The political landscape

[unixronin]

I've come across a variety of articles across the Web talking about how the Republican Party is melting down as moderate Republicans, feeling marginalized by their own party, are abandoning it to run as independents.  (Here's an example from the Boston Globe.)

My intent here is not to argue about whether or not the Republican Party is in fact falling apart.  Rather, I have a larger question:  Assume for the moment that the speculation is true.  If the Republican Party falls apart, what happens to the Democratic Party?

The way I see it, there's a variety of ways it could go.  If enough moderate Republicans cross over to the Democratic side of the aisle, we could end up with a de-facto one-party system, with a Congress all but completely controlled by the Democratic Party and no other faction powerful enough to seriously challenge it at the Federal level.  Or, one or more of the third parties could pick up enough support to challenge the Democratic Party.  The Democratic Party itself could move back towards the center, influenced by former moderate Republicans and no longer needing to cater to its more radical left-wingers; or, no longer needing support from the center to defeat the Republican Party, it could move further left.  Or, it could even melt down itself, lacking the Republican party to balance it.

[Note:  I don't claim this is an exhaustive list, or that any of them is a sure thing.  I'm not predicting, I'm speculating.]

So, what do all you zombies think?

Comments

[guppiecat]

The the entire length of my political memory, the Democrats have defined themselves by strict opposition to the Republicans. If the Republicans suddenly fall apart, I think the Democrats will too.

If this were to happen (which I don't think will occur, but it's an interesting exercise), I predict the following:

1) The term "Republican" sticks around, but it becomes a marginalized party focusing on conservative Christian issues, with no rhetoric involving taxes.

2) The Libertarian party will lose their rhetoric of "fairness" and "tolerance" and focus strictly on the financial issues of building a realistic taxation system. They will absorb the non-fundamentalist Republicans and lose their more fringey members.

3) The Democratic party will focus primarily on social issues. They will lose about 1/3 of their membership when they start discussing labor issues and socialized medicine.

4) The Green party will rise in prominence and absorb the environmentalists from the Democratic party.

5) The Socialist and Communist parties will see this as their chance to take power, and they will be sadly mistaken. The other four primary parties will unite and utterly crush these two parties, after which they will continue to discuss their own issues and completely fail to understand why their three opposing parties will not engage in dialogue with them.

6) Another party will eventually form, called "Isolationist" for lack of a better term. Their focus will be the fact that America is no longer the one global superpower. They will focus on local issues, and absorb the disenfranchised social Libertarians. They will continue to be a minor party, but will add important discussions to the political framework.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

An interesting scenario. At least the first three to four of those points sound pretty plausible to me.

[mzmadmike.livejournal.com]

That sounds rather plausible. You don't mention the interim, where, drunk with power, the Dems give the commies and soshies 90% of their platform anyway, the economy collapses and we revisit the Dark Ages.

The question is, will the reorganization happen fast enough to stop the above before it's too late?

Though I doubt the Libertarians will ever amount to anything. They've had almost 40 years and gotten pretty much nowhere.

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

I think that the Democrats, if they lose The Enemy, will immediately have to fission in order to create a New Enemy.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

I don't know that the Democratic Party would create a new "enemy" out of its own flesh. I do think the likelihood is good of the Democratic Party, lacking a strong "enemy", breaking up into factions and splinter groups when the fringe elements see that the main body of the party isn't really interested in pandering to what they want once it no longer needs them.

[fruitylips.livejournal.com]

This is already happening. If you read the loopier bits of the left (even as mainstream as Kos) there is a lot of hatred towards the Blue Dog Dems for well, not being lockstep nutballs. Heck, if you just look at how strongly they've gone after Lieberman, it's remarkable that someone as reliably liberal as he shouldn't be able to find a home in the party anymore. The problem, of course, is that they still need Lieberman and the Blue Dogs to caucus with them to hold the Senate majority.

[mzmadmike.livejournal.com]

Kos? "Mainstream"?

That may be the funniest thing I've heard today.

Not only are they stupid (Which, I grant you, IS "mainstream"), they're so far out of their tree I just wish they had ropes.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

So if they are, relatively speaking, "mainstream", .... how far out there are the REAL moonbats? I think that was Chris's point.

[mzmadmike.livejournal.com]

I said their midget intellects were mainstream. Come on, these are the people who insisted that Stig was actually Bristol's kid, and Sarah was wearing a "fake pregnancy suit" while governing, in order to hide the fact. They even claimed to have found proof of the suit.

Then Bristol turned out to be pregnant and even they had to admit they were wrong.

Add in the cowardly, sniveling little shit that Koz is, and they bring nothing to the table.

[pernishus.livejournal.com]

Perhaps the resultant "Era of Bad Feelings" would be not as dissimilar to the early nineteenth century's "Era of Good Feelings" as one might have supposed...

[dafydd.livejournal.com]

I think wondering this is about as effective as buying into the "Permanent Republican Majority." Demographics will shift, underlying foci will change, but the parties will still be there, with the "Progressives" or "Liberals" tending to stay Democratic, and "Conservatives" tending to stay Republican, and both parties going through phases where they are owned by power players or refreshed by new ideas.

[cipherpunk.livejournal.com]

Up until FDR in the 1940s, the Democrats were a party of conservativism. Teddy Roosevelt was considered remarkably progressive, and is a hero of the Republican Party. Likewise with Lincoln; he was not in any way a conservative icon.

The parties will also not always be there. American history is full of parties that lasted for a long time and then suddenly perished. Who remembers the Whigs today? Or the Democratic–Republicans?

Upheaval in political parties is a bedrock fact of American history.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

As cipherpunk just pointed out, the experience of history does not appear to support your viewpoint.

[dafydd.livejournal.com]

What, the viewpoint that your predictions are meaningless over a time horizon of anything more than two years?

I've already opined, years ago, that our system limits us to two parties. I don't particularly care what those two parties call themselves, or what they represent, unless an election is coming up and I must do my civic duty. At that point, I compare the two philosophic leaders, and make my choice.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

In the first place, I didn't make any predictions, I speculated.

In the second, no, I'm referring to the idea that the US will always have two dominant parties, a progressive/liberal Democratic party and a conservative Republican party. It hasn't even been true thoughout the past history of the US. Why should it remain true throughout its future?

[dafydd.livejournal.com]

Further, cipherpunk's examples are all from before the Age of Instant Information. If I am to predict anything, I will predict that the parties as they now stand will persist for the forseeable future, because no other party will capture the spirits of enough voters to make one of the existing parties a minority.

[cipherpunk.livejournal.com]

Further, [his] examples are all from before the Age of Instant Information.

Sorry, no: the telegraph dates back to 1832. During the Civil War, people in New York City could read dispatches from a battle fought just hours before: a morning skirmish would get telegraphed to the home office in the early afternoon and would make the evening edition.

What the internet has done is brought the Age of Instant Information to the masses. It's been available to the news media for a century and a half.

[cipherpunk.livejournal.com]

Civil war.

No, I'm not kidding.

During undergrad, one of my professors — Phil Lucas, a respected Civil War scholar — made a persuasive argument the Civil War actually began in the 1830s with the collapse of the Whig Party. Up until the 1830s, the South had no dominant political party. They, like the rest of the Union, were represented by a mixture of Whigs and Democrats.

When the Whigs fell apart in the 1830s, the Republican Party arose from the ashes of the Whigs — but only in the North. The Republican Party never found any political base in the South. For the next few decades the South elected one Democrat after another to the Congress.

This meant that when problems befell the South, the elected representatives could not turn on each other. It was no longer "vote for me because I'm from the other party" — there was no other party. Instead, it was "vote for me, because the other party put us in this mess, and I'll make those Northern Republicans pay!"

Fast forward thirty years and you get the Civil War. The total collapse of the Whig Party, and the failure of the Republican Party to grow root in the South, led quite directly to the social alienation that made secession an inevitability.

So, yes. I see the Republican Party imploding and self–destructing, and it fills me with fear for the future.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

There is, indeed, that unpleasant scenario. Few things are as ugly or as vicious as a civil war.

That's an interesting scenario for the origins of the Civil War, too. I'd never considered it that way, but I can see how it could happen.

[mzmadmike.livejournal.com]

The Dems will self-destruct first, for the simple reason that all they care about is "Change" and "different." Change for change sake is rarely good. Whereas the status quo is, self referentially, what currently works.

[robbat2.livejournal.com]

Taking a break from direct US politics, South Africa was mainly a two party system (well, 2.2 major parties as the IFP replaces the ANC in KZN), but recently a very large faction of the ANC has split into a as-yet-unnamed new party, led by the premiers of several provinces.

[koyote.livejournal.com]

well, on the one hand, these things go in cycles- we've had one party governments for short periods of time before. I wouldn't worry about a one party state simply from a split in the "other party" (I am concerned about a one party state, but for other reasons)

On the other hand, i haven't seen the ultra-left wing Democratic party some people have. Sure, there are members who are, but most of the really radical people are greens, CP, anarchists, or one of the other small parties. The dems haven't run anything I'd consider as ultra radical in a presidential election or most of the major elections- in short the dems aren't that polarized, though plenty of *people* are.

The gripping hand says that if you found a split like you suspect, you'd end up with a republican party (under whichever name) moderate enough to attract *democrats* and a highly polarized Scudder Party (under whatever name) trying to emulate the Taliban or something. At which point we'd need to find a way for a balance to THAT to be workable, such as a stronger green party.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

That's a possibility, too. Rather than just collapsing and withering on the vine, the Republican party could well fracture into Moderates and Theocrats. One could, in fact, argue that's what's already happening, with the Theocrats-to-be keeping the name.

[ithildae.livejournal.com]

The Democrats are a loose coalition of interests that have learned to play nice with each other and not step too hard on each other's toes. In total, they are not nearly as polarized as most of their supporters and their blogs. Obama is really about as far left as they have dared nominate in my memory.

The Republicans were a fractious collection of interests that had a common enemy, the Democrats. Reagan gave them voice and cohesion two decades back. There has always been a suppression of dissent within the Republican ranks. (An example is Romney's withdrawal from the presidential campaign as soon as he was eliminated.)

King George has splintered the Republican coalition and broken their united voice. With the Democrats pandering farther to the left, and the Republicans in disarray, I see the formation of a new party that will tend to capture the center of the political spectrum. I figure a decade or so out. The current Republican party came from just such turmoil as we are seeing now. The new party will capture many Republicans and a lot of Democrats, though I expect the Democrats to survive as a party. This is a optimistic view.

[cipherpunk.livejournal.com]

I would disagree that the Republican Party has always suppressed dissent. William Safire and Milt Friedman were both quite welcome within the Republican Party of old, despite the fact they were Libertarians. I used to feel welcome in the Republican Party, too, despite my heavy Libertarian leaning.

What Reagan gave to the party was a code of conduct. The Republican Eleventh Commandment, as issued by Reagan, is "thou shalt not speak ill of a fellow Republican." It was very much party above self, but honest and courteous dissent was always tolerated.

That all changed when Bush II was elected, and is the reason I left the Republican Party. Overnight, I found myself left out in the cold. In 2003, Bush II made some overtures to the Libertarian wing, in a "let's all pitch in together to beat Kerry, and oh, I promise we'll start paying attention to you guys again." I didn't buy it and I ended my affiliation with the GOP after having been a member for all my adult life.

[ithildae.livejournal.com]

Perhaps suppression is too strong a word. I agree with your point.

What I tried to say was that King George has broken the unity that Reagan created within the Republican ranks. He squandered a vibrant and re-energized party.

My experience mirrors yours. The GOP has moved decisively away from my politics in the last eight years. The only thing that keeps me attached in any way, is the good people operating the party and running in the local elections.

I hope for a new third party that will capture more of the center of political thought. I think the environment is right, it just needs the right spokesman.

[mzmadmike.livejournal.com]

My experience does not support this. There are plenty of elements of my writing that should, and I expected, to incense both right and left.

I get screeching, irrational hate mail from the left. From the right, about the worst I get is, "Well, I didn't care for the amount of sex, and I find some of the political positions to be objectionable, but it's certainly an interesting study."

And I KNOW some of the people saying that are Evangelicals.

[ithildae.livejournal.com]

What part did I get wrong? (I am always capable of making an error, especially when opinion is asked for.)

I find any cogent argument attractive and engaging, even if I do not agree with it. Poor logic is about the only thing the really incenses me. Then I tend not to engage at all. (For obvious reasons.)

[mzmadmike.livejournal.com]

The suppression of dissent. There is far more of it on the left. A few examples from memory:

Tipper Gore and the "Parents Music Resource Center"

Obama kicking the conservative press off his tour three days ago.

The feminist attacks on Palin. She may be a woman, but she's the WRONG TYPE of woman, and that's worse.

Do a test for yourself. Go to democraticunderground.com and attempt to dissent. You'll be booted and all posts erased within literal seconds. Go to freerepublic.com and do the same. They'll argue with you. At length, and often stupidly, but they won't suppress you.

[smandal.livejournal.com]

I think it depends what the big "wedge" issues are of the day.

If the social conservatives lose traction, then the remaining wedge issues are economic policy (and by extension immigration and taxes). I don't know if the Republican party as such will survive, but a new party will fill the vacuum made of independents and moderate Republicans and Democrats.

Reinvention - it's what's for dinner

[theonetruejim.livejournal.com]

It has to be - looks like the Dems ate the Republican Party's lunch :)

The Republican party is going to survive this setback. They just discovered that the formula for winning that they've relied on since Reagan took office doesn't work quite so well any more, is all.

And let's not forget that the Democrats were pretty much seen as roadkill in 2004, too.

Re: Reinvention - it's what's for dinner

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

It has to be - looks like the Dems ate the Republican Party's lunch :)

I'm not so sure of that. Relatively speaking, the Democratic party's gains in the House and Senate were not huge. John Scalzi a href="http://whatever.scalzi.com/2008/11/05/reality-check/">makes an excellent point that the Democratic Party didn't win yesterday, Barack Obama did, and the Democratic Party rode on his coat-tails. I think a lot of people are aware that the Democratic Party has had two years in which they could have done a lot, had they the will and the desire, but were content to sit on their asses and let Republicans continue to take the blame. (In fact, it's been widely reported that the Democratic party repeatedly blocked Republican efforts to head off the current financial crisis by putting the brakes on subprime lending and "investment" in third and fourth order financial derivatives.)