Not in favor of realignment theory in general, but to the extent there are very lasting trends, I would focus more on who the parties appealed to vs. how well they did in a particular set of elections:
1896-1948: Industrial laborers overtake farmers, rise of organized labor/social class based politics, Dems begin building a new base, end of the Civil War era. At first it seems odd to group the 3 consecutive Republican landslides together with 4 consecutive Democratic landslides, but FDR was really just a supercharged version of the Bryan coalition.
1952-1988: The suburbs become politically significant for the first time, New Deal reforms firmly entrenched despite one-party Republican rule, the former laborer class feels economically secure for the 1st time.
1992-present: For the first time, the Democrats win by reaching out to suburban managerial voters. Republicans work to build a rural base surprisingly quickly.
IMO, it's hard to argue that we aren't still living in the post-1992 era.
Love this analysis, agreed a lot. It’s a much better organization of American political history to divide it up by the character of parties and the makeup of their coalitions rather than solely election results. We are absolutely in the post 1992 era. In terms of foreign policy, the numbers you have line up well too with the World Wars, Cold War, and post-Cold War periods respectively.
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