How the Democrats Became the Party That Brings Pencils to a Knife Fight

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7. Kick

The Democratic Party is the party that follows the rules, even when no one else does. While Republicans — in the Trump era, especially — may engage in degrading democracy for partisan ends, Democrats insist they are answering a higher call, with fealty above all to principle and procedure. As Michelle Obama famously put it in 2016 at the Democratic National Convention, “When they go low, we go high.”

Political scientists and historians have observed that while the modern Republican Party became more ruthless about defeating its political enemies, breaking whatever norms were required, Democrats effectively stood in place, hoping for a return to bipartisan comity and defending the status quo that their opponents were smashing. The Democrats became the party of procedure.