11-11-2018, 08:08 AM
(11-08-2018, 04:55 PM)jleagans Wrote: 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.
You have noted a real shift in the 1960's (1968 would be the specific date), but only one of them. The 1896 wasn't a shift because you did not identify what changed in 1896. Republicans were in charge from 1896-1932 (holding the WH 7 out of 9 terms), but they had been over 1860-96 (also 7/9). Republicans did not suddenly become the party of economic conservatism. The had always been gold standard folks, and the Whigs before then as well. They had set up the National Banking system after the Civil War. Their Whig antecedents has supported the 2nd central bank, and their Federalist antecedents the 1st central bank, and after the Panic of 1907 it was the recommendation that their committee that a third central bank (which we still have) be established. In all three cases the purpose of a central bank is to act as the "lender of last resort" in times of financial crisis (i.e. bail out Wall Street when it screws up). The Republicans from their beginnings were the part of financial, industrial and commercial capitalists (what we would call corporate America) and so were the Whigs and Federalist before them right down to the beginning of the republican.
In other words there has always been an economically conservative party aligned with the big finance all the way back to the Washington administration and Hamilton's scheme to enrich Federalist speculators.
And they had opposition to their economic policies, which would be the economically liberal side. In the 1930's it was Andy Jackson, founder of the Democratic party who waged war on the Second Bank of the United States. He was pissed off about the Panic of 1819, which he blamed on that bank. (Course then HE had his own panic in 1837). Anyways there was a big disagreement over central banking and tariffs between economically liberal Democrats and economically conservative Whigs.
And then this same shift from economic sorting into social (or cultural) issues in the 1840's (like the sixties and seventies) when the issue shifted from economics to cultural. Now there have also been a Blue America (New England) and a Red America (South) from the beginning of the republic. They used to call this "regionalism" but we know it as Red vs. Blue. The Whigs and Republicans up to the mid 20th century were the Blue, and the Democrats were the Red. So when the "sort" shifted around 1840 the Blue side was anti-slave and the Red side pro. So this system you have applied further back before 1896.
And nothing "started" in 1896. The anti-gold populists had their predecessors in the Greenback Party in the 1870's. And there were various labor parties all through the post-Civil War era. To become competitive, Democrats added mostly Catholic immigrants to their Southern Red base to form a real schizophrenic mix of rural, Catholic-hating KKK-embracing Southern Democrats, and urban Catholic immigrant Northern Democrats. And then in the 1930's Blacks started becoming Democrats, which after Democrats passed Civil Rights became just too much for the Red-staters so they decamped to the GOP. And thirty or so years alter the Republican blues decamped from the Democrats.
And there you have your sortings. Trying to fit them into the S&H scheme is a challenge
