The Coming Political Realignment: Part II

Two years ago I wrote that both the Republican and Democratic parties were hollowed out shells that would inevitably lead both to split up (See https://shulmaven.blogspot.com/2016/11/the-coming-political-realignment.html) I envisioned a Trumpian Jacksonian/Know Nothing Party ( hostile to nontraditional lifestyles, anti-immigration, anti-abortion protectionist,  isolationist and skeptical of environmental regulation with more than a tinge of racism in its strong white identity and supportive existing entitlement programs), a Right Hamiltonian Party consisting of establishment Republicans (business oriented conservatism favoring low taxes,  entitlement reform, open trade, high skilled immigration, live and let live social policies, moderate environmental regulation and an internationalist foreign policy), a Left Hamiltonian Party consisting of establishment Democrats (supportive of big government, friendly to finance Silicon Valley and Hollywood, open trade, skilled immigration,  pro-abortion, the regulatory state especially with respect to environmental regulation,, affirmative action, and thoroughly believe in the educational meritocracy that runs the country)  and a Social Democratic Party (hostility to capitalism, supportive of an expanded welfare state, pro-abortion, very pro-immigration,  great willingness to sacrifice the economy for the environment, and identity politics)  headed by a Bernie Sanders or an Elizabeth Warren, for example.

What we learned from last week’s election is that the Republican Party as we knew it is dead and because there are so many moral eunuchs (i.e. Paul Ryan, Lindsey Graham) cleaving to Trump there is little hope for the emergence of a Right Hamiltonian Party. Indeed the Republican Party has become irrelevant in California, New York and California and in practically every big city and is on its way there in many high income suburbs (witness Orange County, New Jersey, Philadelphia and yes Dallas and Houston for example). Thus the Right Hamiltonians in the Republican Party have two choices. They suck it up and betray everything they once believed in and stay with the Trumpians or they can find common cause with the Left Hamiltonians in the Democratic Party.

Such a move would be analogous to the neocons in the Democratic Party of the 1970's who bridled against the flaws in the Great Society, the failure of Keynesian economics and the weakness of the Carter foreign policy who then found a new home the party of Reagan. In fact it is many of the very same people who left the Democrats in the 1970’s and 80’s are now moving towards them.

While, for the most part, the Republicans welcomed their new converts with open arms, the same cannot be said of the Democratic Party as it is now constituted. Simply put the Social Democratic wing does not want them. Hence the Left Hamiltonians in the Democratic Party also have choice to make. Do they continue to make common cause with the activist Social Democratic wing or do they join with their natural allies, the Right Hamiltonians. And if they do, will the Social Democrats walk and form their own party. Of course the activist/Social Democratic wing might be powerful enough to kick out the establishment Democrats in an open convention. The underbelly of the Social Democrats is identity politics and taxation. There are simply too many identity politics erogenous zones to stroke to maintain coherence in one political party; it is too exhausting. Further the Left Hamiltonians won’t countenance the high rate of taxation required to enact the Social Democratic agenda.

The evidence from the election is that the far left candidates did rather poorly in competitive districts while the more establishment types cleaned the clocks of their Republican opponents. So my guess is that in 2020 instead of the drama being in the Republican Party all of the drama will shift to the Democrats where a split is inevitable, maybe not in 2020, but certainly by 2024.

How it all sorts remains open to too many questions, and this might be wishful thinking, the political party that rises above our current infatuation with the identity politics of both our current parties to become the party of E Pluribus Unum, out of many one, will become dominant. This was the insight of the 19^th Century British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli where he linked the concerns of the elite with that of the masses under the slogan of “One Nation Conservatism.” The American version of this is as old as our Constitution, E Pluribus Unum.