Adam Jentleson’s new Searchlight Institute essay, “Be a Big Tent Absolutist,” offers an appealing answer to one of the Democratic Party’s oldest debates: stop imposing litmus tests, welcome ideological diversity and remember that our internal factions have far more in common with one another than with Republicans.
He is right about the instinct. He is wrong about the limit.
A successful Democratic Party must be broad enough to include working-class populists, suburban moderates, national-security liberals and everyone in between. We cannot build a durable majority by demanding that every candidate sound identical in Brooklyn, Detroit, Des Moines and the Rio Grande Valley.
But a big tent cannot mean a boundaryless tent.
That is the practical flaw in Jentleson’s argument. A rule against all litmus tests sounds tolerant, but it leaves Democrats unable to distinguish ordinary ideological disagreement from conduct that corrodes the coalition. A party asking voters to trust it with power must be willing to say what it will not tolerate.
There is a difference between welcoming disagreements over taxes, healthcare or foreign policy and legitimizing voices whose rhetoric is bigoted, antisemitic, anti-American or openly hostile to liberal democracy. There is also a difference between talking to voters wherever they get information and treating every online celebrity as a stakeholder in the Democratic coalition.
I made that case in my Washington Post essay on Hasan Piker.
We do not get to choose the electorate we wish existed. We have to persuade the one in front of us. In 2024, 47 percent of likely voters saw Kamala Harris as too liberal, while only 32 percent viewed Donald Trump as too conservative. Democrats can believe that judgment was unfair—I certainly do—but dismissing it does not make it disappear.
Republicans understand this vulnerability. They constantly take the most toxic statement from the far left and use it to define every Democrat running in a competitive district. Candidates who have never joined the DSA are still forced to spend precious time and money proving they do not support its most unpopular ideas.
Silence does not prevent that attack. It makes the attack easier.
Democrats must show voters that moderation is real, not a consultant-written talking point. Bill Clinton did this when he rebuked Sister Souljah in 1992. Barack Obama did it when he denounced Jeremiah Wright’s inflammatory rhetoric in 2008. Neither man abandoned the Democratic coalition. They strengthened it by demonstrating independence from its most extreme voices—and both won two terms.
This is not a call to purge progressives or impose a new set of ideological loyalty tests. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and James Carville can exist within the same party. So can candidates who disagree on Gaza, policing, immigration or the size of government. Healthy coalitions contain real arguments. But there are lines worth enforcing.
Figures who excuse terrorism, advocate for defunding the police, opening all borders, traffic in antisemitism or openly disdain the country Democrats seek to govern should not receive a party-sanctioned platform.
Sometimes addition requires subtraction. Drawing clear boundaries can reassure millions of moderate voters that the Democratic Party shares their values—and give them permission to come inside. It’s worth remembering that competitive elections are won in the middle, not on the fringe. What does that mean? There’s far more voters to be won in the center than there are to be won accepting fringe positions.
Be a big-tent Democrat. Welcome disagreement. Build the broadest coalition possible.
But remember: every durable coalition needs boundaries.
-Ethan
