(MENAFN- Al-Anbaa) The big tents are shrinking. Republicans and Democrats used to take pride in calling their respective parties "big tents" with room for a diversity of views. That tradition has ended for Republicans. It may be on its way out for Democrats as well.
The main reason the tents are shrinking is that the number of swing states is diminishing. Congressional Republicans increasingly represent red states and congressional Democrats blue states. Thirty percent of Democrats in the House of Representatives now come from just two states - New York and California.
At the same time, there is pressure to "purify" the party leadership by making sure it represents reliable party supporters and won't face pressure to make deals € that is, "sell out."
Now liberal groups are trying to "purify" the Democratic Party's message, mostly by pulling likely nominee Hillary Clinton to the left. Liberal activists are urging Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) to challenge Clinton for the Democratic nomination. Their argument? A letter just released by a pro-Warren group warns, "If we end up with a single Democratic candidate - and little or no debate in the primaries - those of us unlikely to support a Republican nominee will be left voting for a Democrat who may be opposed to the Republican agenda but is not necessarily a champion of the vision of change that millions of us seek."
What's wrong with offering voters a clear choice? Nothing, really, except that the Constitution makes it difficult for one party to govern on its own. It's not like a parliamentary system, where one party can take over the government and simply pass its program.
To do that in the United States, a party has to control the White House, the House of Representatives and at least 60 votes in the Senate. That rarely happens.
Democrats did control everything for a year when Obama took the Oval Office in 2009. But they still had trouble passing healthcare reform.
Normally, the only way Washington can work is through compromise and deal-making. President Bill Clinton once said, "If you read the Constitution, it ought to be subtitled, 'Let's make a deal.'"
As the party tents shrink, the distance between them gets bigger. And it gets harder to make deals. The likely result? Perpetual gridlock, which can be resolved only by the least democratic institution of government - the federal courts.
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