David Michael Miller
It seems like even odds right now that there will be a fissure in the Republican Party. My guess is that most of the GOP establishment will still discover that getting behind Donald Trump is the best thing for their portfolios despite all that uncomfortable fascist talk.
On the other hand, some part of the #nevertrump movement might actually split off to run a third-party candidate against him and presumably Hillary Clinton in the fall. Or, if the party establishment found a way to deny Trump the nomination in Cleveland, he would no doubt bolt the party and run on his own.
So, while I still think it’s somewhat unlikely, it is possible that we could see conservatives break into two distinct parties — one made up of traditional country club Republicans and the other made up of disaffected blue-collar voters who are deeply conservative on social issues and immigration while supportive of the parts of the social safety net that might apply to them.
In the short run that would be good for the current Democratic Party. It would mean an almost sure win for an otherwise shaky candidate in Hillary Clinton, and it might even deliver the Senate to her party. The Supreme Court would likely swing back to the left for the foreseeable future.
But it’s hard not to believe that as soon as Clinton gets elected, if not before, she’ll move back to her Democratic Leadership Council roots. She’ll rediscover her love of free trade and Wall Street while tending to a moderately progressive social agenda. She’ll be the best president that middle-aged, educated, urban, liberal elites ever had.
By the rules of political physics, every action has an equal and opposite reaction. So the left, never easy to please anyway and seeing the far right get their own party, may well want one of their own. It’s not hard to see them break with Clinton.
And so we’d have four parties, and everyone would have a home. Country club Republicans will have, let’s call it, the Tasseled Loafer Party led by Mitt Romney. Self-satisfied, condescending baby boomers will have the Insufferable Party led by Hillary Clinton. Disaffected white people will have the Angry People’s Party led by, of course, Donald Trump. And Bernie Sanders supporters will have the Larry David Party.
I made up the names for fun, but I’m dead serious about the real possibility. And this would not be the worst possible outcome. It might even increase political engagement as voters who have found nothing to inspire them in either mainstream party would find parties that spoke their language. The old left-right continuum doesn’t necessarily suffice anymore. Social conservatives with populist economic views have had no place to go, and millennials with piles of debt and bleak job prospects have had to find a “democratic socialist” in order to be understood.
There’s nothing magic about the American two-party system. You’ll find it nowhere in the Constitution. The system wasn’t anticipated or thought of as necessary by the nation’s founders. And it has buckled under the strain in the past without tragic results.
In fact, that buckling produced the Republicans and then Abraham Lincoln in 1860 and fractures in it produced the Progressive movement in the early 20th century. Even Milwaukee had socialist mayors, who delivered excellent results, for a half century. It’s entirely possible that the fracturing of one or both parties now could create something equally good in the near future.
After all, what’s so great about what either party is offering us right now? Donald Trump is a disaster, and Hillary Clinton is just more of the same. Maybe what’s needed is some creative destruction, some disruptive political realignment.
And, if you’re a liberal, you might like how all this plays out in the end. After all, Bernie Sanders has an overwhelming lock on young voters. The future may be in the Larry David Party. Hey, we could do a lot worse, people. Try to curb your enthusiasm.
