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As a progressive-minded person who prizes thinkers over ideologues, I never identify as liberal, not only because I find the Left’s moralizing off-putting and doctrinaire, but because it is politically ineffective. Assuming they occupy the moral high ground leads people into the cul-de-sac of smug political futility. It is no surprise that adherence to a tribal self-righteousness does not translate into winning elections. The result of this fecklessness is relegation to the political wilderness, the place where there is little or no opportunity to influence public policy. These days, the Democratic Party is lost in that wilderness.

Arguably, the Right is more rigidly ideological in its policy formulations (eg. less regulation, lower taxes, a smaller safety net), but has still managed to dominate electoral politics. A variety of factors contribute to this success, but the Republican Party’s knack for crafting simple messages to market their candidates is key. Donald Trump’s  “Make America Great Again” slogan is the pluperfect example. Just as religion offers salvation, the vague promise of #MAGA (Which means what, exactly?) held out the potential of better times to a disgruntled demographic.

As a college student in the 60's, I recall incidents involving anti-war protestors being physically attacked by construction workers in New York City. It was the “hard hats versus the hippies”. What struck me was that both groups- the peaceniks and organized labor- were ostensibly on the political Left. But there was a difference: The protesters felt they had moral high ground in opposing the war. Their ire was directed at the Establishment, the military-industrial complex Eisenhower warned of. They avoided military service- it was the time of “Hell no, we won’t go”. On the other side, the, construction workers, many of whom were probably veterans of World War II or Korea, or, at the very least, had clear memories of those conflicts, regarded the protestors as unpatriotic. It was in those days of social turmoil that I realized that, to change the Establishment, you must capture it. I was reminded of Bismarck’s definitive statement on political pragmatism: "Politics is the art of the possible." You cannot make policy if you're not in office. Protest marches may be effective at raising awareness, but the real work of amelioration begins with public policy. The Rosato Formula of Political Influence: One voter equals a minimum of ten protest marchers.

As the members of the Democratic coalition bicker among themselves, attempting to develop a unifying message as a way out the woods, they might engage in some serious self-examination. Or they may take suggestions from outside the organization on how to broaden their appeal. Several such critiques focus on the Party’s emphasis on cultural issues and diversity- so-called “identity politics”; others point to various cultural issues. Journalist Josh Barro discussed the latter recently in an article at the Business Insider site.

" As I see it, Democrats' problem isn't that they're on the wrong side of policy issues. It's that they're too ready to bother too many ordinary people about too many of their personal choices… Why would the voters on the receiving end of that smug condescension trust such a movement to operate the government in their best interest?  The nice thing... is that Democrats can fix it without moving substantially on policy. They just have to become less annoying.”

A more direct rebuke of the Democratic Party’s identity politics comes from Mark Lilla, a Columbia University professor, in his just-released book, “The Once and Future Liberal”.  As Lilla stated in an interview with Vox’s Sean Illing,

“If there's one message I want to get across in the book, it's that you cannot help anyone if you don't hold power. To hold power in a democratic system means winning elections, and in a federal system like ours, it means winning elections everywhere geographically. It's a fantasy to think that we can retreat to our base, hold the two coasts, and somehow hope for the best.”

Illa’s argument is linear: Ronald Reagan offered a vision of society as a collection of individuals and groups, with government as a problem, an obstruction. Illa felt that the Left, rather than offering a vision of America where we “stick together… to help each other and build something together”, took the bait and began “talking about groups”. Ignoring electoral politics, the Democrats shifted their emphasis to movement politics. Pressed by interviewer Illing about the GOP’s effective use of its own appeals to groups, Illa points out:

“It works for them. It doesn't work for us. It's that simple. It's killing us. The task isn't to deliver a moral judgment on whether appealing to identity is a good or bad thing. We're talking about trying to seize power in this country.”

This advice is reaffirmed in the Twitter world by observers as politically diverse as MSNBC’s Joy Reid and GOP strategist Rick Wilson. Reid is prone to answer complaining tweets with the admonition to “register people and vote.” Wilson, an experienced campaign operative, advises Democrats to run attractive candidates (meaning, in Wilson-speak, more centrist), to avoid issues such as gun control on the campaign trail; and to concentrate on economic policy.

To the purists on the Left, this is blasphemy. How can we ignore minorities, women, the poor?  To which, I remind them that politics is mainly bait-and-switch. Win the election, then push for the policies you believe in.

Ideology gets in the way… If you let it.