Saturday, May 28, 2022

The Party's Over

The Republican Party is facing an existential crisis. It is at a point where it must decide as an organization if it is going to continue to be a personality cult devoid of ideas and completely unable and unwilling to provide potential solutions to problems. 

The Democratic Party is facing an existential crisis of its own. It must decide as an organization if it is going to continue to be an elitist cabal that refuses to engage in anything but gesture politics. Interestingly the Democratic Party just emerged from or narrowly avoided becoming its own personality cult during the years of Obama. But the next iteration of the party was a substantial backward step rather than a major mistake averted. 

The Republicans basically do not have ideas. The Democrats basically have only bad ideas. I’m not sure which is worse, and I am equally unsure about which one can right its listing ship both of which are at risk of completely capsizing.

If there is any salience to my Five Tribes of Politics theory, then perhaps that can shine some light on where things go next. 

To recall, I think there are five key factions that in order to be electorally successful the major parties must appeal to. They are:
  • Crony Capitalists
  • Labor
  • Patriots
  • Evangelicals
  • Woke Champions
Balance is important as too much appeal to any one group can alienate the others making a strong coalition of resistance. 

The Republicans are about to get what they supposedly were asking for with abortion pleasing evangelicals. While this enrages woke champions, that is not a group the Republicans have any interest in appealing to. However, like the dog that caught the car, evangelicals might be done with the strategy of "using Trump to get the courts". At the same time the extent of strictness of some state's abortion laws might turn away others who find the developments a bridge too far.

More problematic for the personality cult would be the shifting ground on geopolitical tensions. Praise for Putin doesn't look so hot to patriots these days, and both labor and crony capitalists have reasons to see a strong, engaged American military as a benefit. 

But for Democrats the footing isn't any better. So many parts of the woke agenda eventually conflict with the real-world aims of labor and crony capitalists. Patriots too tend to lean toward an America-first policy world. At some point you cannot keep convincing these factions that what you "really, really mean to say is [thing that benefits them most truly]". 

A very big part of what the parties are grappling with is the same phenomenon that is reshaping so much of society and institutions--namely, disintermediation in all its gory and wonderful forms. America's two-party system has been remarkably enduring. Perhaps this was a function of America spending over 100 years fighting obvious enemies with the parties arguing about whose ideas were best suited to bring a better world. 

These enemies included economic collapse just as the industrial revolution hit its stride (i.e., the Great Depression), tyrannical kingdoms hell bent on world domination (i.e., the axis powers of WWII followed by the USSR; the hottest of wars and the Cold War), domestic unrest as people no longer tolerated various inequalities (i.e., the civil rights and women's liberation movements; note these virtuous developments were "enemies" in that they threatened the order of things--they were enemies of the regime), and threats to American hegemony (i.e., economic globalization and terrorism). 

All of these were ironically existential threats to the United States. All of them called for solutions ranging from combat to embracement. Big parties were an efficient means of fighting these battles. That era may have ended. Economies of scale have limits and one of the virtues of specialization is that bespoke eventually outcompetes commodification. 






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