What kind of parties would you like to see in American politics?

[Alcibiades]

Broadly something resembling the 1950s, with obvious adjustments for the times (specifically on race matters).  In other words, two big tent parties with the GOP broadly representing a sort of "measured conservatism" that doesn't rely TOO heavily on nativism, and the Democratic Party broadly representing a redistribution-minded coalition.  Some notable changes would be not having any one party region like the South and no Cold War to take center stage.

From everything I have studied, our democratic republic functions best when our two parties represent outlooks rather than a specific set of policy ideas, set in stone.  This allows various initiatives that garner enough bipartisan support to succeed (e.g., the Civil Rights Act).

Broadly speaking, what would the electoral map look like under this system? I would imagine that like in the second half of the 20th century most states would potentially be swing states (although each party would retain some strongholds) and there would be much more ticket-splitting at the state and congressional level.

[Alcibiades]

I think the German political system is the best at producing a balance of substantial ideological blocs while preserving enough choice for the voter. If you're on the right there's the liberal party, the 'populist' party and the mainstream conservative party, if you're on the left there's the eco-liberal party, the vaguely socdem party and the radleft party.

An of course highly imperfect analogy to US politics would be if the Libertarian party was slightly larger, and the hardcore Trumpists were split off from the Reagan-Bush conservatives; and on the left the Bernouts had their own party while the centre-left was covered by an old-style New Deal coalition party and a more upscale Obama coalition liberal party.

I agree with most of this, but while the CDU does contain Germany’s equivalent of Reagan-Bush conservatives, perhaps the more substantial bloc are more analogous to the Rockefeller Republicans - in British terms, ‘One Nation Conservatives’. Of course these are, with the exception of some Northeastern governors, all but extinct in the US. America would be much better off with a Rockefeller/CDU-style party.

[Alcibiades]

while the CDU does contain Germany’s equivalent of Reagan-Bush conservatives

Is this referring to the CSU?

The CSU are more socially conservative; traditionally they were even a little bit to the left economically of the CDU. I was referring to the likes of Friedrich Merz within the CDU, but I guess you could also include many members of the CSU as well with their talk of “values”.