The parties are different from each other (as we have learned from the political-science research about asymmetric polarization, which has held up). The Republican-aligned media has spent years lambasting its leaders as feckless losers. The conservative base has goaded its leaders into a series of crusades that leaders knew to be counterproductive, but were afraid to stand in the way of, for fear of being called sellouts. Intermittent government shutdowns and endless chasing of birther and Benghazi conspiracies were all precursors of the dynamic that produced Trump.
Democrats have almost none of that. Most Democratic voters, unlike most Republican ones, want their party to be more moderate, not less, and believe in compromise over confrontation. The Democratic Party elite is much less afraid of being seen as squishy than the Republican elite.
Second, we’re seeing some of the anti-Sanders coordination in action right now. In the Nevada primary, the Las Vegas Sun endorsement is a plea not to support Sanders, and the powerful Culinary Workers Union is denouncing his Medicare for All plan. Democrats from vulnerable districts are making increasingly public pleas to the same effect. “One House Democrat said colleagues from swing districts are scared by the prospects of a Sanders nomination, while another said moderates are increasingly concerned that a Sanders candidacy would devastate their prospects for winning the White House and retaining the House,” reports the Associated Press. All these efforts could easily fail, but they are probably not completely ineffectual.
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