The 1/6 caucus does not want to make the House more “democratic”

You may have seen some dumb and/or cynical people asserting that what Matt Gaetz and his allies did was Actually Good and represents a tactic that the left of the Democratic Party should use. As Eric Levitz explains, this is extremely dumb:

Such sentiments were not exclusive to self-professed conservatives. Various “post-left” pundits — which is to say, ostensibly left-wing commentators who believe (or claim to believe) that “populist” Republicans are more promising coalition partners for genuine leftists than the Democratic Establishment — also found much to applaud in the House’s paralysis. Responding to criticism of the rebels’ conduct, the YouTuber Tim Pool tweeted, “is the idea that the system normally should march in lockstep with corporate uniparty candidates? i dont see disfunction the debate is how its supposed to be.”

Former Obama administration staffer and current freelance journalist Shant Mesrobian, meanwhile, wrote, “It’s rather pathetic to watch Democrats and leftists gloating about the fact that the Republican Party seems to still allow for a tiny amount of dissent and debate while their own party is an absolute authoritarian borg that demands lockstep allegiance from its members. ‘Ha ha their party has a populist faction that is effective at challenging establishment leadership and extracting concessions. What losers! Pass the popcorn amirite?’”

The problem with this narrative is that none of its premises are true. The Democratic Party is not, in fact, an “authoritarian” or “Soviet style” Borg that demands “lockstep allegiance from its members.” Party discipline is not antithetical to democratic rule. Kevin McCarthy is not a “corporate uniparty candidate.” And the House Freedom Caucus does not represent a “populist” alternative to big business’s social dominance.

His essay is good on all these points, but this is especially important:

Judging by the rhetoric of Pool and Mesrobian, the measure of a democracy’s health would seem to be the personal autonomy of its legislators: The less willing lawmakers are to prioritize the pursuit of consensus over their own ideological principles, the more democratic our government will be. Yet, in the Biden era, the practical consequence of every Democratic lawmaker refusing to subordinate their personal convictions to party consensus would have been legislative paralysis.

There was simply no way for the Democratic Party to extend COVID-relief programs, increase public investment in green energy, raise taxes on the rich, reduce drug prices for Medicare beneficiaries, or do most anything else without its lawmakers recognizing the necessity of intraparty compromise. House progressives attempted to play hardball with the Senate’s pivotal moderates by holding up the passage of a bipartisan infrastructure bill. But this effort failed, largely because Manchin and Sinema preferred to let that legislation die than allow progressives to dictate ideological terms to them on a more expansive climate and social-welfare package. Progressives ultimately reconciled themselves to a compromise facilitated by the party’s leadership.

Thus, absent party discipline, Biden would have implemented virtually none of his campaign promises, and taxes on the rich and spending on green energy would both be lower than they are today. If we posit that a healthy democratic government is one that is responsive to popular opinion and/or, electoral mandates, then a modicum of party discipline is conducive to such government, not antithetical to it.

Party discipline is not antithetical to good government; in most cases it’s necessary to accomplish anything. “Post-lefitists” like Pool and Greenwald love it because they don’t care about policy at all, just Republicans winning elections to own the libs.