Huh?

Substantively, I'm not sure where I fall on the question of whether or not writing counts as doing something, though of course I think the 101st Fighting Keyboardists battle patch is pretty funny. Anyway, I came across this passage via Crooked Timber and I'm a little bit confused.

I think all three [conservatives who have broken ranks with Bush over runanway deficit spending or his immigration policy] may be suffering some variant of PTSD, worn down by defending difficult positions at the forefront of the battle against irredentist Democrats in Congress and their fifth-column in the media.
|Democracy Project|

"irredentist Democrats"? What?

Now, it's not like I've never looked up the word irredentist. I just don't understand what it's supposed to mean here. My suspicion is that the writer is an idiot and thinks that it means something that it doesn't.

But let's suppose for a moment that he really thinks that the Democrats advocate the recovery of territory culturally or historically related to the United States but now subject to the control of a foreign government.

Which territory are we talking about? And which foreign government? I'm so confused.