being frozen out.
If you want to understand how party politics really works, run for office. Start with being a precinct chair, and then run for the country commission, or better yet your State House. Not some non-partisan thing like city council -- and no disrespect intended to the hard working city councilors. But an office where your party affiliation really matters.
Whether your preferred political party is in the majority or minority in your state won't matter all that much. You'll start meeting the county chair, the state party chair, and all of those around him or her. You'll have to fundraise, go door-to-door asking for votes. Find volunteers to help you. You'll need someone to be your treasurer, maybe even a campaign manager, depending on your state and how intensely competitive the races are.
And win or lose, you'll have a totally different perspective on party politics.
I ran for office in 2004. I lost, but I did all of the above and learned quite a bit. Especially about how party politics works. And I wasn't even in the big leagues. I ran for the state house of representatives in a very Republican state, so the Democratic Party didn't really give a shit about my race.
This is why I get so exasperated here when people throw out comments about Republicans changing party affiliation and Dems now being in the majority in the Senate. Won't happen. It's NOTHING like changing your party affiliation so you can vote in a different primary. Also, those who live in states that don't require party affiliation really don't get it. As a voter you don't declare an affiliation, but as a candidate you sure as hell do. And that affiliation matters. If you have any notion of climbing the party ladder, you'd better go along.
And that's why upper level Republicans aren't about to rock the boat. They're just fine with Donald Trump as President, because they can do just about anything they want to do and he's not going to know what's going on. Not really.
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