A favorite political press corps trope is the ‘Democrats are in disarray’ story. Last week, as Republicans successfully added a last minute motion to commit measure that would turnover information about undocumented immigrants from gun checks to ICE. Supposedly ‘centrist’ Democrats felt the need to support the measure, while most Democrats voted against it. Let the recriminations ensue!

One problem in the reporting, such as this and this, is that the stories are written in such a way–and this is reinforced by the headlines–that readers would conclude a rump group of leftist Democrats are causing the trouble. In fact, the opposite is true: it is a small number of conservative Democrats who are being divisive.

The supposed centrists are not the center of the party any more.

Someday, our political press corps will figure this out.

While we’re here, regarding the motion to commit, it’s essentially political bullying, and the divisive conservative Democrats just showed they will crumble under pressure because they are afraid Republicans will tar them with this. Of course, the Republicans are already firing up the baby killer and TAKING AWAY ALL UR HAMBURDERS propaganda, so the centrists’ argument is very foolish.

The majority of the caucus opposed the motion to commit in part for the same reason Republicans always opposed those motions when they had the majority–if you don’t they will keep trying to roll you. Once you show that it doesn’t work, they will do it far less often.