Welcome to the Age of ‘Negative Partisanship’

“We are living in an era of what political scientists describe as ‘strong partisanship and weak parties’ — or, alternatively, as ‘negative partisanship.’ The electorate is polarized into opposing camps, but their emotional impetus is driven by hostility to the other party rather than trust in their own. … The Republican Party’s solution to this predicament has been to fashion itself as a cult of personality devoted to Donald Trump. The Democratic Party’s solution has been a series of technocratic fixes intended to increase its own legitimacy. But the Iowa caucus is the latest indication that the effort is collapsing.”

Jonathan Chait

The Iowa Caucases Are Dead

“This fiasco means the end of the caucuses as a significant American political event. The rest of the country was already losing patience with Iowa anyway and this cooks Iowa’s goose. Frankly, it should, The real winner tonight was Donald Trump, who got to watch his opponents wallow in a mess. A lot of good Democratic candidates and people who fought their hearts out here for … nothing.”

— David Yepsen quoted by Politico

Maybe There Is a Democratic Backlash Against Dems Who Voted Against Gun Control

So I’ll have some advice for my friends in Chicago, New York and Los Angeles: Just say no to the Democrats who said no on background checks.

— Former Obama White House Chief of Staff Bill Daley (D), writing in the Washington Post, about how Sen. Heidi Heitkamp (D-ND) “betrayed me on gun control.”