Democrats: Do you support forcibly removing Manchin from the democratic caucus?

[Antonio the Sixth]

No, just primary him in 2018.

[Antonio the Sixth]

I think you're all missing the bigger picture. Yes, it's pretty likely that enforcing party discipline the way Republicans did will cost us seats in the short term, but guess what, Republicans did that, and now they hold majorities in both houses and do basically what they want with it. In the short term, they sacrificed seats they could have easily kept (Chafee, Jeffords, Specter, Castle etc.), but in the long term, this created a chilling effect for current Republicans in Congress, who are terrified of breaking from the party line in any circumstance. And sure, this cost them the Senate in the short term, but eventually you get a wave big enough to regain control. Democrats need to start playing the long game.

[Antonio the Sixth]

No, Republicans have been overtaken by T***p because T***p represents the culmination of everything the GOP has stood for over the past 30 years. Of course strong party discipline will make bad parties worse. But for the same reason, it can make decent parties better (ie parties that actually stand for something instead of being empty shells whose individual members can easily be bought off by this or that lobby).

[Antonio the Sixth]

Almost all countries throughout the Western world have rigid party discipline. And yet only in America do we see parties "going off the deep end". How strange.

[Antonio the Sixth]

I think you're all missing the bigger picture. Yes, it's pretty likely that enforcing party discipline the way Republicans did will cost us seats in the short term, but guess what, Republicans did that, and now they hold majorities in both houses and do basically what they want with it.

I think you're overstating the effects of what the GOP's discipline The party in power tends to do poorly in secondary elections, whether it's midterms, provincial elections, or the European parliament. The GOP was always going to do well in 2010 and 2014, given the maps they faced, the economic situation in 2010, the 2nd term incumbent in 2014 etc. Likewise, the Democrats ought to do very well in 2018.

The question then becomes, how did the GOP (or any party out of power) relative to expectations? The effects of discipline and the Tea Party are far more ambiguous when viewed through this framework. In the House, it looks quite effective. In the Senate, not so much. Betsy DeVos for example, wouldn't have required Mike Pence's vote if the GOP hadn't choked in Indiana and Missouri in 2012.

Party discipline is what allowed the GOP to filibuster most of Obama's agenda when they had only 41 seats in the Senate. With just one Republican defection, you could have gotten a public option through, a much bolder stimulus plan, an immigration reform, etc. After 2011, Republican discipline turned Obama into a 6-year lame-duck President despite winning reelection. Republican discipline denied him the constitutional right to appoint a justice to replace Scalia. If Republicans had acted like Democrats do, this entire Presidency would have been something completely different. Now Republican discipline (and Democratic indiscipline) allowed T***p to fill his cabinet despite some highly controversial picks, it's likely to ram through an Obamacare repeal that most Americans don't support, and I'm willing to bet that it will rubber-stamp most if not all of T***p's initiatives, even when wildly unpopular.

You think that wasn't worth losing a couple of seats in 2010 and 2012?