We need selective Omerta

My post remarking on the unfortunate decision by one of Hackett's staffers/consultants to go public with the opposition research they did on Sherrod Brown after Hackett withdrew generated quite a lot of discussion at Ezra's. It's all interesting, and might be worth a gander. I am quite appalled by people who think that Hackett got shafted and Sherrod Brown had it coming. It seemed quite lost on them that an internecine battle between two Democrats is exactly what we don't need as the election looms -- our real opponent is across the aisle.

Nick Beaudrot of Electoral Maths asked:

What mechanisms do the Republican Party have for preventing this from happening? Because it doesn't. There were bitter contested primaries in Oklahoma, South Carolina, and Florida and there wasn't any post-mortem leaking of anything.

Clearly something about the culture prohibits speaking out after the campaign. But what?

Commenter Michael answered in one word: Omerta, that is, the old mafia code of loyalty that made speaking out against the family punishable by death. We can argue that "omerta" is a bad thing in politics as it stifles dissent and concentrate power into fewer and fewer large blocks. But what is clear is, if power is already concentrated in two large factions, the faction that commands absolute loyalty is going to kick the crap out of the faction that does not. Now, I really don't want the Democrats (as if, haha) to achieve Republican levels of cohesion and lockstep. On an ideological level I find that to be distasteful. The question is, how do we fight a machine if we are much better at organizing into circular firing squads?