George Soros or Bill Gates will never be able to buy their own department for reasons that the people with the tribalist lens can't seem to grasp: the democratic coalition is FAR more principled and fractured / diverse than the republican coalition. I can already hear people howl for evidence; for evidence, look no farther than the party platforms for the last few electoral cycles.
And my point wasn’t that the Democrats would. It’s that the Democrats could and may even be forced to, in order to win an election. If JD Vance is selling a department for $500M, from a game theoretical perspective, the Democrats may have no choice.
The whole problem is that all the norms that allowed the republic to function are being stripped away, and this is one of the biggest violations of our norms to date, yet no one has even mentioned this aspect.
Meanwhile, across the isle, a vague alignment in short term goals is basically all that keeps the left and the liberals together as a coalition. Whereas the right can say and do just about anything as long as it doesn't jeopardize their direct underlings' position in the overarching power structure, even small, strategic concessions can obliterate what little trust leaders have built up over the years.
_Currently_. On the other hand, realistically, it's impossible to imagine this happening under, say, Bush (either version of Bush), and yet now here we are. Things change.
It is tribal affiliation and tribal news channels at this point.
Thinking otherwise is the luxury of assuming you have different problems, and of not checking your assumptions.