The diversity of today's Democratic Party is a great strength

Our government was designed to be a contentious, dynamic, messy, ineffecient thing.  A system where people with diverse views could come together, debate, argue and hash out a rough consensus on the best course for the nation.  By designing a system that allocated power in such a diffuse manner, our Founding Fathers respected the rights of an individual, and protected these rights.  To work, our government requires a diversity of views, and requires that those views are not transformed or subsumed into a single national path.  Tolerance, an early and vital American ethic, becomes the paramount ethic for leaders in such a system and for the system itself to succeed. 

To succeed in such a system, a political party must then best understand how to encourage and manage diversity, finding again and again a dynamic and ever changing consensus on the major issues of the day.  To that end Steny Hoyer's election as majority leader seems to be a good thing. 

The new Democratic Congressional Majority is a diverse lot.  There is great generational, regional, racial, ethnic, gender, and ideological diversity in this new group.  There is no "majority way."  There are liberals, blacks, moderates, Hispanics, conservatives, Southerners, Mormons, moderates, Westerners, business people, Midwesterners, farmers, Asians, cityfolk, Northeasterners, ranchers, surburbanites, Catholics, immigrants, vets, countryfolks, the first woman Speaker and even a Muslim.  Sure sounds like 21st century America to me. 

From this diverse Party, The Democratic Congressional Leaders Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid will have to craft a rough consensus of the major issues of the day.  But this is what our system requires - negotiated and hard fought settlements.  The more diverse Nancy's leadership team is the more likely they will be able to manage this process of finding rough consensus in Congress, something the Republicans were so unable to do.  Wherever you came down on the Murtha/Hoyer battle, it feels to me as if the Hoyer win was somehow the best outcome for a Party right now that has no settled path forward on the big issues of the day, but will have to hash them out, together, in a respectful way, in the days and months ahead.  Having Steny there, who clearly comes from a different part of the Party then Nancy, will make it much more likely that the Democratic rough consensus is more representative, and thus more durable, than perhaps it would have been under a Murtha tenure. 

As America itself grows more racially and ethnically diverse, this capacity to show tolerance, manage diversity and find consensus will become even more essential for political success.  The events of this week show the Democrats seem comfortable with this type of the politics, the Republicans not.  Their new RNC Chairman, a minority himself, is lambasted for his support of immigration reform, and Trent Lott, a leader with a history of racism, is elevated up in his Party.  As we move further into the 21st century, it is increasingly clear that this comfort with diversity - ideological, regional, ethnic, racial, generational and gender - will be one of the Democratic Party's greatest stengths.