A Realignment Theory

[Odin]

(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.