It also pisses off their allies. I'm a centrist liberal. Slightly right on economic, slightly left on social.

Growing up I simply knew the religious right was after my video games and didn't want gay people to marry. Logically that seemed dumb so I just naturally opposed the right. But the Republican party isn't that party anymore and the left, while once based on real civil rights fights, is now just making them up where they don't exist.

And I got awakened to that because every Republican candidate in my lifetime has been called a racist sexist bigot homophobe monster. And every year it's "You CAN'T vote for them, I don't like the Democratic candidate but lesser of two evils." And you start to realize they're not so lesser.

The real divide as I see it? Progressives and corporate dems frame everything as a moral feel good initiative. They'll push unworkable or flawed ideas that "feel good" to say and hear. And conservatives push everything as a logistical argument that basically can't excite anyone and make nobody feel good. Because when they went moral in my childhood people said "Screw your religious rule." That they basically never deviate from these tactics means nobody is worth voting for.