The Future of the Political Parties

 

A previous blogpost dealt with the future of the Republican Party under Donald Trump.

However, that same post left off asking what that would mean for the party as a whole.  Well to steal a line from Captain Barbossa, the parties are to “be two immortals locked in an epic battle until Judgment Day and trumpets sound”.  However, that doesn’t necessarily mean that the parties will be tomorrow what they are today.  In fact, I predict that, based on personal experience, the parties will actually grow to reflect each other over time while the differences become more regional than ideological.

It’s a bit of a cliche to talk about how divided American society is now.  A Gallup poll shows that the political parties are more ideologically divided now than before.  More interesting though is that the parties are also extremely divided along territorial lines with the Democrats dominating the cities and the Republicans dominating the countryside.

Another interesting trend is that many people are fleeing blue states in favor of red ones.  After all, blue states lost more congressional representatives in the last census while red states picked them up.  One could claim that’s irrelevant in the grand scheme of things as once red states like Georgia and Arizona are now purple, but, on the flip side, purple states like Ohio, Iowa, and Florida have been voting Republican more consistently these days.  So there is a growing territorial reshuffling of where the national power center is and that’s likely to continue.

So it’s likely that people are splintering into areas where people are closer to their political beliefs or, at least, not in favor of policies that hold their states’ economic growth back.  However, elections in the U.S. are run by states, not landmasses.  There are still decent sized enclaves of Republicans in blue states and Democrats in red states.  So, what happens to them as their states become more ideologically captured by either party?

Well, I was knocking doors for Michelle Davis last month during the campaign and some conversations I had may provide the answer.  There were several anti-Trump homes that told me they were voting in the primary just to stop Michelle from winning because she was endorsed by the President.  With Indiana having a Republican supermajority in the legislature and no statewide elected official that’s affiliated with the Democrats, it seems these voters believed it was better to vote in the Republican primary, which is legal since Indiana has a functionally open primary system, to get a more moderate or anti-Trump candidate since the Democratic is unlikely to win regardless of the nominee.

One could make fun of Indiana for being a one party state, but that’s true for other regions as well.  I knew people who lived in Chicago who simply didn’t vote there because Dems always won so voting there was a waste of time.  I had the same experience in Bloomington, Indiana because the conventional wisdom was that Republicans never win so it was always better to run as a Democrat.  Point is, everyone knows a region that’s essentially a one-party state and current redistricting battles are making more of them.

Which brings us back to the Greg Walker voters I was talking to that were voting just to oppose Donald Trump.  Honestly, it’s likely that may become a more likely phenomenon as the states become increasingly captured by their respective parties.  It’s possible that more voters may find themselves joining or running in parties they don’t necessarily connect with because that’s what party is in control in their area.  After all, there is no way to have influence without being involved in the community, and if you aren’t part of the local party, it’s harder to influence politicians.

With the growing regional divide, that likely may determine what the parties look like going forward.  It may no longer be conservative vs. liberal or libertarian vs progressive, but rural vs urban or south vs west coast.  Ironically, this may lead to more moderate candidates and decreased ideological polarization because it means the candidates will need to balance out the new factions in the party.  So there would be less ideological divides, but more regional divides instead.

Now I’m going to wrap this up by acknowledging that I’m not very good at making predictions.  After all, if I was then Bob Iger wouldn’t have returned as Disney’s CEO and Pete Buttigieg would have been the Dem nominee 2020.  However, I do notice trends so discussing possible consequences of those trends is still worth considering.  After all, one of my predictions may not come true, but that doesn’t mean a different possibility I haven’t thought of may address the reasons behind it.

However, with growing pushes to make it harder to vote for political opponents to win going forward, from redistricting to making Indiana a closed primary state, joining the dominant party may be the only way to be engaged in politics locally or higher.  With Republicans enjoying a slight advantage in terms of registration, that would definitely bode well for them nationally.

So will this be the future of the party or will something else happen entirely?  Only time will tell.  However, never forget that many of the state senators that got primaried last week had been in the state senate for decades.  It will be interesting to see who’s still in office in 20 years.