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DNC Chairman Tom Perez speaks to a crowd of supporters at a Democratic unity rally on April 21, 2017 in Salt Lake City.

One hundred days in, we now know that only 2 percent of Americans who voted for Donald Trump regret their vote, according to the latest ABC/Washington Post poll. That same poll says two-thirds of all those questioned believe the Democratic Party is out of touch with the concerns of Americans, higher than either Trump or the Republicans.

Yet the media continue to think Trump is on the ropes.

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Take a look around: The Republicans control the White House, both branches of Congress, as well as a majority of governorships and state legislatures. No ones taken a census of local tree wardens and tax assessors, but the odds are pretty good they lean Republican too. And what is the Democratic Party response? A Mao-like purge of dissenting views, which they believe will restore the party to its former glory.

All political parties face the same choice: They can turn the leadership of their organization over to either militants or consensus builders. In the case of the Democrats, they have chosen the militants.

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Newly elected Democratic Party chair Tom Perez made it clear the militants are in charge when he declared the party will not support any anti-abortion candidates. The controversy arose over a mayors race in Nebraska Omaha, not Boston or San Francisco where the Democratic candidate, Heath Mello, has a history of voting against abortion rights as a member of the state legislature.

Soon after the Georgia results arrived, Democrats began to grumble amongst themselves.

In response to pressure from abortion rights groups, Perez distanced himself from Mello, saying, Every Democrat, like every American, should support a womans right to make her own choices about her body and her health. That is not negotiable and should not change city by city or state by state.

This will come as a surprise to the nearly one-quarter of Democrats who believe, according to the Pew Research Center, that abortion should be illegal in all or most cases. By Perezs odd reckoning, the way for Democrats to reclaim majority status in this country is by shrinking their numbers. Addition by subtraction is not an effective political strategy.

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Nor does it send a welcoming message to leading anti-abortion Democrats like Joe Manchin of West Virginia or Bob Casey of Pennsylvania.

Following uproar over Perezs remarks, Democrats have stumbled over their damage control, saying their candidates can think whatever they want, but they must support abortion rights as policy.

We need to be understanding of those who take a different position, because of personal conscience, but as long as they are prepared to back the law, Roe versus Wade, prepared to back womens rights as weve defined them under the law, then I think they can be part of the party, said Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois.

In other words, we wont jet plane you like Maos communists did in the Cultural Revolution, but you need to accept the partys position or risk banishment.

At some point, Democrats are going to have to win an election somewhere they are not expected to win in order to prove their viability going into next years midterms.

Following President Obamas election, the 2010 midterms resulted in sweeping Republican gains. Those wins were presaged by GOP victories in 2009 governor races in New Jersey and Virginia, and in the 2010 Massachusetts special election to replace Ted Kennedy in the Senate.

So far, the Democrats are struggling to notch their first post-Trump victory. They lost a Kansas special election for the House,and were forced into a runoff for a Georgia seat where the Republican is favored to win. Upcoming House races in South Carolina and Montana seem out of reach.

With the militants running things, its hard to see where the path back to power begins.

Read the original here:
Abortion rift puts Democratic militants in charge - The Boston Globe