The problem with purity politics...

[Beautiful Disaster]

Beyond the obvious of what it does at the presidential level, is that it inevitably bleeds down into other races. And then it erodes the same politicians who the left have galvanized for in previous elections.

Case in point: Russ Feingold.

Russ has always been a strong progressive, who frequently fought the good fight.

And yet in 2010, Wisconsin bounced him from the senate for Ron Johnson. In 2016, they again denied him a return

Losing that senate seat was pretty devastating for the Democrats - but maybe even more than that, it was devastating for the left because they lost a progressive champion. Losing that seat in 2010 was far more devastating for the ideology than losing Evan Bayh's seat in Indiana.

Equally awful? Giving up Illinois, Wisconsin's neighbor and handing the Republicans Barack Obama's seat. Alexi Giannoulias, who was running for that seat, was a progressive - even saying he would create a Progressive Caucus in the US Senate. He lost that seat to Mark Kirk by one-point. A progressive voice completely snuffed out because, gosh, we gotta have purity.

Remember those two seats because then there's 2014. Mo Udall, of Colorado, a fairly progressive voice, was defeated by less than two-points in his race vs Corey Gardner - an extremist Republican. The Democrats also lost Kay Hagan, who wasn't a progressive, or at least not a firebrand progressive, but a good enough senator, to Thom Tillis. She lost that election by less than two-points too.

The lone bright spot in the senate was flipping New Hampshire.

But think about that. In those two elections, the purists weren't hurting Obama - they were hurting the movement overall. This wasn't about Obama. This was about delivering pretty progressive senators back to the US Senate.

In those two elections, they lost three stalwart progressives that would have served progressive needs in the US Senate and one fairly moderate. That's four seats they left on the board in those two elections alone.

If they had just won those four seats in 2010 and 2014, we would have had a 50/50 senate. That means, Vice President Joe Biden would have been the tie-breaker.

Scalia dies and it's Chuck Schumer who's the Majority leader. Not McConnell.

That means he's able to bring a vote to the floor on Obama's nomination. Maybe it's Garland - maybe he goes big and replaces Scalia with an even bigger liberal.

Regardless, the court has now shifted dramatically.

The liberals, with RBG still on the court, now have a one-vote advantage (4-3 with Kennedy the swing vote).

That's how important everything was. Yes, getting Obama reelected in 2012 would have been essential in this world - but purity politics was devastating at the US Senate level.

And let's assume in 2016 that Hillary wins - ekes out a victory over Trump. Feingold wins reelection, maybe against Johnson again, and the Democrats flip New Hampshire (like they did in reality). Now Hillary is working with a one-seat advantage in the Supreme Court.

RBG retires in 2017 and is replaced by a younger Justice.

Maybe, though I doubt it because there's some shady business there, but maybe Kennedy retires too some time in Hillary's first two years.

Regardless, the composition of the court is still dramatically different today.

One could assume, based on how he voted in Casey, he would have voted to uphold Roe - at least.

On that alone, it's a gigantic win.

Because the Supreme Court would have had four liberals, only three conservatives and a swing Kennedy, who, despite all the shadiness, had a history of voting on some very liberal orders.

And if Kennedy is out, then he's replaced with a staunch liberal who swings the court for a generation to the left.

But instead we're stuck.

We're stuck with a court with six conservative justices.

All because people sat out in 2010 and 2014 and then in 2016.

But we need to realize that the presidency is not the end-all of politics. Apathy at the presidential level absolutely will destroy you at the congressional level. That's a fact. We know this because we've seen it.

This mess isn't just because Hillary lost in 2016. She could have won, and every senate race could have gone the way it actually did, and we very well could still be in this mess.

A Republican Senate that refuses to seat her appointment for Scalia and RBG basically stuck on the bench like she was anyway because she knows that Republicans won't seat her replacement, either.

Maybe it backfires and motivates the left to finally support Democrats in 2018 but does anyone really believe it?

So, my point is that we can't just focus on presidential elections. They're massively important but the purity game has been more devastating at the congressional level in many ways than it has been at the presidential because that was just one election - today is a result of also the apathy we saw in 2010 and 2014 from voters who wanted to make Obama pay.

Well now we're all paying.

Congrats, guys!