Wrong. The Republican party IS a political party whereas the Democratic party is not. Mitch McConnell has achieved the formation of a largely ideologically coherent right wing party. You can tell they are a functioning party because they actually fight with all the tools at their disposal to achieve their policy goals, which are largely in line with the goals of their base. The Democratic party has no ideological coherency, hence the completely intractable infighting. It is there to vacuum up votes from a) minorities that are essentially held hostage and even actively legislated against by the Democratic leadership while in power, and b) whites whose reasons for not voting Republican form a wide spectrum of conflicting viewpoints. That is not a coherent political party.
I actually agree with you here about power, but being able to wield power effectively does not make them a party, it makes them more of a cult. Cults can still wield effective power over their acolytes.
Pelosi is the only high ranking Democrat in the party that comes close to wielding power and influence like Mitch McConnell has, she's the only one who can build a caucus like McConnell does in the senate, and she's the only one whose willing to go nuclear in a political battle.
Otherwise I completely disagree that the Democratic party has no ideological coherency
especially if we're contrasting them to their opponents, the GOP. Like, it's unfathomably false to draw a comparison to the Democratic Party and the Republican Party and say that the one of them that has ideological coherency is the GOP, and not the Democratic party. The GOP doesn't have a party platform in 2020. They stand for nothing but Trumpism, which isn't conservatism. We have this nominal idea that the Republican party represents conservative values, or something, but it doesn't. The GOP is a radical cult, not a conservative ideological party. There is no ideological coherency to the GOP at all, they stand for nothing and the causes they promote tend to be the opposite of the policy that their voters want them to achieve.
Low taxes? Nope. Trump unilaterally passed one of the biggest tax increases of any president in the last 50 years, he just calls them "Tariffs." Tariffs on Mexico are
actually taxes on American consumers. Tariffs on China are
actually taxes on American consumers. Tariffs are taxes.
Law and Order? Nope. Trump acts extra-judiciously, he doesn't follow the law or the constitution. The Constitution is the highest legally binding document that we have in our system of government, it's the law with which all other laws in our system get their legitimacy. Trump, and his party, have no use for the constitution. For them, it's less than a handshake agreement.
Religious liberty? Nope. Trump wants to prevent people from migrating to this country based exclusively on their religion.
Freedom of speech? Nope. Trump sends shock troops into cities and towns to arrest people and detain people who are within their legal writes, established by the first amendment. Trump signs executive orders that try to control the type of speech that's allowed on social media platforms.
Freedom of the press? Nope. Trump wants to make it possible for him to sue and jail journalists who write critical articles about him.
Freedom to petition ... Freedom to assemble. Go down the list of our constitutional rights, Trump and the GOP have no interest in recognizing any of them. A political party cannot be the party of "Law and Order" if you don't recognize the legitimacy of our highest law.
Jobs and the economy? Nope. Trump is the worst president for jobs in American history, since the Dept. of Labor has kept track.
Small government? Hardly. There is nothing small about federal shock troops being sent into cities to fire grenades and projectiles on American citizens. That's like, the biggest expression of
large government that you can have.
Foreign policy? There is no coherency to the Republican party on foreign policy, at all, none. The GOP is completely at odds with the president that they swear to defend at all costs on all of our foreign policy decisions over the last 4 years. Trump has no foreign policy either, his policy boils down to aiding countries and leaders who he thinks aids him personally, and spurning countries and leaders who he thinks can't personally benefit him. Which, incidentally, is why Trump cozies up to dictators and authoritarians. No sane government of the people would ever want to help Donald Trump personally enrich himself and his company, but dictators in Russia, North Korea, Turkey, Brazil, Hungary, and elsewhere, would love to help him do that because they can see how it can help them. Consider that in 2012, the GOP nominee ran on the idea that the US had to be tougher on Putin and Russia; it was Romney's cudgle that he used against Obama successfully, enough that Obama had to come out and say "Mitt, the cold war is over, the 80s calls and they want their foreign policy back." WIthin just a few years the GOP had abandoned that foreign policy position for one of aquiescing for and making excuses for Putin and Russia, while the Republican president of the United States is their biggest global cheerleader.
States rights? Hardly. Republicans acquiese to Trump trampling states rights whenever a state determines something that they don't like. States take in refugees from war zones? Trump sends in federal shock troops, threatens to cut funding. States teach a historically accurate representation of American history? Trump threatens to cut their education funding. And Republicans in government, who supposedly claim to believe in the ideology of states' rights, sit back and nod in agreement.
There is no ideological platform of the Republican party, both in practice -- they literally have no party platform in 2020, like they did not submit a platform at their convention this year -- and in essence, they don't pursue any cogent ideology.
There are two issues that GOP politicians are fairly consistent on. Guns and abortion. But guns and abortion aren't ... a political platform. They're two issues, and they're two issues that the GOP has basically flipped on over the last 50 years. They also happen to be two issues that are most at odds with the American people. Most Americans, by a large majority, feel that a woman should be able to get an abortion in America. Most Americans, by a large majority, feel that there should be common sense gun control. The GOP politicians who shape the party's ideology on abortion and guns shape a policy that is antithetical to these positions. And also it's worth noting that like, these two issues -- guns and abortion -- seem like they should be mutually exclusive to one another. If you believe in an essential right to life, that all life is so precious that it supersedes the rights of women to control their own bodies, then how under God's heaven does it make any sense that all Americans also have an essential right to wield weapons whose primary purpose is to destroy life? That doesn't make any ideological sense, it's not coherent or consistent. The two issues that the Republican party is fairly consistent on -- top to bottom, local to federal -- happens to be two issues that should be mutually exclusive to one another.
Don't mistake power with ideology. Mitch McConnell is brilliant in his grasp of power. He wields the senate better than any politician since Lyndon Johnson, and probably better than any politician ever ... at least back to like 1860. This is something that the Democratic party lacks, especially in the senate. A problem with Democrats in the senate is that most influential Democratic senators treat the senate as a launching point for their presidential run. The overwhelming majority of Democratic presidential and vice presidential candidates since 1952 came from the senate. Today this has left a power vaccuum in the Democratic senate leadership and it's filled with nice-enough Democrats but none of them are willing to truly grasp power and use it effectively because they're all worried about how that's going to hurt them for their future presidential run. The lone exceptions here? The milquetoast leadership at the top of Democratic senate caucus -- Chuck Schumer, Patty Murray, Debbie Stabenow, and Dick Durbin. None of them grasp and maintain power like how McConnell does, and the Senators who seem to be willing to really work politics -- Liz Warren or Amy Klobuchar for instance? They don't see the senate as their highest achievable office.
To be an effective senate leader, you need to be from a state that's going to re-elect you every 6 years, that won't primary you, and you need to not be interested in higher office. You need to be willing to be the least popular politician in America. Mitch McConnell is one of the least liked politicians in America, but he doesn't get primaried and most Democrats don't stand a chance against him. Schumer fits the bill for generally not getting primaried and being in a safe state, and he has no aspirations for higher office -- the senate is his ceiling -- but he just lacks the ... guts ... to be a ruthless senate leader like McConnell does.
But don't mistake power for ideology. There is no coherent ideology throughout the Republican party, especially among new, fresh Republicans being elected to government. Republicans today are running for government under the ideological pretext of destroying government. They seem to believe that good government cannot exist, so they're running to destroy government not reform it. That's not a conservative political ideology, it's a radical nihilism.