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

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.)