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

[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.