The progressivism that infuses the contemporary Democratic Party can be a cluttered, claustrophobic worldview. It embraces a large array of interest groups with their own policy demands, arguing they must be accepted together.
This cluttered sensibility—a variation on what my colleague Ezra Klein dubbed the everything bagel spirit in liberal governance—hasn't prevented progressivism from becoming the most powerful ideology in American life.
For Democratic Party leaders, the combination of doctrinal clutter and sweeping cultural power creates political headaches and electoral vulnerabilities, as dissent can make one feel like an outsider.
Even with the wilder forms of wokeness in partial retreat, progressive ideas still pervade cultural institutions across America, creating a sense of a single-party state.
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