Why Democrats Need a Stronger Republican Party

Catherine Rampell: “The end of a principled, intellectually coherent, organizationally robust center-right party is bad for democracy. It’s also bad for Democrats, given some of the dumb ideas flourishing on the left that desperately need a thoughtful counterweight.”

“But even on priorities on which liberals are likely to make progress, the lack of an honest, articulate, respected adversary is troubling. That’s because liberals need a worthy intellectual rival to sharpen their thinking and keep their own bad ideas in check. Right now a number of bad ideas booming on the left need a credible, coherent, megaphoned rebuttal. These are ideas that may sound nice and perhaps appear helpful. But pursuing many of them would be, at best, irrelevant and ineffective, a waste of time and resources; at worst, they would be actively harmful to the marginalized groups that bleeding-heart liberals claim to champion.”

Noam Bramson: Work to beat the Republican party on November 8 and to save it starting November 9.