WALTER RUSSELL MEAD: Blue Civil War. “The different power blocks that make up the Democratic base are trampling each other in a rush to grab the last rents of the dying blue system. . . . Twentieth-century liberalism is a victim of its own success: it gave us longer and more prosperous lives, in turn putting tremendous pressure on social services and pensions. The result is the fragmenting coalition Edsall points to. Though he places part of the blame for the blue civil war on Republican-backed austerity measures, Edsall admits that demographic shifts and outmoded ways of delivering social services also played a role. The reality of blue model decline is so obvious that nobody can ignore it any longer.” Well, if Edsall is paying attention, that must be true.