What to expect in American politics for the next 25-30 years.
In 2008, the United States experienced a fundamental shift in our body politic. The election of Barack Obama changed how we, as Americans, “do” politics. Obama’s election was the first time a Democrat had won the presidency with a majority of the vote since 1976 and the first time since 1964 a Democrat received more than 50% of the popular vote. The Democrats added 8 seats in the Senate and 21 seats in the House of Representatives. In political jargon, 2008 was a “realigning election”. This was, in fact, the 7th time this has happened. Realigning elections tend to happen once every 30-40 years. The previous realigning election took place in 1968, with the election of Richard Nixon, and ushering in what was known as the Sixth Party System. Realigning elections occur because of some important change in American society and are closely connected to larger “eras” in American society. The Sixth Party System ended the “New Deal Era”, aka the 5th Party System, which had run from 1932-1964.
The 5th Party System had been an era of Democratic dominance throughout the U.S. FDR had managed to cobble together a winning alliance of conservative white southerners, western agrarian populists, labor unions, liberal intellectuals, progressives purged from the Republican party and various ethnic and religious minorities from cities (Irish, Italian and Polish Catholics, Jews and, to a lesser degree than the other minorities mentioned, African-Americans) and delivered a comprehensive package of reforms that provided relief to most (but not all: African Americans were systematically excluded from most of the New Deal) during the Great Depression. Even after the Depression and World War 2 ended, that New Deal Coalition proved fairly durable. The only Republican President during that time, Dwight Eisenhower, described himself as a “progressive moderate”, a term that would make most modern Republicans blench. Eisenhower embraced much of the political conventional wisdom of the time, continuing New Deal programs like Social Security, authorizing the Interstate Highway System, following Keynsian economic theory (high taxes to pay for robust social programs) and was responsible for the appointment of Earl Warren and William Brennan to the Supreme Court, a pair of liberal lions whose decisions (Brown v. Board of Education, Gideon v. Wainwright, Miranda v. Arizona, Griswold V. Connecticut, Roe v. Wade, etc.) would have profound impacts on American society. In 1964, President Johnson crushed Senator Barry Goldwater, the ur-conservative Republican nominee from Arizona, but the New Deal Coalition was irrevocably shattered by the passage, first of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and then by the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The Civil Rights Movement, and the resulting “white backlash” against it, broke the New Deal Coalition and set the stage for new era in American politics that followed it.
The 6th Party System, which ran from 1968-2004, was a fundamentally conservative political era. The Civil Rights Movement had led to the creation of a new conservative coalition. Conservative middle-class and working-class whites, mostly from the American South, Midwest and mountain West, who had previously been a part of the New Deal coalition, now fled wholesale to Republicans, leading to a realignment of values within both parties. This was no accident. Republicans scented an opportunity in the bitter break that took place between the pro-segregation “Dixiecrats” and the rest of the Democratic party, which supported African-American equality. This led to the Republicans’ infamous “Southern strategy”, also occasionally referred to as the “suburban strategy” for much the same reasons. Republicans courted rural and suburban middle-class and working-class whites with a series of covert (and occasionally overt) racial dog whistles, as explained by the odious Lee Atwater, President George H.W. Bush’s campaign manager, in a 1981 interview. President Nixon’s 1968 campaign on “state’s rights” and “law and order” set the tone, and Republican presidents have followed that rhythm ever since. The “urban decay” caused by racial uprisings in many cities and the accompanying “white flight”, which weakened many cities tax bases dovetailed nicely into President Nixon’s “War on Drugs” and ruthless suppression of the Black Power movement.
We had only 2 Democratic Presidents during this conservative era. Both governed in a fairly conservative political vein and both were Southerners. Jimmy Carter managed to get a slight majority in 1976 by briefly reuniting the white “Solid South” with northern liberalism, and by having the good luck to run against Gerald Ford, who was tainted by his pardon of Richard Nixon, making him guilty by association in the aftermath of Watergate. Bill Clinton only managed to get elected because of the presence of conservative political outsider Ross Perot in the 1992 election. Without Perot acting as a spoiler, it is likely that Clinton would have faced a blowout similar in magnitude to Michael Dukakis in 1988, with only Clinton’s home state of Arkansas and DC giving him an outright majority of their votes. Had Clinton lost in 1992, his better showing against Bob Dole in 1996 and Al Gore’s nail biter of a loss against George W. Bush becomes much more questionable. Still, both were more successful nationally than northern, more liberal candidates like Hubert Humphrey, George McGovern and Dukakis. However, despite this apparently winning strategy of playing off of white grievance and fear, to supplement the more traditional Republican message of business deregulation and laissez-faire economics, the Republicans has sown the seeds of their own eventual failure.
Up until the passage of the Civil Rights Act, the white working class had been the core base of the Democratic Party, especially Southern working-class whiles. Once conservative Southern whites ceased to be the tail that wagged the Democratic party, Democrats gradually became more diverse, more focused on social issues, more liberal and more inclusive. At the same time, Senator Goldwater’s loss in 1964 had led to a bizarre retrenchment, where the moderates and liberals (sometimes called RINOs by the more conservative “true believers”) were slowly purged from the party, leading the Republicans further and further to the right. The conservative apogee occurred with the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980. Yet after Reagan’s presidency, Republicans were left with a strange sense of unfulfillment. For all their apparent dominance, their domestic policy goals remained just out of reach. President George H. W. Bush’s famous “no new taxes” pledge (which he was forced to break later), became an article of faith within the GOP. To them, the solution was clear: they hadn’t been conservative enough. Consequently, modern conservatism lost its intellectual underpinnings and became based solely on how much of an ideologue one could be. Modern conservatives today no longer value the detail and hard work that is essential to a functional, orthodox government. Rather than building compromise and legislation that can help the majority, modern conservatives have focused, ever more intently, on the politics of grievance and outrage. They have become literally “reactionary”, finding energy only when they have a threat to react against, fed by a “fantasy-industrial complex” of websites, television and radio shows designed to manufacture and distribute propaganda about unsubstantiated leftist conspiracies and atrocities, to provoke and enrage with minimal facts and maximum conviction.
At the same time, the demographics of the nation were changing, swelling the ranks of those who would become known as the “Obama Coalition” after 2008: African-Americans, Hispanic-Americans, Jews, Muslims, the nonreligious, members of other religions, LGBTQAI+, young voters (18-30), Asian-Americans, women and those with college degrees. At the same time, perhaps disgusted by the ugliness, hatred and yelping scorn churned up by the right’s “fantasy-industrial complex” the wealthy and the well-educated, who had been the Republican base for over 100 years, began drifting away from the Republican Party.
After Obama’s election, there were many Democrats who, rather naively assumed that there would be new political calculus, a new “Era of Good Feelings” in which Democrats and Republicans could finally work together. They were quickly disabused of this notion by a Republican campaign of reactionary intransigence and willful ignorance. The ugly undercurrent of white grievance revealed itself again, like a viper coiled beneath a rosebush. Nonetheless, Obama’s election gave a winning coalition to the Democrats, and revealed a winning formula, which they are now slowly embracing. The suburban victories which powered the Democrats’ retaking of the House in 2018 again revealed the vibrant power the Obama Coalition has at its disposal, if that power can be properly channeled. The best way to accomplish this is by focusing on bread-and butter issues like health care, racial justice, improving the nation’s infrastructure and equal economic opportunity. This is not “when they go low, we go high”. This is “when they go low, we get things done”. That focus will add a majority of suburban voters and the elderly to the Obama Coalition. Failure to use the Obama Coalition properly would lead to catastrophe for the Democrats.
The election of Donald Trump would seem a deadly riposte to the theory that Barack Obama’s election led to a fundamental shift in American politics. Yet, Trump’s election revealed the shift to a 7th Party System far more clearly than any Democrat’s election could have. Regardless of the fact that the Republicans had unified control of the government for 2 years, they still behaved like they were the minority party. President Trump had no legislative agenda (when he was elected with a minority of the popular vote), aside from a tax cut, building a border wall and he wasn’t even able to eliminate Obamacare. Meanwhile, the Democrats are practically boiling with ideas, from the “Green New Deal” to Andrew Yang’s “Freedom Dividend”, the Bernie Sanders’ “Medicare for All”. Trump’s election exposed the deep decay within the Republican brand, its fundamental weakness and the shape the party will take in the future.
David Brooks and Michael Gerson, two former Republican apologists, who have since left the party, repelled by the moral bankruptcy of its current leader, wrote a pair of opinion pieces in the week before the Democratic National Convention, in which they theorized about what the Republican Party would look like post-Trump. Mr. Brooks’ analysis is more hopeful, and less believable. Part of Mr. Brooks’ article was devoted to speculating who would become the next standard-bearer for the Republicans after President Trump leaves office. His list comprises of 4 relatively young Republican Senators: Josh Hawley of Missouri, Marco Rubio of Florida, Tom Cotton of Arkansas and Ben Sasse of Nebraska. He gives space to explain their logic for their governing philosophies and how their views have been shaped. Unfortunately, their actions reveal their highfalutin words to be so much humbug. Previously, we could have considered many of the Republicans stated goals, such as a smaller government and lower taxes, apparently grounded in Catholic social teaching, to have enough verisimilitude as to appear reasonable. However, the manner in which they chose to set about achieving those goals, such as cutting funding for food stamps and stubborn obstruction of the Affordable Care Act, have disproportionally negative effects on women and minorities. Now, after witnessing the supine manner in which they accept the daily barrage of bile from President Trump, even if it runs counter to their stated beliefs, only to rediscover their principles once the Democrats have the whip hand, it beggars the imagination to believe that the Republican Party has anything that even resembles a governing philosophy. Regardless of this, Mr. Brooks’ list is a compelling look at what shape the Republican party will take once we are done with Donald Trump. Mr. Gerson is blunter in his summation than Mr. Brooks, recognizing that future Republican presidential hopefuls (Mr. Gerson also mentions Senator Cotton) seek to “practice Trump’s grievance politics minus the crazy.” Mr. Gerson gets a little misty-eyed when reminiscing about the halcyon days of President Reagan’s supposedly moral and principled stand for democratic capitalism in an attempt to draw a comparison between President Trump and “true” Republicans. Mr. Gerson argues that President Trump and his poisonous political progeny are merely “occupying” the Republican space, but the reality is that Trump, Senator Cotton and other likely future Republican candidates for president like Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, Governor Kristi Noem of South Dakota and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo are the true Republicans, now.
President Obama, Kamala Harris, Andrew Yang, Pete Buttigieg, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and the rest of the 7thParty Democrats represent the true face of America today. They stand for the more diverse and more equal society that is happening now. They are representatives of the fact that the reigns of power are no longer found exclusively in the hands of straight, White, Anglo-Saxon Protestant men. This more diverse, more equal society that most Americans seek to achieve will lead Southern states like Arizona, Florida, Texas, Georgia and North Carolina to become more Democratic over the course of the 7th Party System. On the other hand, Midwestern states like Wisconsin, Iowa, Michigan and Ohio will probably become more Republican. Minnesota and Illinois will most likely remain in the Democratic column by virtue of Minneapolis and Chicago, respectively, but will become more purple overall. The Republican base will remain, much as it was, comprised of the white, Christian, middle-class and working-class men, from rural areas in the Midwest, South and West.
Barring damaged candidates like Hillary Clinton, the Democrats will dominate American politics for the next 20 to 30 years. This does not mean that Democrats ought to rest easy on their laurels. Instead, Democrats ought to learn from the hard lessons Mitch McConnell and Donald Trump inflicted upon them. Democrats need to embrace seriousness and political moderation for future campaigns. Franklin Roosevelt, Lyndon Johnson and Barack Obama were never radicals. They were pragmatists, and it behooves the Democrats to elect other leaders in that same vein: steady, capable, mature, intelligent, hard-working (possibly boring) legislators with a proven record of reliability. That being said, a good candidate should have a message and policy ideas that are disruptive and innovative. Change doesn’t come without ideas that galvanize and stimulate. Those new ideas are bound to ruffle feathers. That’s the point. (It certainly wouldn’t hurt if the Democrats were to also take another look at Howard Dean’s 50 state strategy and invest in organizing at the state and local level throughout more traditionally red parts of the country.)
Republicans will be diminished by their association with Mr. Trump for a generation. Stripped of all they have, intellectually, as a result of their kowtowing to a cruel, bigoted incompetent, the only thing left to them more of the same, the zombie economics of deregulation and trickle-down, and the identity politics of white grievance. It is likely that they will pursue these bankrupt policies in spite of commanding future losses. The Republicans are fighting against the tide of history. It would be surprising if the Republicans were not to end up as a reduced, regional party by the end of the 7thParty System era.
Former Vice-President Joe Biden, whilst emphatically an operator of the previous political paradigm, has cleverly positioned himself as a “bridge” between the old political paradigm of the 6th Party System and the new party system we are currently living in. His choice of Senator Kamala Harris is further evidence of his commitment to be that bridge. Both Vice-President Biden and Senator Harris are members of the moderate wing of the Democratic Party. It is by now well established that the progressive wing of the Democrats is where a great deal of the vitality and political will is, and thus the political center of gravity is shifting within the party. The primary defeats of establishment Democrats ranging from Lacy Clay to Joe Crowley by wunderkinds like Cori Bush and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, reveals the likely eventual end of the 7th Party System: a split between the moderate Democrats and the progressives. It will be difficult to have a party big enough to fit both Conor Lamb and Ilhan Omar. Eventually a split will come. The Democrats open-armed approach to politics is working to their benefit. Politics is all about bringing people together, not driving us apart. Democrats are united in their belief that President Trump and the politics of white grievance and white supremacy that he and the Republicans practice are vile and corrupt. However, once President Trump and his ilk are removed as a convenient foil, it remains to be how well the two sides will work together and for how long. One possible, intriguing outcome of the 7th Party System is the rise of a 3-party system in the U.S., with two smaller political parties (the Republicans and the Progressives) occupying the wings of the political spectrum, with the Democratic Party dominating the political center and the reigns of political power.
The 7th Party System ought to be an era of opportunity for Democrats and those who share the values of equality, justice and decency. What Democrats make of their time on top of the political dogpile depends on how quickly they embrace bold social and economic positive change.
