I have come to realize that PUMAs are our party's tea-partiers

[MisterP]

1. the emptying-out of politics always generate personality-cult politics

when a party tries to mimic another in policy and structure, it has to distinguish itself by other ways, typically vitriolic rhetoric--all the more vicious for its emptiness

when a party loses 11 Governors, 13 Senators, 69 Reps, 913 state seats in 7 years by having nothing to offer, it has to blame the voters

when people say the openly accept any reversal, any lie, any policy from candidate N "because s/he's N" the evacuation of the party is complete, there's nothing left but machine politics (without the clientelism for voters, just donors)

all this generates a party run by bullies, swaggering off their borrowed power