I mean, it can be effective. It works for the GOP: you basically can’t get elected as a Republican if you’re not anti-abortion or if you want to raise taxes, and thanks to those purity tests, every time they get in power they take steps towards those goals.
With the ‘big tent’ Democrats all you get is basically a small rollback on the worst excesses of the previous Republican president (to the point where you really can’t call them ‘left’ in any serious way).
I mean, it can be effective. It works for the GOP: you basically can’t get elected as a Republican if you’re not anti-abortion or if you want to raise taxes, and thanks to those purity tests, every time they get in power they take steps towards those goals.
With the ‘big tent’ Democrats all you get is basically a small rollback on the worst excesses of the previous Republican president (to the point where you really can’t call them ‘left’ in any serious way).