Are we in the 7th party system?

[The Right Honourable Martin Brian Mulroney PC CC GOQ]

As others have pointed out, party systems don't usually realign as dramatically as they did in '32. Even the 1968 realignment is pretty messy, because the GOP had been gaining in the south since the 1950s and they didn't really start dominating it until the 1994 midterms. I think we're currently living in a re/de-alignment era, so if America is in a new political alignment, we won't know until a few more election cycles pass.

In some ways, the current realignment of American politics started with Clinton's coastal gains in '92 and the conservative backlash of '94. The 2000 presidential election showed a very clear party system, but that hasn't lasted (think of the blue wall moving right, and states like Virginia and Colorado zooming left). Trump and Biden didn't really realign the system either. Trump's gains in the midwest, while important, shouldn't be that surprising. The 'blue wall' was not very blue during the Bush years either, they were just blue enough that the electoral college map made the upper midwest seem like a liberal stronghold. And Clinton/Biden's gains in the suburbs are just a continuation of what's been slowly but surely happening since the 90's.

I'm inclined to say yes, but a map of states doesn't reflect a new party system as well as it used to, because cultural divisions in 21st century America don't start or stop at state lines. A young woman who's a teacher in Oklahoma City is probably a Democrat, and an old man who's a welder in Minneapolis is probably a Republican. Whatever party system we are in or transitioning to will be defined by socio-economic status, with college education probably being the best predictor, than geographical location.