Brooks has a new column proclaiming 3 parties in America: partisan left-liberal Dems, hard right-wing Repubs and centrist McCain-Liebermanism.
I think this is a false picture and would like to contrast with an alternative emerging breakdown:
1 Progressive/Populist Dems
2 Moderate/Traditional Repubs
3 Neos
Let's take a look in detail ...
People who have Republicans for decades and generations are disgusted by what's been happening with their party, it's embarassing, and increasingly they feel deprived of the traditional levers of power they once had, unable to do anything about the situation
A certain number of these Repubs will either vote for certain Dems they trust in the next election, or will simply sit it out.
There is a cross-over vote available because of this situation.
These disgruntled Repubs do actually believe in many of their party's traditional values, they aren't abandoning that, but they are rethinking whether having given so much power to the thuggery was actually a good idea.
They will likely retake their party, and jettison the neo-cons.
Neo-cons will also be jettisoned from the Democratic party, as they make Dem division and thus absence of clarity in messaging, inevitable.
Neo-con sympathizers will feel in a quandry, and either take a more broad view of the world, or walk away as well.
Progressives will play a greater role in the Dem party, and a new populist branch will grow from the Fighting Dems and re-emergent rural, southern and conservative streams.
Real neo-cons and fellow travellers could actually garner a substantial vote in 3-way races.
The concepts they promote have penetrated the mainstream and the masses, so even though they wouldn't have a well-known party name behind them, people would 'recognize' them.
They are ideological enough, that they will be unwilling and unable to back down from their positions, or to take a back seat in party politics, in any party.
So, they should have their own party.
McCain I see as someone who traditional Repubs would vote for.
Sure, he has taken certain progressive positions, but he has the aura of someone sane, grounded, tough, reliable.
He might like to knock heads together in the Mid-East, but he's not naturally a map remaker in the neo-con fashion.
Bush 1 Repubs will stick with that party.
Wall Street Repubs will split to some degree, but again traditionals, who believe in fiscal sanity and want to return to some balance, will stay Repub.
Those who want to go over the top, destroying the remaining collective social agreement, will go neo-con.
That leaves the religious right; where will they go?
Again we may see a split.
The hard-core evangelical end-of-world-ers would go with neo-cons; those who simply advocate for a greater place for values, family, and respect for church in the public discourse, will be happy enough with Repubs.
So, here's what it could look like:
Dem Party
Progressive Grassroots; Netroots; Active, Creative, Networked Youth; Cultural Creatives
Labor; Rights, Justice Groups; Ethnic Opportunity/Prosperity Groups
Populist; Fighting Dems; Conservative Dems; Little-Guy Dems
Balanced Liberals
Repub Party
Moderates; Traditional Repub Values
Old School Wall Street
Sane Evangelicals
Foreign Policy Realists
Neo Party (Neon Party?)
Neo-Con Masterminds from Repubs
Enablers and some hard Neo-Libs from Dems
Apocalyptic Evangelicals
Drown-in-the-bathtub Anti-Govt types
Anarcho-Capitalists
Other Nihilistic Visionaries
In this breakdown, given the media penetration of many neo-con ideas, what would be the percentages in national races?
Maybe about 40% Dems, 25% Repubs, 20% Neo-Cons, 15% Indy, in terms of a party affiliation split. In actual voting for a president, you would get cross-over and the right Dem candidate could win.
With the Neo-Cons dwindling and eventually reinventing themselves into something else as their ideas and side-effects play out across the world in unhelpful ways
Note that in the Brooks formulation, the Neo-Cons get to sneak off and hide behind a 'centrist' McCain fig leaf, while pretending to leave behind extremists in the Repub camp ...
Sounds good, except for one thing, they are the extremists and the wacko Repubs love them and won't be separated in that way!
Note also in his scenario, that in having McCain-Lieberman be the new party, the Liebermans of the world get to avoid the difficult option of having to formally join the Republican party in order to be with McCain types.
But the sort of people who really are Republicans, like it that way and are unlikely to abandon their past, they still feel like they own that turf, that it's been usurped.
Both parties can only regain their sanity, self-respect and political viability by ejecting the hard Neos and others who, for various reasons, like drinking and selling that kool-aid