Divided Parties Lose Elections

Gerard Baker: “Joe Biden will shortly announce his candidacy for the Democratic nomination. Despite his age, his evident cognitive decline and the risk of an accident that results in President Kamala Harris, and even if by this time next year the U.S. economy is mired in recession, he will be re-nominated by acclamation. This will be no 1968 or 1976 for the incumbent.”

“The Republicans meanwhile, are about to embark on yet another orgy of self-mutilation, one that may make last week’s Grand Guignol in the House look positively amicable.”

“Republicans need to get a grip—and fast—or they, and we, are going to lose the ability to halt this country’s march to the left for a decade or more. The lessons of history couldn’t be clearer. Divided parties lose elections. Parties that indulge their most unrepresentative dogmatists alienate the rest. Parties that put ideological purity over governing become neither ideologically pure nor any longer in government.”