Political Realignment

[RoyGBiv]

There are a few theories about political realignment. Most of them agree that a distinct realignment took place in 1860, another in 1896, and another in 1936 (not 1933 as some idealists have proposed). Arthur Schlesinger has one theory that doesn't entirely fit with this. A number of historians, political scientists, economists, and sociologists have another.

Where it gets cloudy is 1980. Does the theory that explains all those other years apply then or not?

There's no concrete answer.

Regardless, I have an observation that explains, to some extent, the weirdness of DU in the last few weeks.

We're all Democrats, right? Yes. Most of us are liberals, yes? Damn straight. Some of us are more liberal that others.

But what does that mean?

Well, it doesn't mean anything concrete. One member of DU who is far and away more left-wing than most, by traditional measures, has come out in favor of this so-called bailout bill. Other DUers, who are self-described moderates, have come out declaring their unqualified opposition. Other left-wingers have condemned it. Other moderates have applauded it.

We've got trolls among us as well, and they don't seem to know what to believe. Bush is for it? BARNY FRANKY is for it? Harry Reid is for it? You've got the gamut there. What the fuck? Idiot to conservative to liberal to moderate to nutjob. A lot of people are for it. A lot of people are against it.

What's a person to believe?

We had a political realignment in 1936. Since this was FDR's second term, a lot of pop historians (the people that write HS textbooks) don't acknowledge the difference between the political coalition that elected him in 1932 and that which put him into his second term, third, and fourth terms. They were different people, different interests. But those who pushed him to the White House for his second term started getting together during the first term, but they hadn't solidified yet. See, during the first term, FDR didn't do much. He deferred. He tried to work off the policies of his predecessor (that would be Hoover) and make those policies work. But, they didn't, and to make something work, FDR needed a new coalition. And he got one, finally, years after he first ran for office.

I don't know. I can't know. No one can know until after the fact. But, I believe, based on history and the patterns evidence, that we are headed toward a new political coalition. That's why, in part, some of us who think we are conservative or moderate sound like communists and why others who are so leftist they put Marx to shame come off sounding like poster boys for the Right.

The rules have changed. You don't know it yet, not really, but our world has been upended. The same kind of political and economic forces that ruled in the 1930s are coming into place today, and we would do well to recognize that and learn from it.

If we don't, bread lines will be the best-case scenario.

[liberalmuse]

1. Excellent post!

[RoyGBiv]

2. Thank you ...

I expect flames (or crickets), but I am thankful the first response was positive.

[elocs]

3. Who are we supposed to realign with? Republicans who were against the bailout?

Spit the Democratic Party in any way and you will hand over power to the Republicans who are far more pragmatic about the reality of things than Democrats. I am now and always will be a Democrat and I have no desire to align myself with anyone else.

[RoyGBiv]

7. You're not understanding the meaing ...

Political realignment isn't about changing parties. That's one reason why the 1980 cycle is so controversial. What happened then is traditional Democrats voted Republican. Does that constitute a realignment? By itself, no.

African Americans were once largely Republican. Why is clear. That was the party of Lincoln. Their interests didn't change at all, but as of 1936, their voting behavior did. Why did it change?

The traditional answer is that the parties switched their platforms so that blacks were more attracted to Democrats, but that's not a complete explanation, nor even true. In 1936, the South was still "solid" in its support of the Democratic party, but not because of the black vote. Blacks voted for Democrats because of some other reason.

And that reason, loosely stated, is that the Democratic party changed to incorporate powerful interests that were not opposed to labor or minority rights.

[elocs]

9. If the Democrats realign or fragment in any way and the Republicans do not do the same

the Republicans will win. So Democrats become Republicans and Republicans become Democrats? I understand the historic realignment of the parties, I just don't see it happening here. When Obama is elected and if he can even remotely straighten out the mess we are in he will be reelected. Then maybe Hillary will get her chance at last.

I believe it is possible that the Republican party might redefine itself. I have a friend who bleeds Republican and I have told him over the years that Bushco and the neocons are not the traditional conservative Republicans that my friend believes Republicans should be. A loss now may give Republicans the opportunity to become what they once were and not Bushco and the like who are really RINOs (not pseudo Democrats, just not traditional Republicans).

[RoyGBiv]

11. I'm not sure you do understand ...

At no point in history have "Democrats become Republicans" or "Republicans become Democrats."

Each party is composed of different interests. Those interests, writ large, form a voting bloc. That voting block aligns itself with the party most likely to address its interests. The Republican party at its inception was composed of voting blocs so diverse that the only thing that held them together in even the most modest of ways was the idea of a perpetual union of states. Elements of the original Republican party currently form the core of the modern Democratic party.

That much we know.

At present, the Republican party is far more fractured than the Democratic party has been since the early 20th century. Elements of it were once allies to the Democrats, and those elements are currently rethinking their options. This is why you see some Republicans endorsing Obama. On the other hand, it's also why you see people like Lieberman relinquishing his party affiliation and siding with Republicans.

Lieberman hasn't changed. Hagel hasn't changed. The definitions have changed, and people like that who exist on the fringes are having to reconsider their core values.

[elocs]

12. Just because I don't agree with you does not mean I don't understand,

but there is no point in my going any further with this thread. You are getting plenty of congratulations from others so you can just bask in that.

[RoyGBiv]

15. This is disappointing ...

A personal question: Why do you think I want to bask in "personal congratulations"?

I don't post threads because I'm looking for someone to come over and give me a high-five. I post threads because I have something I want to say and want to invite commentary.

If you want to disagree, please do. I invite that. Reasoned disagreement is often the beginning of the path to the best opinions.

[alarimer]

I see what you mean.

Let's trade the DLC/Blue Dogs to the Republicans for the libertarian wing of the Republicans.

[Leopolds Ghost]

51. Unfortunately I'm worried the reverse may be happening.

Wouldn't it be a shame if the fundies and the libertarians aligned as the opposition party and the Democratic party
becomes the "ruling pro-business party" like it is in certain cities like New Orleans? Opposition to the "Toryism"
path the US and Britain and other ruling economies have been on since the fall of the Berlin wall would become
impossible. (Unless you were a fundie, and even then they would assert that economic inequality was the fault of
the poor and the government, not their oppressors.) This is the situation in Mexico with the "Institutional
Revolutionary Party" and in the US after 1876 and prior to 1932 -- a good 50 year span.

On edit: If the Business Class of the Republican party are marginalized, I really don't see them sitting on the
sidelines and continuing to donate to the minority radical Republicans. I see them infiltrating the Dems and
supporting Woodrow Wilson-style candidates.

[alarimer]

55. The downside of that is that progressives will surely be further marginalized.

Or replace the Democrats with something like a Progressive Party. I certainly do not believe we need to be the party of business. Someone has to be the party for the people. If not the Democrats, then who?

[RoyGBiv]

57. The Party of Business ...

This issue of which party aligns itself with business is an interesting one. (So is the phrasing. Does the party align itself with business, or does business align itself with a party? That's a question that could lead off on a tangent I don't want to take right now, so I'll just leave it as a question.) Despite how interesting it is -- or perhaps because of it -- the issue is overly simplified in most popular, traditional narratives, especially when we view the political spectrum as linear. At no time in America's history could you find a successful political party not aligned with a business interest. The real question is what type of business interests are involved and to what extent are those interests compatible with people's interests.

I could offer a number of examples of political parties during specific election cycles or political eras that are not traditionally viewed as the "parties of business" or perhaps more correctly are viewed more in the context of what they did or sought to do in the interests of people and individual freedom. Democratic-Republicans were the foes of New England "merchants," yet their idealistic agrarianism was itself a well-entrenched business interest incorporating the cotton industry and trade in human beings as slaves. The 1856 - 1864/6 Republicans were the party that freed the slaves, but were throughout the war building up the enormous railroad industry and laid the groundwork for corporate personhood.

Populists that grew out of the Agrarian Revolt were by definition "the people's party" and opposed the banking sector and industry with a special kind of ferocity. It too grew out of and gained power due to a deep depression. They are a special case in US history in that in their initial form they seemed to be everything a party of people's interests should be. However, they were undermined from within and without. The minding industry was in essence able to co-opt the movement and install its own into positions of power. In addition, from an ethno-cultural perspective, "the people's party" and its incarnation as the Progressive Party later was split into pieces by the deep-seeded racism of many of its members. The 1880-90s Populists would provide a good case study of what we seem to think we want and how difficult it is to achieve when we get past the high rhetoric.

The lesson from history that applies most closely to the present political and economic environment is the period from the middle of the 1920s through the start of WWII. FDR and his Democratic party is often seen as the most successful political movement that favored "the people." Examples of good works abound -- labor rights, the infant stages of civil rights, social security, and many other programs as well as an apparent guiding ideology that focused on the needs of the common individual.

But, naturally, that's not the whole story. Viewed from one perspective, what took place in the 30s was a marriage of political power to a specific kind of business interest. While the Republicans continued their blissful honeymoon with the House of Morgan and other financiers, FDR was lifted up to high office by a coalition of business interests that were themselves opposed to Morgan and many other types of business. The difference between FDR's coalition and what had come during the previous 30 years, was that the specific businesses that threw their hat in with the Democrats were not natural enemies of labor. Using a cost analysis, opposing labor was, for these interests, more expensive and destructive to their business goals than lending support to things like social security and other reforms. You could view it through the lens of an insurance adjustor's bean counting system. Does it cost more to recall the defective automobile or simply pay off the resulting law suits? Whatever costs less is what wins.

Put more succinctly, FDR's Democrats were the party of business, but a specific kind of business. The Republicans too were a party of business, but another kind.

The point here is that "business" is not a single, monolithic entity. Some businesses and even corporate interests are better than others, some actually beneficial in helping achieve the goals that "people" want. The lesson of the Populists and FDR combined suggests to us that despite massive organization, the people as a whole are not themselves monolithic and want different things as individuals. Historically, the only way to achieve those goals on a large scale is to organize heavily and with a distinct purpose of clearly defined, specific goals and then align with an interest that does not oppose those goals.

[NC_Nurse]

4. Very interesting. I think you may have something.

The world is changing and our country is being changed as well, whether we like it or not.
Interesting times.

[RoyGBiv]

8. May you live in ...

The Chinese blessing/curse.

Yes, we live in interesting times.

[rwenos]

5. Thoughtful Observation

The political fault lines are definitely shifting beneath us. About 30% of the electorate fetishizes gestures of "patriotism" and demonizes abortion. About 30% hates Bush's and Palin's guts for their anti-intellectual right-wing populism, their superficiality and their isolationism. That leaves about 40% who are buffeted by the economy, primarily motivated by checkbook issues, and worried sick about their prospects for retirement, sending the kids to college, etc.

Of that center 40%, about half care about their own money more than anything. The other half realizes we need an enlightened mix of regulation, capitalism, government intervention (at times) in the economy, and in the old-fashioned idea that, in the words of John Kennedy in May 1963, "The world knows America will never start a war."

Thus we have close elections and vile domestic politics.

[RoyGBiv]

10. That's a very important point ...

We, as a people, hold positions/opinions that contradict themselves.

That's a clear signal that a realignment is taking place.

One issue we have, now, is that our "positions" are defined for us by the media. The problem there is that the media is so galatically stupid, on the whole, they have no clue how to define the terms.

I don't look down on or blame people for not understanding. As I said initially, I don't entirely understand myself. But we have to ask questions, not of the media or the politicians, but of ourselves. And we have to give honest answers. If we don't know, we have to admit it and either try to figure it out or defer to others who have already done so.

[tavalon]

30. Do you always start topics like this?

My mind is racing, dipping and soaring at what you've brought up and how it puts the onus of understanding ourselves and others directly on each one of us. No bumpersticker sentiments. Fascinating.

I've been working on figuring out which label fits my ideology best but I think I've been looking at it from the wrong angle.

[RoyGBiv]

41. I have my moments ...

I don't start topics often, partly because I have almost an instinctive need to do it like I'm writing an essay (with the associated pile of books and articles sitting on my desk), and that doesn't play well at online forums most of the time. That's not a knock against them. It's just that this isn't what people look for in a discussion group most of the time, it seems.

These thoughts have been running through my head for awhile now (several years actually), and they happened to mesh with many current events and a lot of reading I've done lately. A lot of events seems to be coming together to trigger what a lot of historians, political scientists, et al have been predicting.

[tavalon]

43. I sift through the huge amount of noise here to find posts such as this

Thought provoking or just provoking sometimes, I care not. I want to be pushed into the uncomfortable position except when I don't. A mass of contradictions I am. This one has been bookmarked because I want to think more on this, a lot more in fact. Thank you.

[gopbuster]

13. While I agree in terms of the shift, I think you may be underestimating

the the portion that "realizes we need an enlightened mix of regulation, capitalism, government intervention (at times) in the economy, and in the old-fashioned idea that, in the words of John Kennedy in May 1963, "The world knows America will never start a war."

[burrowowl]

6. Interesting Post!

Read and cogitate!

[readmoreoften]

14. Good god, Arthur Schlesinger? Too conservative for me thanks.

I've never in my life met a communist who sounded like a poster boy for the right.

[RoyGBiv]

16. Ah, well ...

Didn't care to read the entire thing, eh?

[RoyGBiv]

18. Pardon me ...

I avoided saying this at first, but with the lack of response to mine and after considering your own, I decided this needs to be said.

If you were paying attention and actually know what Schlesinger argued, you'd know that what I said contradicts pretty much his entire thesis.

I suspect you saw his name, had a recollection of a criticism of his ideology, and chose to reply based on that, without actually considering what was being said.

I'd be happy to be wrong. So, if I am, please let me know.

[Dover]

17. We only get confused when we try to fit things into an old and familiar mindset,

and don't 'allow' what is unfolding before our very eyes to be seen for what it is.
Or maybe we're so dedicated to our candidate and caught up in the win/lose aspect of
the race that we have lost perspective.

Personally, I hope we are able to move this movement beyond politics and not attempt to confine
it within a particular ideology. This is so much more than an ideological or even a class
issue. This goes to the very core of our common humanity.

[RoyGBiv]

20. You're correct ...

Political rhetoricians like to make us think "this is the most important event of our lives" from time to time, but they're usually wrong. They have marketing degrees, and truth is not a factor in marketing.

I'm no dedicated to any one person. Neither am I dedicated to an ideology. I save both those things for others because we need them. I just can't do it.

But I support Obama to a degree I have never before supported a candidate for President. If we are experiencing a political realigment, I want him at the lead of my party. I want him to provide the definitions ... because at no point in the last 30 years has anyone -- left, right, or center -- provided definitions of political ideology so clear, so concise, so "correct" as I define it as Barack Obama.

[Dover]

24. Wish I could agree. I think there is a dissonance between his message and actions.

Although if you really listen you can hear the continuation of more of the same regarding who the
real power brokers are. The system is corrupt and broken utterly.

[tavalon]

32. I'll admit he's more pragmatic than I would wish him to be

He kind of reminds me of President Clinton in that way. But, he's always been honest about his centrist nature, I don't think Bill Clinton was nearly so up front. I may be projecting, but I find Senator Obama to be very honest, even if I don't like all of his positions, and I most certainly do not. But then, I don't know many who are farther left leaning than I am (that's been a bit weird this week - being able to see the Republicans from where I live) so I can't really expect anyone who shares my values and politics to make it within a stone's throw of the Presidency.

I think Obama will be our next President, because I don't think the Republicans want to clean up their mess. They shit in the nest and now the parents have to clean it up. I don't think a Clintonian President will be able to make things better for the average American but if Obama behaves differently when the chips are down, like a Kennedy or an FDR, well, it could be hero making. I'm interested in seeing how that plays out.

We could be watching history being made.

[OneGrassRoot]

34. I hope so, Tavalon. I think we all do. I choose to believe...

it will be so.

Funny, I was just thinking how incredibly chaotic things are now; it isn't just the Dems, the Republican Party is in a state of chaos as well.

We have the opportunity to rebuild a solid foundation...of SOMETHING...in the midst of this disorder. With a leader of integrity ~ who believes in honesty and transparency ~ this can indeed be a pivotal time in our history. A POSITIVE change.

[tavalon]

37. But it is an open question about whether Obama will become the leader of that movement

That it is even an open question in my mind is indicative that despite the heaping helpings of cynicism I've had in the last 5 years, I am still, at my everlovin' liberal heart, a starry eyed idealist.

[OneGrassRoot]

38. Indeed. I hear you. :) n/t

[annabanana]

40. The most cynical among us are the

true starry eyed idealists.

[OneGrassRoot]

31. I love you and Dover this morning...

Another brilliant DUer posted two sentences which clarified another important issue, and I come to this thread and find kindred souls...you speak for me verbatim, and have done so in a way I hadn't yet done for myself.

Thank you. If either of you write blogs, please let me know so I can be sure to follow.



P.S. - The above even includes any disagreements. I have the same within myself.

[nadinbrzezinski]

19. This realignment started back in 2002-3 or so

there was a book at the time tittled "the Emerging Democratic Majority." Yes the tittle was based on the old standard from 1960

http://www.amazon.com/Emerging-Democratic-Majority-Lisa...

It had lost of stats and all that happy horse (damn it is in storage)

This election will see a whole sale realignment in the classic way meant by the usual suspects

As to why you are seeing it, and it will accelerate, is precisely the forces of the 1930s

I will even make a bold prediction....

Even if the parties survive in name, what emerges will be very different from the parties entering this mess

But that is what realignments are

And realignments do not follow the standard 30-30-40 rule either...

One of the Republicans today said something which is very true... this is a legacy vote, no, this is a legacy election

[RoyGBiv]

21. Thank you ...

I mentioned to you a seminar I took about 8 years ago. One of the focuses of that seminar was political alignments.

According to the standard theories, as of 2000, we were *long* overdue.

I personally think the realignment began in or around 2000 and became identifiable around 2003, just before the elections. It got voice in 2006.

The realignment that took place with FDR began in 1932. It didn't solidify until 1936.

Once again ... parallels.

[nadinbrzezinski]

23. I am sure historians will quibble about the details

but here is how this realignment was seen by Texeira.

It was to be centered in urban centers in both the east and west coast, as well as places like Austin. where we had a young population that was highly educated, latte drinking (He is a democratic party operative, so he did not mean it in the pejorative way), and somewhat well to do. And if you pay attention to the electoral map as it takes shape this year... absolutely... that is what is happening... states that never, ever would switch, are... they are younger states. Old stalwarts of the dems in particular... are not... they are older states.

This also was to be taking the country towards a left lurch. He and his partner predicted back then a new era of progressivism, where the people would be taken care off

Given the forces present in 1932 and today... I'd be a little concerned that the legacy may go right ward... due to the influence of IMF fans in the Economics Advisor team.. (Rubin and Volkner especially)

Now this is truly inside baseball, but Volkner is a really old hand Keynseian before he turned after joining the IMF

The last three months may have turned him into a pragmatist... I hope

But there is another thing about realignments, usually they have core constituents also become activist, and in this case that means leaving the keyboard and actually taking direct action, which takes many forms.

On edit, thanks for making me remember that analysis about the urban centers and younger centers .. one of the core constituents is also a strong immigrant community

The electoral map is making sense now

[Fumesucker]

22. This particular fault line in the culture wars...

Cleaves along a somewhat different plane than do most of the other culture war staples.

As this wedge is driven into the fault a different pattern is appearing, this time it appears that those who trust the government to do the right thing for the great majority of Americans are lining up against those who only trust the members of our government to do what is best for themselves.

I've pretty much held back from commenting for the last week or so, I don't know enough about economics to have an opinion about the bailout I can defend but I do have enough experience watching politics to have an opinion about how our politicians are almost all likely to respond.

Big money wanted the bailout and what big money wants, big money gets, one way or another.

[lumberjack_jeff]

25. I believe there is a strong economic populist movement in the US

This recognition that we're being hosed by the rich and powerful is manifest in a bunch of disparate movements. (fair trade, anti immigration)

The bailout bill is the catalyst that is going to bring libertarians and labor together. Democrats need to be driving that bus.

[OneGrassRoot]

35. True that. There is incredible opportunity here...

I've never seen people pay so much attention. They/we may be confused, but, for the first time in my life I'm seeing people collectively PAY ATTENTION (aside from 9/11 and natural disasters).

This is a huge opportunity. I hope Obama really, really steps up, LOUDLY and clearly and provides more clarity. He can't please everyone...shit, with this bailout, it may be impossible to please ANYONE, it's such a clusterf*ck, but there is still the opportunity for his voice to somehow come through CLEARLY as a voice of leadership. He's been trying and doing a decent job of that, even if I don't agree with everything he is saying, but we still need a knock-out punch where his voice is THE voice for all but the 20% wingnuts. Perhaps at the next debate he will emerge as the voice leading us through the economic wilderness.

[PATRICK]

26. Not too early to

talk beyond "victory". I think the bailout was used to partly divide and universally tag Dems. What it simply reminds us is there is a weak ideological split in the party between progressives(populist style) and DLCers so to speak. There may be a strong money corruption element despite the fact that most of our people are NOT Joe Lieberman, are voting as liberals and dedicated public servants. The money status quo has the party though by its collective balls. As Biden, who is honestly in the tough pragmatic moderate mold, suggest, the key to the mess is in first getting big private money out of campaigns.

There always was a big coalition of polar opposites in our party that I believe cultural homogenization has somewhat blurred and falling back from strong liberal trajectories has moderated- for good or ill. It is the damned money, both the fact that too many of our good guys come strictly from the millionaire class and the philosophy of accommodation to triumphant capitalism is greased generously to its ultimate folly.

First the money. Take a breath. THEN we do need, come on, several new leftist perspectives and truly moderate populist trends, within the party and without. The GOP as strictly a party of bigwigs and bigots should be squeezed into oblivion along with their monopoly on national information and citizen awareness. The masses would not really care at all if the top greedy bastards were gadzillionaires if they would benefit the society that feeds their selfish growth. Political reality and their predictable consistent behavior makes it necessary for people never to trust them anymore than the Mafia with the well-being of the world or its future ever again. We can't SURVIVE that cute game for the ridiculous few. The Dem party should not rush to become a capitalist god super party or the backlash will contain the reforms that should have wisely, dutifully been, their first priority. Maybe greener parties will flourish and new perspectives, better democracy will escape the Dems suddenly finding themselves the new Mexican PRE
in a crippled outdated world system. There is so much to do, I think as a planned scramble to keep the Dems too busy to do the right thing by the future, to realize where creating power yielding reform is no longer an invitation for a dreaded GOP relaunch. That would a matching hypocrisy for the sad eight years of ineffectual opposition to the most ruthless incompetent puppets the world may ever have seen.

I know in our state, safe incumbency, humpty dumpty party parity must give way to sweeping reforms that will mean those in power surrendering to a better future- their truly best legacy imaginable. Yet the way things go in my state as I fear in most others, the small and the selfish within bloated and entitled egos looms very very large. The road to real democracy means movements, issues and candidates- one by one, piece by piece, strategic and key, large and small. Most people even here cannot bring themselves in the power of hope to face how far we have to go and how many in this leadership generation must make way for better ways. It is unknown. Not to face it is to sink into convenient divisions not even most people believe in any more. There fore change will come another way though the Dems this year have made a critical difference in enabling it, saving us from fascist disaster still unacknowledged in the forefront of this struggle.

[tavalon]

33. One of my partners said that he came over here and read a bit and decided

DU was no better than FreeRepublic. I'm sending him this thread. This is why I am here. Not because of the inanity (and there is much and sometimes it is a bit freeperish). This stuff is the meat. Thanks go to you and the OP and a number of others posting in this topic.

[OneGrassRoot]

36. I'm not stalking you, Tavalon. Promise...lol.....

But I am reading through as well and was about to post the same thing. That THIS thread is an example of the Holy Grail of info people like myself seek out...there is much wisdom within this thread, providing much food for thought for thoughtful persons. Not freeperish at all.

Thanks to everyone. K&R and bookmarked!!!

[starroute]

27. "Realignment" is a fuzzy terms that covers a range of things

The basic assumption behind it is that there's a tendency for a large unit like a modern nation-state to separate out into smaller, more tribal groupings -- which then form alliances in order to obtain a majority and achieve their shared objectives. But how that works is far from clear.

There's one theory that the basic division in this country is north vs. south and that it goes back to Puritans vs. Cavaliers in 17th century England. There's a related theory that in the early 20th century, the Republicans consisted of the ruling class in the north plus the southern underclass (blacks) while the Democrats had the allegiance of the southern ruling class plus the northern underclass (workers and immigrants.)

But as southern blacks moved north, they became part of the New Deal coalition, along with the unions, and a generation later this led to the South largely becoming Republican -- and the Republicans then doing their best to pick off northern working class voters.

The trouble with that on a theoretical level is that by the time this was happening, in the late 60's-early 70's, a lot more was happening as well. In response to the turmoil of the 60's, the corporations were becoming politically active to an unprecedented degree and now form a major Republican mainstay. Surburbanites have become a large part of the population, with uncertain loyalties and very different concerns from either the old ruling classes or the old underclasses. And we've seen the rise of identity politics, and the conservative reaction against identity politics.

These days, it often seems as though the Democratic Party consists of, roughly speaking, "New Economy" business people -- Internet, media, and "green" industry -- progressive suburbanites, and gays and other "cultural creatives." While the Republicans get the "Old Economy" oil and extractive resources types plus the guns-and-religion left-behinds of decaying small towns and ever-emptier farm country.

But I can't see that as a stable, long-term situation. If nothing else, the old economy will pass, the new economy will be everywhere, the car-based suburban lifestyle will become untenable, and a neo-Rooseveltian push to get high-speed broadband into the boondocks will change the face of what is now rural America.

So where do we *really* go from here? One problem is that as people become more mobile and transient, the old tribal-style groupings of people who have all grown up together and share a common heritage can no longer function as the primary basis for party politics.

(The Republicans are in trouble right now because they're still relying on the communal bonds of those tribal groupings which barely exist any more. The evangelical churches are the final remnant of the old tribal structures which have largely disintegrated on the social level -- a last gasp rather than a sign of strength.)

The current alternative is ideological politics -- for example, free marketeers vs. believers in an activist government -- but there's something profoundly superficial about ideology. For one thing, as the OP pointed out, it's being made mincemeat of by the current financial crisis. Even in more stable times, it's very skin-deep, because it isn't rooted in permanent characteristics of personal identity. It can wind up looking like playground politics -- essentially random teamss of fundamentally identical players who are willing to divide up into us vs. them for the purpose of getting on with the game.

It may be that things will never be as fixed and stable again as they were over the past few centuries -- that we will have floating alliances based on short-term interests and issues of the moment and that this will come to seem right and proper and normal. I don't know.

But I do know that the Constitutional democracy that we take for granted has been dependent all along on a variety of completely extra-constitutional mechanisms to make it work -- so if those mechanisms aren't going to last, we need to make sure democracy itself doesn't get lost in the transition.

Just as US-style democracy can't work in a society like Iraq that is *too* tribal, it's possible that it won't work in a society that is not tribal enough. We won't know until we get there -- but we could certainly use to start thinking about it right now.

[RoyGBiv]

39. Excellent post ...

Thank you for taking the time to offer that.

You're correct that "realignment" covers many things. It's a theoretical framework for attempting to explain the political process and how it functions. It's difficult to use it as a predictive tool, even though political scientists try. What people like Schlesinger ended up with worked okay for certain time periods and specific sets of circumstances, but it only really works if you agree with his worldview, which I tend not to do. Thomas Furguson has another theory (follow the money) that seems intuitively correct and of more use as a predictive tool, but the further in time you get away from his point of initial focus (the 1896 election) things get murky. And their are several other theoretical frameworks, some of which see realignment in terms that don't focus on election cycles specifically.

I think they all can be helpful within their own arena.

[annabanana]

42. This is why I always read to the very bottom of your posts:

If our "tribes" are no longer tethered to geography, or ethnicity, or religion, or even family then they will remain fungible and free-flowing. Perhaps our economic standing will be MORE important (It seems to be trending that way). Perhaps attendent physical volatility will be diffused by geographic distances...and more easily prosecuted?
What would constitute a revolution then?

How will this play out in a privacy-free world?

I may never get a good night's sleep again...

[starroute]

50. Something much larger than realignment is going on

Thinking about the idea of "tribes" some more -- tribes aren't natural groupings. Human beings originally lived in small hunter-gatherer bands of maybe two dozen closely-related individuals -- and sociologists say that's still the effective limit for a working group in any organization.

Tribes are fictional. A tribe is basically a bunch of people who believe they share a common ancestor somewhere back in the mists of history. Tribes make it possible to organize people in larger groups -- whether villages or far-flung nomadic clans. They can also lead to wars and other us vs. them nastiness, but on the whole the effect has been a positive one, and the development of human society beyond the hunter-gatherer band would not have been possible without them.

On the other hand, you can only go so far on the level of the tribe, and ever since the start of civilization there has been a tension between large states and the tribes that comprise them. It's been suggested that the pyramids of Egypt were built at such an early date because there was a need to get people from all the tribes together working on a common project in order to establish a unified state. Just this week, I've seen stories about DNA research showing that both the people who created the terra-cotta army in China and the people who lived at Machu Picchu in Peru were drawn from all over those respective empires -- suggesting that there was a deliberate policy to break tribal bonds.

At the same time, the ruling class of each of those early states formed a kind of super-tribe in itself -- a group of aristocratic families, often considering themselves descended from the founding ruler, or at least closely related by intermarriage -- which was capable of ruling the state as a whole because it were not bound by loyalty to any of the regional tribes.

This two-pronged system of a central aristocracy dominating local tribal groups took a little while to get going (which is why early civilizations tended to fall when under stress), but once the bugs were worked out it kept chugging along smoothly for the next 5000 years. In the last few centuries, though, it's seriously run out of gas -- not because it was evil, but because it couldn't deal with the growing complexity of free markets and the global economy. We've seen revolutions and the rejection of the very idea of aristocracy, and its place we've been putting together new institutions that don't depend on tribalism -- democracy, constitutional rule, professional bureaucracies.

The trouble is that we're still in a transitional stage. We don't have kings and aristocrats officially calling the shots -- but we do have a ruling class which in many ways retains a tribal structure, where they go to the same schools, belong to the same clubs, and respond to ties of marriage and friendship more than to the national interest.

We've had corporations amassing an enormous amount of wealth and power, which both prop up the old ruling class and in themselves are largely run by tribal notions of loyalty and favoritism rather than according to democratic or professional ideals.

Making things worse, we've had an administration in power the last eight years that runs on cronyism and loyalty to the person rather than to the institution, and which has done its best to trash the professional bureaucracies within the government.

And as the residual tribal impulses break down in most of society without yet having an equally powerful replacement, we often find ourselves at the mercy of those who still maintain tribal discipline -- whether it's some fundie church taking over a local school board or the military-industrial complex sending us off to the same old us-vs-them wars against people we can be persuaded are foreign and dangerous.

The best I can say about all this is that things never go backwards, and modern societies are far too complex to be managed by the 5000-year-old patch job of tribes-plus-aristocracy. It simply can't hold on much longer -- and in fact, the 2008 election may prove to have been a pivotal face-off between the old and the new, and the current economic turmoil a crucial next step in the centuries-long process of putting together the next level of organization.

And when that happens -- when we've figured out a way of doing things that combines the self-organizing principles of the Internet with an appropriate degree of formal administration -- the residual tribal structures will lose whatever power still remains to them. The fundamentalists -- or at least their children -- will put aside their fear of science and their apocalyptic dreams and become citizens of the modern world. The ruling class will also lose its tribal cohesion -- which means there won't be any need for revolutions to pry their fingers from the levers of power.

I can't say that this will happen overnight or that their won't be messy spots along the way -- perhaps even the sort of painful widescale suffering that humans often need to prod them into making major changes to their way of life. I can't even say whether democracy as we presently conceive of it will survive the transition or will turn out to have been merely a first, fumbling attempt at something more comprehensive.

But I do know that it will happen -- because change always happens. The universe has been steadily getting more complex for untold billions of years, and new forms of organization have always emerged to handle that increasing complexity. And we're not going to be stuck on stupid forever.

[Odin2005]

53. Excellent post!

Bookmarked!

[starroute]

54. I'm starting to think I may have stumbled on a further answer

After I finished the above post, I kept wondering why, if I was right in what I'd written about free market capitalism being a major cause of the breakdown of the old tribal/aristocratic model of government, the free market fanatics have largely been supporting the Republican party.

It occurred to me as a possible explanation that those people -- libertarians, mostly -- idealize the completely unregulated, Wild West image of the free market and are afraid of any new social model that would make the markets part of a re-integrated whole with the power to set standards and objectives.

This is why the libertarians have been willing to cast in their lot with the traditionalists -- the social conservatives and would-be aristocrats. Even though they don't have much in common with them overall, they've been united by their attachment to the current broke-down form of things-as-they-are in preference to any more effective replacement

There's been a tension there going back to at least 1969, when the libertarians walked out of the Young Americans for Freedom and joined up with the left-anarchists. (There's some interesting history on this that I hadn't previously known at http://www.spaz.org/~dan/individualist-anarchist/softwa... including a fascinating description of the young Dana Rohrabacher as "a charismatic campus activist" who traveled around the country singing folk songs and "converting YAF chapters into Libertarian Alliances." )

But like Rohrabacher, most of them turned into ordinary Republicans, and it's been only with this year's Ron Paul uprising (and the complete capitulation of the McCain campaign to the traditionalist right) that the split which began 40 years ago is looking like it could become permanent.

For an actual realignment, of course, the libertarians and the liberals would have to find common ground. That's where the current economic breakdown could be crucial, if it convinces the libertarians that some degree of regulation is necessary to keep the markets from diving into a ditch or being eaten alive by raw greed. Ron Paul himself isn't ever likely to get there -- but under the right circumstances, many of his followers might.

(The next step, of course, would be a conversation about how the profit motive isn't the best way to assure that attention is paid to urgent social needs -- and the possibility that if current business norms could be rejiggered so that drug companies, for example, put less money into curing erectile dysfunction and more into research on sickle-cell anemia, then government would be able to do a lot less tax-and-spending to take up the slack. But that's another topic for another day.)

[Odin2005]

58. I definitely agree

IMO a big thing that may cause the Libertarians to come to our side is that over the last 40 years decentralized community-centered thinking has replaced the heavy emphasis on hyper-centralized economic planning-centered thinking among left-wing and left-leaning thinkers. in the 1930s respected thinkers were saying Soviet-style economic planning was the future, nobody says that any more. Now-days it's community-centered thinking that is big.

[shimmergal]

56. We DO need "tribes" insofar

as that's a synonym for "community." Certainly there can be community that goes beyond geography (and even tribes unlimited by geography) but people do need certain primary links that encompass more than the nuclear family and work roles. The loss of these is striking, especially in the newer cities. One of the things we should be doing is exploring new ways to establish this sense of community as part of whatever realignment is to come.

[galileoreloaded]

28. Senor Colorwheel makes a point...

interesting dichotomy of the "right wing" isolationism of the Lindbergh society types in the 30's, and the juxtaposition of the "isolationists" leanings of free trade rejection in the modern American left.

Is a modern American Dem a recycled 1930's Repub????

Both FDR, Nixon, Reagan, Clinton and Bush I/II fought hard to open trade with the previous "enemy".

Ponder if you dare.

[PATRICK]

44. Our short history

is beginning to show the same fluid patterns of world history in general. Unfortunately the world is changing in extremely new and substantially unprecedented ways right underneath the pseudo progress of the human race. The very definition of recent fascism shows problems in definitions. Overall you have to generalize very large to refocus on what progress means and what is evil and how the human race divides and allies politically. Fear, money and greed that sway a dependable chunk of the populace, whether shifting urban or entrenched rural, that can be manipulated by the worst hard cases of that evil sometimes bury the entire human race in movements and drama that lose sight of the main crooks and the main problem.

Much of the mainstay of the GOP, if I may exert a prejudice here shared surprisingly by more and more common Dem citizens, is based on fear corrupted by selfish money interests and blanketed with the comfort of some authoritative righteousness, lack of social responsibility. This seems common nowadays to many things based on the fast disappearing past and "conservative" orthodoxy, and not just in politics. The normal mammalian physical flight from anxiety and conflict easily turns fear into active anger and flight to protectors. Some Dems feel the need to exert courage against this instinct. Rage sometimes exists on all sides. In this it becomes apparent, at a turning point of inevitable evolution for the human race and simultaneous threat of simple extinction, that the higher instincts must wage a more severe struggle against the past 10,000 brutal years of pyramid tyranny of the worst. Pragmatism, neoliberalism, eternal capitalism, constant warfare, global NWO, are not even close to what is happening, what is demanded, what is challenged. God help us, but the Dem party at its current best is not close enough to this, nor far enough away from sinking back into the pull of insane corruption.

[tavalon]

29. That would be great!

I hope that means the DLCers will go form their own party so we can form a truly progressive party.

[liberalpress]

45. A lot more needs to be said about the "age" factor

If Obamam wins next month, it will be for the same reason ohn Kerry lost.. the young vote. 18-34's (to use advertising demos)gave lip service to the campaign, but on election day were not motivated enough to actually mark a ballot.

The young are usually the agents of change in any society. Perhaps the key to any "realignment" is the willful participation of young voters. It will certainly be interesting to see whether Obama can accomplish what Kerry could not .. getting out the youth vote.

[HamdenRice]

46. Very astute observation. I was thinking about this also and will write something...

hopefully tonight or tomorrow along the same lines.

[RoyGBiv]

47. Please do ...

Your posts on all this mess lately have been quite thought provoking and incredibly helpful.

[HamdenRice]

49. Thanks, but apparently many think I'm a Manchurian candidate

planted in DU 4 years ago by Goldman Sachs to wait for the inevitable collapse so I could then shill for the inevitable bailout!

[RoyGBiv]

52. Yes, well ...

I apparently came over from Lehman Brothers for the same purpose.

My check bounced though.

[nadinbrzezinski]

59. Hey so am I...,

Is the code working now> Are they paying you now?

[Leopolds Ghost]

48. Thanks, I am bookmarking this.