The Big Tent Illusion

Coalition-Cracked: Big Tent or Busted Frame

Does either party actually want to be a big tent anymore? And even if they did, do they know how?

It’s one of those phrases political leaders trot out when they’re trying to project strength and flexibility at the same time. “We’re a big tent,” they’ll say — usually when someone asks why their party includes people who don’t agree with each other on a specific issue being debated in the moment. But more and more, that’s all the phrase is: a projection. An aspirational talking point. Because in practice, neither the Democratic Party nor the Republican Party is functioning like a real big tent.

Let’s be honest. MAGA defines what it means to be a Republican right now. The progressive left — especially the version of it shaped by younger, online activists — increasingly defines the public face of the Democratic Party. And while neither faction commands a majority even inside their party, they command the base energy. They animate donors. They shape the narrative. And, at times, they scare the hell out of everyone else.

Take what Senator Lisa Murkowski told Politico recently:

“Do I feel that within my Republican conference, I always feel like I’m right here in my political home? No… But… I don’t allow a label to define me.”

That’s a lonely way to live in Washington these days. Because labels are winning.

The voters who’ve actually decided most elections over the past decade — swingy, moderate, ideologically inconsistent voters — aren’t the ones shaping the two major parties. They’re bystanders in the primary process, and they’re the last constituency either party is interested in angering its base to win over.

Look at the New York City Democratic primary playing out right now. It’s a vivid example of a national party that wants to project unity while nervously watching a local contest that could define them in the worst way. You’ve got an character-challenged establishment figure (Andrew Cuomo) facing off against a self-described Democratic Socialist (Zohran Mamdani), whose views on Israel make just as many Democrats uncomfortable as the character flaws of Cuomo do to many of the same voters.

And if you are wondering why so many establishment Democrats are reluctantly getting behind Cuomo, despite his obvious character flaws is the memory of the 2018 Florida governor’s race, where Democrats came very close to winning with a candidate who was championed by many folks who describe their progressive views as democratic socialism. But that “S” word got weaponized post 2018, particularly in South Florida, and it turned a swing state into a red state, mostly due to the successful branding of the Florida Democratic Party (particularly in South Florida) as the party of socialists. For many voters in that region of the state, they hear the word “socialism” and associate it with either their experiences (or their family’s experiences) in other Latin America countries where the word was synonymous with authoritarian leaders or outright dictatorship (think Cuba or Venezuela).

That label still hangs over Democrats across Florida like a political anvil. And while progressives argue that their candidates energize the party, more centrist Democrats worry they’re handing Republicans a weapon, like Florida.

Over on the right, Thomas Massie — hardly a liberal — is getting the Trump treatment for daring to question certain aspects of the Trump agenda. For Massey, it’s an ideological belief (libertarianism). For Trump and his allies, it’s not about policy or ideology; it’s about control. Trump wants a scalp, and he’s picked Massie as the example. This is what happens when a political party is built around loyalty to one person instead of to a set of principles: dissent becomes betrayal, and even intellectual consistency becomes grounds for exile.

This isn’t coalition politics. This is purge politics.

And that’s why the phrase “big tent” increasingly feels like a fraud. A real big tent requires room for disagreement. It requires tolerance. It requires leaders who are okay winning 70% of what they want instead of burning down the tent for the 30% they didn’t get. But in today’s media and fundraising ecosystem — where the loudest voices set the tone and the algorithm rewards anger — those instincts are punished, not rewarded.

Here’s the irony: the politicians who have figured out how to actually govern like big tent leaders aren’t in Congress. They’re governors, perhaps it’s by necessity. Spencer Cox (R-Utah). Jared Polis (D-Colo.). Andy Beshear (D-Ky.). Brian Kemp (R-Ga.). Josh Shapiro (D-Pa). These are leaders who’ve figured out how to appeal to different constituencies without setting their own parties on fire in the process. Why? Because they have to. Governors can’t filibuster. They can’t punt. They have to govern. And that forces pragmatism.

The structure of our national politics doesn’t reward that. It punishes it. And that brings me to what I believe is the root of the problem — and maybe, the key to fixing it:

America needs more political parties.

A four-party system wouldn’t just be more honest about our political divides — it would be healthier. It would teach the public that compromise isn’t weakness. It’s how things get done. If no single party could reach 50% + 1 on its own, then power would have to be shared. Coalitions would have to be built. And that means compromise wouldn’t be a betrayal of your base — it would be the price of admission to governance.

Imagine a system where you had a MAGA-right party, a center-right pro-business conservative party, a progressive-left party, and a center-left business-friendly Democratic party. In that structure, the parties would still fight, but they’d be forced to partner with each other to get anything done. And maybe most importantly: no one wing of the electorate would be able to hijack the national identity of an entire party the way MAGA has done to Republicans or the activist left has done to Democrats.

It would also mean that someone like Thomas Massie could exist in a libertarian-leaning coalition without being subject to Trump’s loyalty tests. A progressive challenger in New York could run as part of a fully separate movement instead of being forced into a winner-take-all cage match with the mainstream Democratic establishment. Voters would have more honest choices, and politicians would have more incentive to appeal to someone beyond their base.

Because here’s the quiet truth of American politics today: The parties only become “big tents” when offering proverbial shelter to disillusioned supporters of the other party. But those voters aren’t invited in. They’re not handed the mic. They’re just allowed to camp out for a while, so long as they don’t challenge the base too much. That’s not coalition politics. That’s temporary housing for lost moderates. And it only lasts until the weather clears — or until they’re no longer politically useful.

Under the current structure, the only time either party’s tent looks big is when the other side contracts. Democrats looked like a big tent in 2018 and 2020, not because they expanded, but because MAGA made the GOP look smaller. Republicans looked more diverse and inviting in 2024, mostly because Democrats were too busy fighting themselves or defending their beliefs.

This isn’t about parties growing — it’s about voters seeking shelter.

Right now, what passes for big tent politics is just that: a tent big enough to hold refugees from the other party’s excesses. But that’s not sustainable. It’s not how you build durable governing coalitions. It’s not how you create long-term legitimacy. And it’s certainly not how you teach voters — especially younger ones — that politics is supposed to be about solving problems, not just dunking on the other side.

If we’re serious about fixing what’s broken, we have to go beyond surface-level reforms. Ranked choice voting. Top-four primaries. Runoff systems. Anything that opens the door to multi-party competition and ends the winner-take-all stranglehold we’re living under.

Because as long as we’re stuck with just two parties, neither one will ever truly be a big tent. They’ll be dueling bunkers — forever trying to define themselves by who they’re not, and who they fear.

Until we change the rules of the game, we’ll keep losing the plot. And the people who actually want to govern? Who still believe that compromise isn’t surrender but success? They’ll remain out in the cold.