Are Democrats the party of purity tests?

I need to see some evidence that this is the case. Here's what's happening instead.

Democrats have been invested in the narrative that they have somehow overemphasized “identity politics” in at least two of the last 3 presidential elections – namely, those they lost in 2016 and 2024. This idea also flared up as a possible explanation for why Democrats didn’t do as well as they had expected in 2020 – that they had been too closely associated with incendiary slogans like “defund the police,” to the detriment of a larger coalition.

Most recently, I’ve noticed various members of the Democratic coalition talk about “litmus” and “purity” tests. There are lots of examples of op-eds and coverage of Democratic infighting, and statements like the one from Sen. Chris Murphy on the New Yorker podcast about how Democrats need to allow those who disagree with them into the “movement” as long as they’re “aligned on core economic issues.”

The thing about all these litmus test claims is that none of them seem to be attached to concrete evidence that this exclusion is actually happening, especially at the level of actual party politics. Are there examples of people drummed out of county or state leadership? Censured by local parties for their views on climate change, Black Lives Matter, or inclusive language? I found some complaining about interest group questionnaires, but no hard evidence that these were consistently effective at weeding out candidates. Maybe they work informally to dissuade people from running, functioning as so many aspects of U.S. party politics do.

One reliable mechanism of party politics – maybe one of the only ones – is the primary. Conventional wisdom suggests that primaries advantage the ideologically extreme – both voters and, by extension, candidates. Academic research shows mixed results when it comes to this question. In 2024, the main Democratic primaries actually resulted in the defeat of progressive Representatives Cori Bush and Jamaal Bowman. Perhaps the most famous example of a progressive challenger defeating an opponent, AOC’s defeat of Joseph Crowley in the 2018 primaries, wasn’t especially about questionnaires or ideology. AOC positioned herself as a better representative of her particular district – which did have an identity component – and a fresh face pushing out the old guard. This dynamic motivates what looks like a possible concerted primary effort ahead of 2026 – the effort by DNC vice chair David Hogg to launch primaries against incumbents he deems “ineffective.” This might or might not end up looking like a good idea – but it’s not explicitly about imposing the kind of ideological tests that some have complained about.

So why talk about this if it isn’t happening? There are lots of possibilities, including the endless Democratic appetite for self-flagellation and recrimination. But I also think we can view this through the lens of parties’ institutional weakness, especially when it comes to Democrats adapting to the challenge of being a traditionally patchwork, big-tent party in a nationalized political environment. Using these public pronouncements to condemn ideological purity, litmus tests, or (inevitably) overemphasis on marginalized groups is a way of informally working out these differences through media access and messaging.

Another possibility is that we’ve been talking about it this way for so long that identity politics seems like a distinct set of issues that can easily be cleaved off from the rest of the party’s agenda. This is consistent both with some claims that have been made about how economic populism can circumvent race and other identity claims, and with older ideas about “universalist” appeals. The thing is, Democrats have repeatedly learned that skirting difficult issues – civil rights, marriage equality – only works for so long. And isn’t an obvious political victory strategy.

The economic populism question is an interesting one. The commentary I’ve heard that complains about purity tests around “pronouns” or whatever suggests that the right strategy to unite the Democratic Party – and bring back some voters who have left – is to emphasize economic populism. There’s some evidence that this might work – people do distrust the rich and see them as disproportionately powerful in politics – but perceptions of inequality and the way they drive social comparison is complicated. Furthermore, scholarship on the development of the Democratic Party suggests that real divides over economics have existed for a long time. Angry populist appeals about millionaires and billionaires sound good, but policy requires real attention to detail and implementation – and tradeoffs with winners and losers. I am personally sympathetic to a lot of the economic inequality claims, but it’s not realistic to think this is an “easy” button for coalition-building. Instead, Democrats may need to acknowledge that there are some serious and complicated divisions in the party. Rather than clear-cut or artificial divisions between factions, the split might be more like those who might like to move back to the politics of Bill Clinton or Barack Obama, and those who want to see more dramatic restructuring of American political, social, and economic life. Complex disagreements like this can’t be easily resolved by slogans or messaging.

In other words, there’s not a lot of evidence that the Democrats aren’t a big-tent party. What we’re seeing is what this looks like with the institutions and environment that we have in 2025.