Comprehensive Political Cycle Theory

[jleagans]

I've been working on the various strands of this for several years now, and a lot of the inspiration for this Political Cycle Theory comes from this Vox Article about political realignments. The research-based model it puts forth shows that in the entirety of American history the "political clock" has always moved clockwise.  

Here's my simplification of the model:



Also want to copy over the established "party eras" in American history as they are in-line with this:

Four Major Eras of American Political Parties

• Era of the Democrats 1800-1860. Federalist disappeared by 1816. ...
  
• Era of the Republicans 1860-1932. Lincoln helped the Republicans jump from 3rd party to major party.
  
• Return of the Democrats 1932-1968. Great depression reached the Republicans Party.
  
• The Start of a New Era 1968-Present.
  

The basic logic is that American politics (at the timings Strauss/Howe have identified and imo strongly influenced by generational change) has been a series of "sortings" and "resortings" into Democratic and Republican parties based around Economic and Social Issues. I've mapped out the model for each of the elections and the major "sorts" have been:

1. 1896-The First Economic "Sort" - Mckinley and the Silver v. Gold Debate decisively make the Republican Party the party of economic conservatism and the Democrats the party of Economic Liberalism.  Over the course of this party era the country sorts into a Democratic party that has 100% of the economic liberals and a Republican party that has 100% of the economic conservatives.  

2. 1960's- The First Social "Sort"-  The passage of the Civil Rights Act by LBJ begins the start of the two parties sorting based on social issues.  We have been in this sort ever since and a lot of our current political frictions stem from the sort having neared completion.  We are very close or at the point where 100% of Social Liberals are Democrats and 100% of Social Conservatives are Republican, Donald Trump feels like the last stage of that process.

The main dynamic at play in these sorts are "flanking maneuvers", where one party finds its advantage in the flank of the other party .  Today those "flanks" are the Economic Liberal Bernie voters in the Democratic Party and the Economic Conservative Wealthy Republicans.  

I'm trying to simplify and shorten this as much as possible, but the takeaway of this is that our politics will be in gridlock until one party starts the process of sorting around economic issues.  Given that the direction of the sort has ALWAYS been clockwise it is most likely that a Democrat running strongly on Economic Conservatism has the best chance of breaking this gridlock and starting the start.  Likely candidates?  Michael Bloomberg, Mitt Romney, John Kasich are all potential Dem or third party nominees that could usher this in.  

Here's a pic of how Trump/ Hillary looked (orange shaded area are the "fair game" members of the party coalition:




And a draft of a 2020 and how the space exists for an Economic Conservative:



This is my first time jotting this down, lots of elements I could expound on but hope this makes sense and let me know your thoughts.