Big Tent Party or Velvet Rope?

Time to follow the 80-20 rule!

Last week, I posted something on Facebook that I knew would ruffle feathers. I said there are eight Democrats running for Texas Governor, and half of them don’t even have a website or a meaningful online presence.

That’s not snark. That’s a red flag.

One candidate has raised just over a million dollars. The next two trail far behind, at around $60,000 and $30,000. Meanwhile, Greg Abbott is sitting on a war chest north of $100 million. Probably more by the time you finish this paragraph.

So I said what felt obvious to me: candidates who are not building campaigns, raising money, or showing voters they are serious should consider stepping aside. Texas Democrats do not have money to burn. Every dollar matters. Every hour matters. Every volunteer matters.

And then came the backlash.

Someone told me they’d “lost respect” for this page. Others read things into my post that I never said. I responded calmly, explained my point, and moved on, but the moment stuck with me.

Because here’s the truth: you can do 1,000 things right, show up every single day, give everything you have, and the moment you say one thing that upsets someone on your own side, you’re suddenly the problem.

That’s purity culture. And it’s eating us alive.

Republicans suffer from it too, but they’ve learned how to survive it. We haven’t.

Let me put this in stark terms.

An insider recently told me that Republican-aligned PACs have up to half a billion dollars they can pour into key races if they need to. Five hundred million dollars. Sitting there. Waiting.

And what are Democrats doing?

We’re fighting each other. We’re tearing down candidates over single issues. We’re relitigating ideological disputes in public while the other side is preparing to bulldoze democracy with money, discipline, and zero hesitation.

Sometimes it feels like we lose before we even begin.

We are not just fighting bad policy. We are fighting authoritarianism. We are fighting a movement that is perfectly comfortable dismantling democratic norms if it means holding power. And yet, too often, we act like internal disagreement is a greater sin than losing elections.

There’s a concept Republicans live by that Democrats would do well to relearn: the 80–20 rule.

It’s often attributed to Ronald Reagan, and it goes like this:
If someone agrees with you 80 percent of the time, they are not a traitor over the other 20 percent. They are an ally.

That’s it. That’s the whole rule.

It’s why you see coalitions on the Right that don’t make moral or ideological sense on paper, but work politically. They understand the prize. They keep their eye on it. And they don’t demand perfection before unity.

Democrats like to say we’re a big tent party. But lately, it feels less like a big tent and more like a velvet rope. If you don’t pass every test, speak every issue flawlessly, or align perfectly with every faction, you’re pushed out.

We cannot afford that.

If we’re being honest with ourselves, we also need to admit that foreign policy divisions, especially around Israel and Gaza, played a role in the 2024 election outcome. The question isn’t whether those debates matter. They do. The question is whether we are willing to lose elections—and democracy itself—because we refuse to hold complexity and coalition at the same time.

Democracy is the prerequisite. Without it, there is no reform. No justice. No progress. No debate at all.

Reform comes after power. Not before.

Right now, I am choosing to ignore purity politics. I am choosing to fight with everything I have for democracy itself. Because without it, none of the rest matters.

I hope you’ll fight with me.

Warmest thoughts,
Nancy Thompson