A Realignment Theory

[David Horn]

(09-04-2016, 09:41 AM)Mikebert Wrote:

(09-04-2016, 12:17 AM)Dan Wrote:

(09-03-2016, 01:10 PM)Mikebert Wrote:

(09-02-2016, 04:07 PM)Odin Wrote:

(09-02-2016, 01:11 AM)Dan Wrote: Here’s an article from March on a realignment theory.

 
What I’m most interested in is this chart:





While I have some quibbles with the terminology and the dates I think the chart is and theory is on to something.  The dividing line in American politics rotates 90 ° per saeculum or 45 ° per social moment I would argue that the line the chart labels is 1960 is more like the 1950 line and by 1960 the line had moved somewhat clockwise. I think that the subsequent lines are basically accurate. Furthermore if you were to go back to 1896 the line would be about 45 ° of what the author labeled as the 1960 divide.  If the pattern holds the dividing line will be horizontal at the end of the 4T and move clockwise from there, by the next 2T Republicans will start to resemble progressive era Democrats.

This meshes with the stuff Kurt Horner posted on the "Political Archetypes" thread on the old boards.

I've been thinking this for a while, the "blue culture" Libertarians are shifting to the Democratic Party and the socially conservative populists are being fully absorbed into the GOP, and thus the Dems are becoming the "social-libertarian party" and the GOP the "populist authoritarian" party, each with left and right wings economically.

Not quite right.  The figure shows 90 degrees of rotation per social moment (half-saeculum) which works out to 180 degrees per saeculum.  So cast it backward to the last 4T.  Was the split last 4T (and today) along social lines (i.e. culture wars) or economic lines?  And was the split in the 1960's along economic lines?  Were the 1960's about the haves versus the have-nots (i.e. wealth redistribution)?  Or was it along social lines (i.e about government support for minority rights)?
The facts are in exact opposition from what the figure shows, which implies I am not reading the graphic right. The 1960 line is vertical implying a division between the left and right halves of the figure, which splits the economic axis, right?  But that makes no sense!  What am I missing here?

I’d say it moves 90 degrees in a saeculum or 45 degrees in a half-saeculum; the line the author labels as 1960 is in my opinion more like the 1945 line and during the Truman administration the Democrats started moving into the top left causing those in the bottom near the vertical center line to leave the party (the more economically left wing southerners mostly supported Truman and post 1970 became Carter-Clinton Democrats)

If we are going to relabel the 1960 line as 1945 (which I would agree with) I would draw a series of increasingly horizontal lines after 1960, reaching fully horizontal in 1980, where it has stayed up to this day. The country was divided then, as now, on the social dimension. The fact that no rotation has occurred is, IMO, a core issue of the 4T. It's simply not something elites want to focus on, which is the cause of the problem.

I think 1980 is a bit early to mark us totally divided on social issues.  I would move that to sometime in the Clinton Presidency.  Reagan affected the social alignment of the GOP, but that didn't become universal for some time after that.  The GHWB 1000-points-of-light was a failed retrenchment, but it failed to reverse the flow.  Clinton's agreement to end-welfare-as-we-knew-it was an attempt from the Democrats that succeeded as policy but failed politically.  That was the last attempt.

I agree that positions have only hardened since then, even though the tension is along the economic axis.   N one has gained more from that disconnect than the Donald.