What Do the Parties Look Like in the Future?

[Alcibiades]

In terms of talk of a ‘permanent Democratic majority’, it probably is unlikely, considering no party has held the White House for more than three terms since FDR and Truman, but it is not impossible. Looking at recent history, it is easy to think that the parties always balance out even if one is defeated in a landslide, producing two roughly even coalitions. However, this has only fairly recently become the case. The GOP was completely dominant from 1860-1932, because the country was polarised along sectional/ethnoreligious lines, and the GOP’s base, northern Protestants, were a clear majority of the electorate.

 I don’t think we’re going to enter a period of Democratic dominance akin to that, but America is at its most polarised since the Gilded Age. History teaches us that it is possible for one party to alienate such a swathe of the electorate to put them into long-term opposition. It has happened twice: after the Civil War and ‘Rum, Romanism and Rebellion’, and after the New Deal. It is conceivable the Trump administration could have the same effect, tarnishing the GOP brand for the rest of a large number of voters’ lives among many minorities, educated voters, younger voters and women.