12-19-2018, 01:12 PM
(12-19-2018, 11:47 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: We have had two instances in which one of the two main Parties went into oblivion: Federalists and Whigs. In both cases the Democratic Party got a short-lived monopoly only to split into factions, one becoming a major Party. In the 1930s, following the 1936 election, the Democrats got a 322-103 majority (with two minor parties having 10 House seats), about a 70-30 split in Congressional representation.
It is up to those in power to act with conscience and regard for the rights of the Other Side.
Obviously both Parties contain constituencies incompatible with each other unless the economy is in free-fall or the nation is at war with an enemy as loathsome and menacing as Nazi Germany. Southern agrarian interests and the "Rockefeller Republicans" could never be in the same Party for long, as demonstrated in the overlay of Eisenhower and Obama elections.
Since Nixon launched the Southern Strategy, the rural deplorables and the Republican Washington elites have been working together. Granted, the Republicans have in that time knit many diverse groups and interests together. Neo cons. Evangelicals. Small government believers. There is currently a lot of stress between the populist rural vote and the Washington elites.
We'll see. I have been hoping that eventually those who hate the Establishment will reach across the isle.
That this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.