Eight-party America

[Governor PiT]

This isn't meant to be a necessarily plausible scenario.  What I'm wondering if it's possible to represent all four corners of the Political Matrix.  For simplicity's sake, I'm just co-opting already existing parties, plus adding a few.  Note that I'm not trying to completely model this after the political landscape, i.e. I'm not able to shoehorn every major interest group/voting demographic into this.  It's more of a way of representing the four fundamental political ideologies based on the Political Matrix.

Democratic Party: The McGovern Coalition.  Pretty much the Dems of the real world, except perhaps with bits and pieces filed off.

Green Party: Same as our world, except perhaps with social democrats, peace and freedom types, and more pragmatic socialists who have left the other third parties in order to join a more viable side.

Republican Party: The Reagan Coalition.  The GOP of the real world except really missing certain portions that have gone to the other alternative parties.

Constitution Party: A less fringe version of the far right we know.  Perhaps Pat Buchanan had really joined them instead of taking over Reform.  Paleocons with a theocratic bent, plus some unrealized theocratic dreams.  But somehow moderated to have more appeal, probably by appealing more to the grassroots movement conservatives that populate places such as FreeRepublic.

Reform Party: Imagine Ross Perot hadn't jumped ship, and remained in control of his personal vehicle.  The Reform Party is pretty much the centrist party with insurgent intentions but a rather bland platform- fiscal responsibility, balanced budgets, campaign finance reform, moderation in social issues, etc.  However, that's the sort of different-but-not-scary-different thing that Independents might vote for every so often.  This Reform Party would actually live past the Clinton administration without falling apart, and have the slightly libertarian (probably more 'classical liberal') bent to appeal to people such as Schwarzenegger or Bloomberg.

Libertarian Party: You know 'em.

Populist Party: Composed of the more moderate but not liberal elements of the Evangelical Movement (think Rick Warren), plus conservative minorities, Southern/Midwesterners who are tired of Republican economic policies, maybe.  In any case, this party would appeal to a lot of people in both of the two major parties right now (much like a moderate libertarian party would), but in reality they're unable to breakaway and form their own movement.

Nationalist Party: Lou Dobbs type nativists.  Or perhaps Huey Long type populists.  Not adverse to government intervention to protect their personal interests.  Perhaps more socially conservative than the Populists, but their extremism is mostly related to the immigration issue.

I make no attempt to explain how there could be eight parties, nor even to guess at how big each party would be, thus I don't even know which ones would be the two major parties.  I would guess that there would be two parties, and several minor parties, but said minor parties wouldn't exactly be as insignificant as say the People's Socialist Liberation Marxist Party out of Podunk College, Liberalartston.

Just imagine the matrix:

                                                                       Nationalist Party


                                                                       Populist Party



Green Party                     Democratic Party                   Republican Party               Constitution Party



                                                                        Reform Party


                                                                        Libertarian Party

The Nationalist, Constitutionalist, and Reform are all to similar. There was a party called the Populist Party but it was more like the Nationalist Party you described. Lou Dobbs is almost identical to Ross Perot. Bloomberg is a Zionist Bankster shill and it sickens me you would put him in the same category as an American Patriot like Perot.

[Nixon in '80]

Reform-Libertarian swinger... assuming the Reform Party does not remain so strongly anti-free trade.

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

If the Democratic party got rid of garbage like Bayh, I think that pragmatic liberals would merge the Democratic and Green parties.

[Mint]

Reform I guess although none of these are really that great.

[Associate Justice PiT]

     Strong Libertarian supporter. I'd occasionally vote for the Reform candidate in tight races.

[AltWorlder]

Twelve years later, does this still configuration still make any sense?

[GlobeSoc]

I think that nowadays there's a market for parties further along each axis than portrayed here, especially on the left but potentially also along the authoritarian and right axes.

[DrScholl]

At this point the Democratic Party is slightly more liberal than it was before due to ancestral Democrats becoming non-existent and being replaced voters who are moderate but still more liberal than them. And of course the Republican Party is obviously more conservative. This is how I see a hypothetical multiple party structure.

Democratic Party: Liberal with pragmatic, but progressive economic policy. A mix of traditional liberal Democrats and newer suburban Democrats.

Progressive Party: Left with bolder progressive economic goals, but willing to work with Democrats.

People's Party: Based on agrarianism and labor unions. Goal would be to revitalize the Midwest, Rust Belt and the Plains. Sort of a big tent party.

Reformation: Center party that is socially liberal, but economically centrist. Pro-free trade and pro-growth. Would promote progressive issues from a business friendly point of view (tax breaks for companies going green) and focus on generic issues of reform. Basically a party to protect business interests in a country moving left in some places.

Republican Party: Center-right with conservative economic policy that makes some concessions (like expanding Medicaid). Reasonable on environmental issues and would be moderate on social issues or not dwell on them much.

National Party: Far right with a hardcore conservative agenda focused on strict immigration policy, cultural conservatism, law and order, and nationalism.

And of course there would be the Libertarian Party, The Green Party etc.

[PSOL]

Well the Reform Party is dead and the Green Party has mostly failed at being relevant without celebrities running. Alt-Reichers are mainly content running in militia groups and voting straight R for now. The Democratic Party took all the moderate suburbanites and “pragmatic socialists” while shedding demographics most supportive of the Blue Dogs. Paleocons and the religious boomers are going to die out sometime in the coming years.

Still, there’s a rise in chances of a possible Left alternative arising, either from something semi-attached to the Democratic Party or whatever at this point, but it’s going to pale in comparison electoral wise compared to the Libertarians. I don’t think an alternative centrist party is going to make it in this environment, or ever tbh.

[AltWorlder]

Well the Reform Party is dead

Yeah, but I'm just coopting the name and attaching it to the more or less the original Perot platform of "radical centrism with balanced budgets and no NAFTA". I find the Alliance Party name to be really generic.

Alt-Reichers are mainly content running in militia groups and voting straight R for now.

Yeah, Trump has given Nationalists a home there. Guess we'll have to see it shakes out in the next 4-8 years. That said, even outside of this hypothetical, it makes me wonder if disaffected Trumpists (neo-paleocons?), national conservatives (assuming if the GOP goes back towards its business establishment/Tea Party small-gov't roots), and alt-lite/alt-rightists will pull a Howard Philips and found something like the Constitution Party or the American Independent Party but for modern American (Jacksonian?) Trumpist nationalism, or even take over those increasingly shell-like "parties" for the ballot access. (And then, like the CP, create a bunch of weird split-offs that litter the parties page on Politics1).

But yeah like you said, they seem mostly interested in forming paramilitaries, dutifully voting for Republicans (particularly MAGA/Qanon extremist candidates), or running YouTube personality grifts than creating a third party. Maybe that goes to show running third parties or independent candidacies have fallen in terms of being a way to express political dissatisfaction compared to the early '90s or even in 2000.

Nowadays in reality, the American Solidarity Party is sort of like the Populists, except based mostly around Catholics instead of moderate Evangelicals.

religious boomers are going to die out sometime in the coming years.

Post-Bush, the evangelicals seem quite spent as a political force and Trump has forced a lot of soul-searching, but their bloc is still around for a while. I think they'll take longer to decline than the paleocons.

I don’t think an alternative centrist party is going to make it in this environment, or ever tbh.

Yeah true. fwiw, when I originally created this back in 2008 I wasn't really thinking that it'd be a realistic split of the American electorate, more like trying to force eight parties based on the political compass + the preexisting third parties. That said, I can see a sort of centrist technocratic (both wonkish and reddit science boosterism) party gaining ground centered around personalities like Andrew Yang, Elon Musk, and other similar figures.

People's Party: Based on agrarianism and labor unions. Goal would be to revitalize the Midwest, Rust Belt and the Plains. Sort of a big tent party.

I'd love for such a new Farmer-Labor Party to exist, but seems like first you need revitalization of that space. Also, they'd have a lot in common with Progressives; it's not the '30s anymore where there would've been more of an urban-rural leftist split.

[H. Ross Peron]

Bumped.

[Damocles]

The real question is whether this includes proportional representation.