self-definition for the purposes of intra-party dynamics. But let’s leave that topic for another day. So we have the mounting knowledge that the divisions are more Team Fight vs Team No Fight than the more ideological definitions. At the same time though you have non-progressives (see the problem of definitions?) worried that the highly polarized climate of 2025 will “push the party to the left”. (I have my own thoughts on that latter question.) A lot of those came to the fore during the Bernie and AOC barnstorming tour, which I guess is paused at least for the moment. But for “centrists” or non-progressive liberals, if it’s really true that the real issue is Team Fight vs Team Not Fight (and I believe it is) you’ve got to get out there and be doing your own barnstorming tours or find other ways to demonstrate the fight.
This is just obvious. In a period of high polarization and high threat the center of gravity of the party and inevitably the ideological center of gravity of the party will move to those fighting hardest, most successfully, with the fewest apologies.
