The Parties, They are A-Changin’

Come Senators, Congressmen, please heed the call.
Don’t stand in the doorway, don’t block up the hall.
For he that gets hurt, will be he who has stalled.
The battle outside ragin’ will soon shake your windows,
And rattle your walls.

For the times, they are a-changin’.

The Times They are A-Changin’  -  Bob Dylan  (1964)

…..

It used to be so simple. Democrats were liberals. Republicans were conservatives. There were moderates in both parties who were either less doctrinaire than average or agreed with the other side on a few things. Third parties were either de minimis in appeal or they were single issue based so they came and went quickly.

It’s not so simple anymore.

Although Bernie Sanders never became the official standard bearer for the Democrats, his orthodoxy is winning the day. What was once a party of classical liberals is rapidly moving into a party of authoritarian leftists that now embrace the term “socialism” that Democratic leaders for decades eschewed. Democrats of the 1960s would not recognize their party that has now adopted a sort of cultural Marxism that could not be farther from the Laissez-Faire culture of old. As an example, the ACLU has always been closely connected to Democratic politicians and policies. Not that many years ago, the ACLU defended actual Swastika-wearing Nazis in court because they were so devoted to free speech. Today, the same ACLU will go to court to prevent elected Republicans from speaking in various public forums about not teaching kids Trans-ideology or about securing the border. Such “hate-speech” they say, must not be allowed although “genocide against Jews” and “From the River to the Sea” is fine.

Over in the Grand Old Party, things have changed as well. You can thank (or blame), one Donald J. Trump for leading a charge towards populism and away from conservatism. The calls amongst Republican populist leaders to withdraw from international affairs, continue deficit entitlement spending, stop even legal immigration and embrace some labor movements would be unrecognizable to Barry Goldwater or Ronald Reagan. Trump has been the primary cheerleader for populism on the right, but he is far from its only proponent today.

Many classical liberals, who still vote Democrat, may have more in common with a classical conservative than their own party today. The same is true for classical conservatives who still vote populist Republican. Alliances are beginning to get jumbled.

Abraham Lincoln was elected President in 1860. He is seen by all but the revisionist history leftists as one of America’s greatest presidents, if not the greatest. But he was elected with less than 40% of the popular vote in a 4-way race. The Whig party had died, and a new Republican party grew up in its place. Two other parties also contested for the presidency. The Southern Democratic and Constitutional Union parties grew up as many were unhappy with the existing Democratic party and the new Republicans or missed the Whigs of old. All four candidates won the electoral college votes of at least one state, although Lincoln secured a majority of the electoral college.  

Could we be entering a period of similar party formation chaos? The “No Labels” party is forming as an alternative to the Dems and GOP. RFK, Jr., having broken with his father’s Democratic party, is launching his quixotic independent bid for the presidency with a name that guarantees some attention.

Maybe we will have a legitimate 4-way race in 2024. Maybe one party or both will move firmly into their new identity and permanently alienate some of their traditional base of support. Maybe one of the new players will become the first real challenge to the R&D duopoly since the GOP displaced the Whigs.

Or maybe one party or the other has an electoral loss that causes it to lurch back to the party of old. Or, maybe both do. And imagine if no candidate received a majority of the electoral college and the presidency was decided in the House of Representatives with each state getting a single vote, regardless of population, towards a total of 26 needed to elect.

The point is that in spite of everyone in media telling you they know what is going to happen, this is as unpredictable election season as we have had since 1968, if not since 1860. If there is a legitimate 4-way race, a winner could have a Lincolnesque 39% of the popular vote or less. Imagine the blowback from 61% or more of the people who get a president they did not support. All the polling currently shows that No Labels and RFK hurt Biden more than Trump, but only slightly. And what if either Trump or Biden is not the nominee of their party? Mix things up again. And I haven’t even mentioned the impact of an expansion of any of the world’s wars or the possibility of an economic recession before or during the election.

The Israel/Hamas war divides Democrats. The Ukraine war divides Republicans. Crime divides Democrats and budget deficits divide Republicans. No Labels is saying come to us because we are not hard-over on anything. But then, is their sell that they are “radical moderates”? That has long been a political oxymoron. RFK, Jr. has unusual positions, and I would argue that his attraction is to those voters who think the whole system needs to be blown up. Libertarians and Greens are polling higher than they normally do, capturing those people for whom all the other alternatives are not ideologically pure enough.

And all this is not limited to the United States. Increasingly, elections around the world pit an authoritarian left against a candidate from the populist right, with a bunch of smaller parties mixed in. The populist right has recently won in Italy, Argentina, New Zealand, and the Netherlands. Leftists, however, still hold on to power in a number of countries and look poised to take control in the UK next year.

People are upset and they are on edge. Many don’t believe that the establishment parties care about them. They are grasping for solutions to protect their income, physical security, financial security, culture, children, national, racial, or religious identity. They want to avoid war or be in the winning side if it happens. They don’t like “elites” telling them what to do because they are so much smarter. They are not sure the old ways will work anymore. Bob Dylan’s ballad, highlighted at the top of this missive, became almost an anthem of the turbulent 1960s and 70s with his signature harmonica and acoustic guitar. I don’t think we have a ballad of the 2020s yet.

But when we get one, change will have to be in the lyrics somewhere.

I remain respectfully,
Congressman John Campbell
Drive Fast & Live Free