How will the Democratic Party look by 2032?

[pbrower2a]

The Democratic Party could become the Establishment Party. The two Presidents with the most lasting influence on the Parties over the last fifty years are Reagan and Obama. Republicans took Reagan's lead into a dark side of economic elitism and vulgar populism, a path whose contradictions should be self-evident and whose consequences could be self-destructive (just look at what Trump did). Obama has a more liberal agenda on social values and economic results with more support for some of the classic values of conservatism. Obama recognizes the value of tradition in behavior and precedent, honors the natural hierarchy of vocational competence, and puts a high value on personal integrity.

Obama has fewer contradictions. He honors tradition, yet he recognizes no single tradition as the definitive one to impose upon the rest of us. They are equally valid, and none of them is to lord it over the rest of us.

Contradictions do not sort themselves out easily and naturally unless nearly trivial. I have shown patterns in which Obama victories look much like wins by Republican politicians in the past. It will be far easier for the Establishment to congeal around Obama-like practices if not his 2008 agenda. He may not be so much a prophet as a portent.

[pbrower2a]

Obama  victories in 2008 and 2012 looked more like Eisenhower victories than like those of any Democratic nominee since Ike until Biden in 2020. To be sure, demographics have changed some states, and blacks are no longer effectively prevented from voting in what was "Kukluxistan". Coal and ore miners used to be a large and reliable constituency for Democrats in such states as Kentucky, Missouri, and West Virginia; they are no longer so large a constituency.

 When all is said and done, I think that the Obama and Eisenhower Presidencies are going to look like good analogues. Both Presidents are chilly rationalists. Both are practically scandal-free administrations. Both started with a troublesome war that both found their way out of. Neither did much to 'grow' the strength of their Parties in either House of Congress. To compare ISIS to Fidel Castro is completely unfair to Fidel Castro, a gentleman by contrast to ISIS.

The definitive moderate Republican may have been Dwight Eisenhower, and I have heard plenty of Democrats praise the Eisenhower Presidency. He went along with Supreme Court rulings that outlawed segregationist practices, stayed clear of the McCarthy bandwagon, and let McCarthy implode.

 
gray -- did not vote in 1952 or 1956
white -- Eisenhower twice, Obama twice
deep blue -- Republican all four elections
light blue -- Republican all but 2012 (I assume that greater Omaha went for Ike twice)
light green -- Eisenhower once, Stevenson once, Obama never
dark green -- Stevenson twice, Obama never
pink -- Stevenson twice, Obama once

No state voted Democratic all four times, so no state is in deep red.

Do you not believe me? Jimmy Carter's one narrow win depended upon getting all but one of the former Secessionist states. Obama won lots of Ford states.


Carter 1976, Obama 2008/2012    

Carter 1976, Obama twice  red
Carter 1976, Obama once pink
Carter 1976, Obama never yellow
Ford 1976, Obama twice white
Ford 1976, Obama once light blue
Ford 1976, Obama never blue

It's amazing that an Obama victory in 2008 looked more like the Taft victory of a century earlier:

 100 years apart, overlay between William Howard Taft and Barack Obama, 1908/2008.

Taft (R) 51.6/321 - Bryan (D) 43.0/162 - Debs (S) 2.8/0
Obama (D) 52.9/365- McCain (R) 45.6/173

Similar percentages of the electoral vote for the winners.

Taft/ McCain blue
Taft/Obama yellow
Bryan/Obama red
Bryan/McCain green

Bryan won all of the former secessionist states, Colorado, Kentucky, Oklahoma, Nebraska, and Nevada.  Bryan won seven states by 9% or less; Taft won six states by 9% or less.  Other states were blow-outs.

Clearly different in 1908 from a century later: Alaska, Arizona, Dee Cee,  Hawaii, and New Mexico weren't voting. There was no television or even radio in 1908. Above all, several Southern states did not have free and fair elections (blacks were effectively barred from voting).

Now what if the polarization is on the side of the winner?

FDR (D) 53.4/432 - Dewey (R) 45.9/99  
Obama (D) 52.9/365- McCain (R) 45.6/173

Arizona and New Mexico were voting this time; radio (but not TV) was very much a part of American life. America was well unified in a war going very well in 1944.  Alaska and Hawaii, let alone the District of Columbia, would not vote in 1944. Several states in the South still had no free elections.

FDR/Obama
FDR/McCain
Dewey/McCain
Dewey/Obama

FDR lost only four states by 14% or more, and only three by 5% to 9% (none between 9% to 14%).  His other losses were by 5% or less. He won the other 41 states at the time. Nine were by 5% or less, and another five by 5% to 9%. He won the 22 others by 9% or more.

It is enough to know that Barack Obama won enough states to win with the tipping-point state as Iowa, which he won by 9.54%. He had Reagan-like margins in his wins but Mondale-like losses in many states that he lost. Obama lost fourteen states by 14% or more.

America was terribly rifted in 2008. The 1944 election is a ratification of the successes of one of the most effective Presidents ever. People may disagree on who the greatest, second-greatest, and third-greatest Presidents were, but in some order those are Washington, Lincoln, and FDR. The 2008 election followed a President whose sole success was in getting re-elected.