The Left's Civil War?

That’s what Allum Bokhari sees coming:

The coalition of moderate liberals, sceptical intellectuals, and radical progressives that once stood together against the conservative “moral majority” is beginning to fracture. In the absence of a compelling external opponent, the internal tensions of this coalition are becoming more visible. While it is too soon to say if the revolution is about to consume itself, a number of serious divisions have emerged on the cultural left. And they are becoming increasingly bitter.

Read the whole thing, which includes some necessary and interesting political and cultural history.

But there is one thing Bokhari neglected to mention.

The Democrats of the ’70 to the mid-2000s were a fractured and squabbling bunch, fighting one another over a shrinking pie as the New Deal coalition died off or started splitting the ticket for GOP candidates. But Howard Dean’s 50 state strategy changed all that.

Dean’s Democratic strategy was predicated on three simple ideas:

• We’ll run anybody

• We’ll support everything

• We’ll spend all the money (until it runs out)

The money was the key. Money, especially other people’s money, can paper over a lot of differences.

This was never meant to be a strategy for the long term — Dean just needed enough Democrats on Capitol Hill to pass a bunch of previously unpassable legislation. He also needed a Democrat in the White House to sign it all, and in Barack Obama he got the perfect candidate — with enough contempt for the Constitution, for traditions, and even for political niceties to bring it all together.

But the GOP was given control of the House, effectively derailing the gravy train, which needed constant acceleration to please all the different demands of the Democrats’ various constituencies.

Another, perhaps unintended, result is that the Democrats got the GOP to act like the Democrats of old, squabbling with each other over every little thing. Even if the Democrats do end up in a civil war, as Bokhari thinks, there’s no guarantee that the Republicans will get their act back together.