for Democratic Reps from more conservative areas the parties are in two completely different places sociologically.
The Democratic coalition represents different groups with broadly overlapping interests. People who are primarily motivated by environmental concerns have overlapping areas of interests with Democrats who are primarily motivated by equality, reduction of military budgets, those for economic justice.
Republicans, on the other hand, is a coalition of disparate groups that don't overlap and they don't like each other. You have CEO/Establishment/Old Money Republicans who can't stand Evangelicals, and both of those groups are in opposition with the Tea Party/John Birch group.
Without a strong leader, like Ronald Reagan, these groups grow in antagonism. George Bush looked like he could maintain the coalition, but it was with duck tape. It turns out that none of the groups (except the defense Hawk Republicans) were that fond of him. When he appointed Cheney he created a vacuum for succession and set the stage for a civil war. When McCain won the nomination and picked Palin it continued. Romney was obviously not a unifying figure. It turns out that RR was something of a freak and they are going to be unable to create a new one.
The Republicans are locked into a permanent civil war. It is like Syria, neither side will be able to get enough leverage. One side will become dissatisfied and just stop showing up. We are already seeing that happening. Tea Party is a shadow of what is was before. We have high roller Republican donors to Romney contributing to the Democratic candidate for Senate in GA.
As Democrats we disagree with each other. That is because we believe in ideas and it is something like a dialectic as we go through the process. The clearest example of this is the discussion on equality. Six years ago most Democrats supported civil unions as an acceptable alternative. We talked. Some of the talk was angry. It was all healthy. Other people's anger helped me see more clearly that it was clearly an issue of civil equality. Now we have consensus.
That is why the bruising discussions we have here at DU are completely unlike what happens in FR. We continue to build positions of relative consensus and it makes us stronger. Anyone who takes too antagonistic position against the dialectic is not going to carry the argument, and is not going to carry the party.
For that reason I don't think we have to worry about taking a lesson from the Republican infighting. They should take a lesson from us, but have you ever tried to tell a Republican anything. Our rigorous love of ideas and 'fighting it out' makes us stronger and better, fortunately for us the Republicans are not even in the same universe when it comes to inter-party debate.
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