Here Comes the Realignment: Why the Democrats Lost and What Happens Now

The next few years are going to be a ride.

The realignment has arrived.

The Republican Party of Ronald Reagan and William F. Buckley is dead. The Democratic Party of Franklin Roosevelt and Bill Clinton is dead.

The demographic changes are impossible to deny. Forty-six percent of Hispanic voters picked the Republicans. Fifty-fifty percent of Hispanic men did, a majority. Twenty percent of Black men voted Trump, unthinkable just eight years ago. The Republicans swept the working class. They won states in the so-called Midwest Blue Wall. These are historic shifts.

The demographic shifts, however, aren’t the big story. People don’t pick parties arbitrarily. They vote for a party because of what it represents. Demographics are downstream of ideas, since it’s the ideas that attract different groups of people. The fact that formerly Democratic constituencies are swinging hard for Republicans is about changes in what our parties represent.

The image people have in their heads of our major parties is about thirty years out of date. Democrats still see themselves as the party of working people, the middle class, and the disadvantaged. People still see Republicans as corporate executives in country clubs obsessed over tax cuts. They used to be. They haven’t been for some time

As this election demonstrates beyond anyone’s ability to deny, Democrats are no longer the party of workers. They’re the party of the workers’ bosses. They’re a party of professionals, executives, academia, creative industries, and elite university students. They’re a party of media companies, HR bureaucracies, and the people who run the world. The Democratic Party represents the self-selecting group that calls itself the meritocracy.

That’s why the Democrats got trounced.

This is a party that responded to the 2008 financial crisis by bailing out the banks while leaving workers and the middle class to fend for themselves. It’s a party that responded to spiking food prices by pointing at the rising stock market as evidence everything was fine. It’s a party that responded to complaints by the bottom half of America that issues like immigration, housing costs, corporate policies, and crime were affecting their ability to maintain middle-class security that such issues are all illusions. Would a workers’ party do that? Would a party that cares about the disadvantaged?

About a year ago, Oliver Anthony went viral with the protest song Rich Men North of Richmond calling out America’s leaders as corrupt. Thousands of reaction videos appeared from YouTubers of every background almost teary about how they connected with its message of working-class despair. Young Black guys with hip hop reaction channels were choking up at a rural farmer with a big red beard because he was saying more about how they felt about their lives than anyone ever had. Did Democrats in the music industry rush to make him the next Bob Dylan? No. Figures on the left were openly hostile and dismissed him. While the Hawk Tuah girl is now everywhere, Anthony has mostly disappeared despite his viral success and over 175 million views.

Democrats claim they’re fighting for the little guy and against oppression, but somehow everything the party champions just happens to police and control who gets into America’s ruling class. Are elite university admissions the most important issue for working people who can no longer afford to eat at McDonalds? Does language policing really help marginalized groups rise into better lives? Do the fringe issues people on the left side of politics champion spread opportunity and prosperity to ordinary struggling Americans? What these things have in common isn’t helping working people, eliminating discrimination, or supporting the middle class. They have a lot to do with controlling who gets through the gates of the meritocratic class necessary to control institutions and rule. Despite what it claims, this what the Democratic party in practice represents—the parochial interests of the self-selecting club that runs things.

What do the Republicans stand for? Resistance to those same people running things.

Republicans no longer represent the Reagan-era conservative vision of small government, anti-communism, strong foreign policy, and social conservatism. The party represents a big middle finger to the people running America. The issues it cares about are things the bottom part of American society—workers and the real middle class—want to influence while the people in charge refuse to listen. It’s less a political party than a rebellion. Like any rebellion, it often isn’t productive or smart. A rebellion isn’t about building things, but tearing hated things down in the hope something better might someday emerge to replace it.

This is where we are. Obviously, while this struggle lasts neither vision is going to be effective at solving difficult problems or getting big things done. America is facing a new great national debate, one we have to get sorted to get back to making things work and improving people’s lives.

What is a political realignment? At a party level, a realignment is a change in who and what our parties represent. America’s parties toss off their old identities and come to stand for different ideas. Different ideas then attracts a different coalition of people. At a national level, however, a realignment is a major shift in America’s national debate.

Political parties don’t exist alone. They exist in a permanent dance with their rival. America’s is a two-party system. If half of America unite within one major party, the other half must somehow work together in the other one. This is what we call a “party system,” a distinct system of two major political parties. Political historians and scholars break American political history into five such party systems,¹ each of which involved two major parties representing distinct coalitions and ideas. Each lasted for decades until, over a a few short years, it collapsed to make way for a new system of parties standing for different people and ideas. This last happened in 1932, creating our familiar New Deal liberal Democrats and conservative Republicans.

Every party system, in other words, is a Great Debate over some important issue.

Party systems are born in national crises that tear the prior system down. Americans then come together to create new coalitions and agendas so they can address that crisis. One party advocates for an answer. Its opponents form an opposition, offering a rival answer. Then we fight it out for decades until the issue is eventually resolved or fades away, leading to a period of stagnation and decay, and eventually another collapse. (Let me plug my book, The Next Realignment, if you want to understand better how political realignments work.)

What Great Debate is reorganizing our parties now? It sure seems like it’s a debate over who gets to run our institutions in a democracy. It’s a debate about institutional legitimacy, official corruption, failed leadership, democracy, and control.

Democrats so far have chosen to be the party of the people who created the problem—who broke our institutions, insulated themselves, pursued selfish policies, arrogantly policed the gates, hoarded opportunities, and failed to govern well. Obviously, that is not a winning strategy. This put Republicans in the driver’s seat. This is, as I’ve recently written, what I think JD Vance was made Vice President to do—to turn Trumpism from a movement around one man into an institutional party that can outlast him. Republicans now have to figure out how to turn a rebellion into an agenda and ideas.

Democrats also face a critical choice. They have to decide whether to embrace their role as the party of power and the institutions, or to accept they also need to significant reform. Can Democrats reverse course and become the party they claim to be? Will their leaders and factions let them? Do they want to be an opposition party representing a disliked status quo, or can they root out all their ideas and political impulses to become a party eager to fix problem their most powerful supporters caused?

If either party fails, which is entirely possible, there will also be space for outsiders to seize control.

America has lot of difficult challenges to solve. We won’t start working on them until a new alignment settles into place, one that can channel our interests and beliefs into action. What those parties turn out to be, and what beliefs they choose to unite their coalitions, will control how we address those problems. This is now the most important issue in America.

We have the blessing and the curse to live in a rare and powerful moment that will determine America’s future. It’s very much up for grabs.

We’ll be discussing this realignment a lot more here as it progresses. If that interests you, subscribe. The next few years are going to be a ride.

What do you think about these new version of our parties? Join the conversation in the comments.

1. Some people claim there are actually six party systems, but that’s another debate.