But, for all the animosity and friction within the GOP, the tea party has remained a relatively loyal wing of the Republican coalition. The lessons that both establishment and insurgent Republicans have learned after a series of avoidable defeats have been painful, but they are also being internalized. Each strategic blunder and toxic candidate has led the GOP to recognize that the realities of governing and campaigning in a modern media environment require a savvy which has thus far proved elusive. Surely, hurdles remain and the Republican Party will inevitably stumble across landmines yet unforeseen. But the party’s most tumultuous period of internal recalibration has passed. The tea party forced the GOP to evolve to meet the political challenges of Obama’s first term. The Republican establishment, it seems, is starting to impose a bit of pragmatism on the GOP’s idealistic conservative wing in Obama’s second term.

These lessons are lost on Democrats, it would seem, and their media allies are doing the party no favors by ignoring them. Just over the horizon is the rise of a similar factional fight within the party of Jefferson and Jackson. And the political press, while not engaging in outright cheerleading over the ascendency of an insurgent and uncompromising progressive wing within the Democratic Party, has avoided the scolding admonishments of liberal Democrats that it regularly doled out to conservatives.

Quietly and behind the scenes, a war for the soul of the Democratic Party is raging. Taking to the pages of the Wall Street Journal on Monday, two centrist Democrats with the group Third Way chided the progressive wing of the Democratic Party for their lionization of politicians like Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and New York City Mayor-elect Bill DeBlasio. These far-left Democrats, elevated to high office by disproportionately left-leaning electorates, have captured the heart of the party’s grassroots. “Nothing would be more disastrous for Democrats,” they write.