I think I speak for everyone when I say PLEASE launch a podcast Frank! The audio from your library of videos on this channel would give you a ton of amazing content to use right away and quickly build a huge audience. You were great on The Realignment Podcast!
Thanks for giving us better perspective! We’ve been through a serious political wake in America during my first two decades here in life, where ideology and party have become hardcore cultural identities, and most of us don’t fit underneath strict definitions. I grew up conservative and very Republican, and now find myself much more purple and moderate on many issues as I listen to everyone and discover where and how opinions are formed.
Thanks! I'd say most of us are in fact politically homeless right now, it's just a lot of people don't realize it yet, as we haven't yet built our new political homes.
Definitely, as part of the shift to moral issues in the 1960s and 1970s. It's obviously a pretty sensitive topic for people but also important to the larger story. Not to spoil things but it's a more complicated shift than people presume and more about naturally applying the existing ideologies to new situations than even a real break.
@@FrankDiStefano I don’t think the southern strategy was as racially motivated as many democrats claim it was especially considering that Nixon enforced integration of schools in his first term and still carried the south. It’s seems to me like it was more of a religious reason than race because there was a “great awakening” in the seventies and eighties and that coupled with roe v wade would explain why the south started to vote republican. They even voted for jimmy carter on the basis of religion in 76’ but his liberal policies made the south turn against him. This would also explain why (white) Catholics, who previously were part of the democratic coalition, ended up supporting republicans today because of issues like abortion.
So excited for the next part. I wonder if the role of Reagan, or Obama will be touched upon. I argue there was a serious policy change on the issue of foreign policy as the old conservatives of Robert Taff were anti-interventionists compared to republicans today BEFORE Trump, and the democrats had a change after Vietnam. To me it seems like actually culture is what primarily matters today and going forward unlike as recent as 2008. To me, the democrats are liberty plus progressivism and the GOP is populism plus virtue. I wonder what you think about this.
Yes and Taft is probably coming up next. Although less focused on the foreign policy question, which I find is usually an extension of domestic policy. It's deeply important to leaders and wonks (and the world!) but less important in driving domestic political behavior. Most people outside the political elites are more focused on their own situations at home.
Oh, and as for your breakdown of where we're heading -- Republicans as populism plus virtue and Democrats as progressivism plus (maybe) liberty -- I agree. I think that's exactly where we're heading, if not already there. And I don't think it's a good thing. It's moving to an alignment that can unite two coalitions around new problems, but probably in a very disruptive way.
@@FrankDiStefano can you explain your point of how it might not be a good thing that "GOP is going populism and virtue, Democrats going progressivism and perhaps liberty" and how it could be disruptive? Really curious. A small remark, up until 2018 i was a Democrat voter from a midwestern state, but the party started seeming more and more unappealing as the culture changed and i found myself more and more sympathetic to the GOP. So definitely i agree with your statement of where the trends are going and that theres something going on.
The big question is how we're going to adjust to the transformation to a post industrial world. My worry is we're roughly dividing into one coalition of those who benefit from it and don't want to do anything, and another of those who want it to stop (which we can't do). So the right debate but with two parties inclined towards wrong answers built in a way to make a rough and angry era. Now, to be fair, you might say a similar thing about the Populist and Progressive Era and that worked out great. But that was a debate at a time in which the pie was expanding not one in which it was contracting as America's share of the world declined while others now rise.
@@FrankDiStefano I think Republicans are definitely moving that way rhetorically and it’s a distinct possibility, but I think they are more likely heading for a collapse. On questions of populism their commitment seems to start and stop at rhetoric, and the elected faction that represents that still seems rather small. On questions of virtue it’s arguable that Dems recently have more effectively wielded ideas of republican virtue (at least in the last election cycle). I see it as a distinct possibility that we move towards a more European-style party system with the left/Bernie-wing of the Democratic Party splitting off and the Democrats operating as a more traditional Conservative party oriented around moderation and stability and a new left wing party oriented around progressivism and structural change - sort of like the German or British dominant parties. I’d like to know your thoughts, excellent video!
See my reply to your comment above to SethLooks. Wikipedia is wrong on this! There are indeed people who hold a Sixth Party System began somewhere between the 1960s-1980, but this is neither the majority view of history or political science nor (do I believe!) is it correct. It's mainly people focused on demographics who don't understand or study what realignments are or how they work. Demographic changes or shifts in political advantages for a party without a fundamental change in ideology aren't actually realignments. This is still the Fifth Party System since both parties are still united around the ideologies that came out of the New Deal--advancing New Deal liberalism and conservatism fighting against "big government."
Climate is definitely one important neglected issue, although I'd say part of the bigger issue of adapting our institution for this new post-industrial global world.
@@12KevinPower There are indeed people who claim there was a realignment between the 1960s and 1980s. I talk about it in the book and I'll talk about it more soon in the series. They are however in the the minority on this and (at least I think) wrong. There was a movement from the late 1960s to the 1980s to declare the start of a new party system because the Fifth had lasted so long. Longer than any previous one. A lot of people back then liked to think realignments happened on about a four decade cycle. There was also the major demographic shifts everyone knows about (although those actually took into the 1990s to fully play out). The problem is this completely misunderstands party systems and realignments as a theory of politics. They're not about demographics but changes in ideologies and ideas. And those didn't really change. Post Reagan, the GOP was still based around fighting "big government". They just started focusing more on social "big government" in addition to economic. The Democrats were also still based around advancing New Deal liberalism, just moving from the economic New Deal to the social Great Society. The demographics no doubt changed over times, but ideas and ideological coalitions didn't. Thus, not a realignment. This moreover remains the majority view of political science (at least among the people who actually understand and study realignments and realignment theory!). So Wikipedia is wrong here. I would delete that article if I could. That said, there are people who believe that view, and some of them are academics (who should know better!). But most are people focused only on demographics and statistics who don't actually understand what realignments are about. To put a realignment at 1980 you in fact contradict the entire idea of realignments--you're advancing a static left-right spectrum with two stable parties competing for demographics of voters over time. To find a realignment and new party system in 1980 you have to essentially assert realignments don't exist! I'll be talking about this a lot more when we get to the 1960s in the series, which will be soon.
I’ve watched several of Frank’s videos and although I find them informative and entertaining I do have an issue with the consistent reference to FDR and the new deal as Strictly Central planning . The inception of the National Labor relations act is by no means an arm of central planning . The right to organize is a direct and collective Democratic venture not some Stalinesque’ form of forced collectivism void of personal expression. The New Deal would not be the new deal without the Organized Labor component. Furthermore , I do agree that America is not a Democratic nation , but I lament this . This guy , considering is idea that “majoritarian” politics is immoral is anti democratic . He seems to believe in the tyranny of the minority. He Must love the Jim Crow filibuster.
I believe New Deal Deal liberalism, the ideology that grew out of the New Deal era, roughly holds we can use progressivism (using social science and expertise to plan national progress) to advance traditional Democratic Party populism (helping workers and the least well off). FDRs New Deal agenda of course was a hodge podge of policies that backed into that philosophy instead of a ideologically planned thing and one could argue about which parts fit into the ultimate philosophy (although I do think New Deal labor policy was meant as more of the populist side with a progressive overlay than the other way around. As for majoritarianism I am a strong Madisonian. I believe in a complex republic with strong checks and balances with some sacrosanct individual rights so both no faction or minority or any organized majority can always get its way. There’s nothing sacred about the idea of a small majority that means 60 percent of the people should be allowed to oppress the other 40, turning them into their servants or objects of abuse. I think the American republic got this one right.
@@FrankDiStefano Strongly Disagree, what we’ve seen over time is the opposite. The rise of Executive Action and Authority is a result of anti Democratic Values. Furthermore , nothing happens here anymore. So you have popular vote landslides with minor Electoral Gains , not only Country wide , but within the states as well. You’re a historian . You know the history of the senate and the electoral college . There’s no whitewashing the intent. I’d also ask, if this idea of majorities setting policy decisions is so tyrannical then why has no other country adopted our form ? These supposed swings in oppression just do not happen in Parliamentarian Democracies as you’d have us believe. Furthermore , when you look to the more Direct Democratic-nations such as Scandinavian countries why is there more movement in progress and less Social Hostility? Our fixation on granting minority views a lopsided tilt in representation has resulted in absolute stagnation and hostility . Proportional Representation is fair , not tyrannical. The constitution was not written by GODS or Deities. It was written by men. Remember this. I respect your opinion, but I just don’t see how anybody can continue to believe that the level of stagnation and minority rule has worked out. In my opinion as a humble Mail man we need a hyper expansion of direct democracy in this country . National Referendums, Federal Expenditures given to further devolved localities built from the bottom up - not to Governors and Top down Representatives. We need to broaden our imaginations not look to the Hundreds of year old documents as if they strictly apply to the 21st century. You say , I’m some of your interviews and lectures that parties need to stop looking backwards. But. Holding on to an antiquated ( and extremely Racist , misogynistic and anti Working Class document ) is exactly that. Why on God’s Earth would we exalt Someone Like Madison , whom believes that Black people were only 3/5ths human and women had no right to property as A force of sacrosanct and moral virtue ? That is Crazy talk. I want to be clear that I’m not attacking you personally or accusing you of anything. I just disagree with the notion of republicanism. I believe in the future. And in Hyper forms of direct democracies , social Democracies and participation. Not central planning nor representative republicanism. I just think that this fixation on negative Liberty is really childish. You and I both know that the construction of the Constitutional “ Republic “ was not founded on preserving the “Individual” rights of the minority. It was founded on preserving the ruling power of the property owning class , which will always be a minority. If it was truly founded on Individual rights then we both know that this country would’ve began on more egalitarian footing. It was not . Civil rights were delayed by almost a couple decades because of this fixation on preserving the will of the minority, oddly enough by incorporating the language of Individual Rights within the framework of that mentality. The same strain of philosophical thought overturned and rolled back reconstruction. How did that work out? Millions of innocent people hung from trees, churches burned , children forced into deaths over lack of humane labor laws, women subjugated to domestic slavery, mass illiteracy etc etc. All to hold onto to this view of preserving The “ Individual Liberties “ of a minority. It is incoherent at at best.
I would argue that is shaping up to be a clash between national populism and cosmopolitan liberalism instead. And that's not just the case in the United States but several Western nations. I think France provides the clearest example of these trends playing out. The traditional Right and Left, represented by the Gaullists and Socialists, are now being overshadowed by Marine Le Pen's National Rally and Emmanuel Macron's Renaissance or the March of the Republic as it was known until recently. The former being a national populist party that, while ostensibly considered to be on the same side of the political spectrum as the Gaullists, has drawn more support from the traditional working class base of the Socialists in Northern/Eastern France. On the flip side, the latter is a cosmopolitan liberal party that, while led by a politician who started out among the Socialists, is more popular with the traditional professional class base of the Gaullists in Southern/Western France. The same underlying trends are playing out in other countries, but due to the particularities in the circumstances of their histories and electoral systems are manifesting themselves in different ways. The old guard Right in the United States and United Kingdom, the Republicans and Tories, both hit a crossroads. The national populist MAGA Movement which followed in the wake of Donald Trump has firmly entrenched itself within the Republican Party and is popular with the white working class base that used to reliably vote Democrat. Brexit ushered in a similar sea change in British politics which saw the rural Labour Red Wall in the Midlands and Northern England come out for the Conservative Party under Boris Johnson who promised an ambitious policy of Levelling Up. But the Tories have been much slower to break with orthodoxy and the slack is therefore being picked up by Reform UK which started life as the Brexit Party. The corresponding parties of the old guard Left, the Democrats and Labour, are vey clearly at war with themselves. There are the moderate establishments on the one hand, represented by the likes of Joe Biden and Keir Starmer, and the anti-establishment progressives if not socialists emboldened by Bernie Sanders and Jeremy Corbyn on the other. But waiting on the wings there's also the Liberal Democrats in the UK and Andrew Yang's Forward Party in the US that want to seize the opportunity to gain ground with increasingly disaffected feeling voters. They are comparable to Renaissance and look to compete with the Democratic and Labour parties for that cosmopolitan liberal space for which sympathies are most prevalent amongst the professional class which used to lean toward the mainstream parties of the Right. It's hard to tell where the chips will ultimately fall. As said before, so far there has been some divergence in how the Republicans and Tories have responded to these realignments. But if Trump were finally ousted then a new party, the Patriot Party was a name that was floated around awhile back, would then no doubt arise to champion the same causes as a direct counterpart to the National Rally and Reform UK. The fact that Le Pen has shifted considerably to the left on economic issues, such as her taking up the gauntlet against Macron's pension reform which raised the retirement age, might be something to take note of. Which direction the Democrats are going to head is not set in stone yet, but their increasingly upscale allies does not bode well for a pivot toward actual socialism. Perhaps the most foreboding sign to the contrary was when a vast majority of Democrats, including most of the self-described socialists, voted to ban railroad workers from striking despite the empowering of organized labor being a central tenet of the philosophy.
@@johnweber4577 That small percent of dems that voted say. JFK era. That percent has been switching. Mostly because of the Civil Rights stuff. Which I will never understand why people vote against their own economic interest just because of that. I'm sure the working class always was diverse. Why I have a problem when people just phrase it, "white working class". That small percent that did back then eventually switch. Would have been the old Dixiecrats. Because they were economically liberal but not socially. And about the "professional Class', you would be right. They used to be Republican in the 1950's. That's what I remember in the book "listen liberal". That came out in late 2016. When he started back in the 70's in that book. I would see on certain issue's of the 'Patriot Party' as to the old Know Nothings of the 1840-50's. Even W. saw it some of it. I remember reading it back then. Or even in the interview back in 2011. The pure definition of "socialism" will never happen. No worker is going to ever take the means of production. Someone would have to be crazy for that to happen here in the US.
I think I speak for everyone when I say PLEASE launch a podcast Frank! The audio from your library of videos on this channel would give you a ton of amazing content to use right away and quickly build a huge audience. You were great on The Realignment Podcast!
Absolutely loving your videos Frank, you can tell you're extremely knowledgeable on the subject. Please keep it up, your channel will be big one day!
Thanks for giving us better perspective! We’ve been through a serious political wake in America during my first two decades here in life, where ideology and party have become hardcore cultural identities, and most of us don’t fit underneath strict definitions. I grew up conservative and very Republican, and now find myself much more purple and moderate on many issues as I listen to everyone and discover where and how opinions are formed.
Thanks! I'd say most of us are in fact politically homeless right now, it's just a lot of people don't realize it yet, as we haven't yet built our new political homes.
Will you make a video on the southern strategy?
Definitely, as part of the shift to moral issues in the 1960s and 1970s. It's obviously a pretty sensitive topic for people but also important to the larger story. Not to spoil things but it's a more complicated shift than people presume and more about naturally applying the existing ideologies to new situations than even a real break.
@@FrankDiStefano I don’t think the southern strategy was as racially motivated as many democrats claim it was especially considering that Nixon enforced integration of schools in his first term and still carried the south. It’s seems to me like it was more of a religious reason than race because there was a “great awakening” in the seventies and eighties and that coupled with roe v wade would explain why the south started to vote republican. They even voted for jimmy carter on the basis of religion in 76’ but his liberal policies made the south turn against him. This would also explain why (white) Catholics, who previously were part of the democratic coalition, ended up supporting republicans today because of issues like abortion.
great series! watched it all, recommended
A nice surprise today. I always enjoy your lectures.
Thank you, and thanks for watching!
Frank these are great. I hope you keep it up!
Woooooo the next episode is here!!!!
Liberty can be about a lot of different things. Liberty from the Democratic tyranny.
Majority ruling tyrants. Liberals Non-Traditionalist. Conservatives Traditionalist.
I love your videos Frank. Keep up the hard work
So excited for the next part. I wonder if the role of Reagan, or Obama will be touched upon. I argue there was a serious policy change on the issue of foreign policy as the old conservatives of Robert Taff were anti-interventionists compared to republicans today BEFORE Trump, and the democrats had a change after Vietnam.
To me it seems like actually culture is what primarily matters today and going forward unlike as recent as 2008. To me, the democrats are liberty plus progressivism and the GOP is populism plus virtue. I wonder what you think about this.
Yes and Taft is probably coming up next. Although less focused on the foreign policy question, which I find is usually an extension of domestic policy. It's deeply important to leaders and wonks (and the world!) but less important in driving domestic political behavior. Most people outside the political elites are more focused on their own situations at home.
Oh, and as for your breakdown of where we're heading -- Republicans as populism plus virtue and Democrats as progressivism plus (maybe) liberty -- I agree. I think that's exactly where we're heading, if not already there. And I don't think it's a good thing. It's moving to an alignment that can unite two coalitions around new problems, but probably in a very disruptive way.
@@FrankDiStefano can you explain your point of how it might not be a good thing that "GOP is going populism and virtue, Democrats going progressivism and perhaps liberty" and how it could be disruptive? Really curious.
A small remark, up until 2018 i was a Democrat voter from a midwestern state, but the party started seeming more and more unappealing as the culture changed and i found myself more and more sympathetic to the GOP. So definitely i agree with your statement of where the trends are going and that theres something going on.
The big question is how we're going to adjust to the transformation to a post industrial world. My worry is we're roughly dividing into one coalition of those who benefit from it and don't want to do anything, and another of those who want it to stop (which we can't do). So the right debate but with two parties inclined towards wrong answers built in a way to make a rough and angry era.
Now, to be fair, you might say a similar thing about the Populist and Progressive Era and that worked out great. But that was a debate at a time in which the pie was expanding not one in which it was contracting as America's share of the world declined while others now rise.
@@FrankDiStefano I think Republicans are definitely moving that way rhetorically and it’s a distinct possibility, but I think they are more likely heading for a collapse. On questions of populism their commitment seems to start and stop at rhetoric, and the elected faction that represents that still seems rather small. On questions of virtue it’s arguable that Dems recently have more effectively wielded ideas of republican virtue (at least in the last election cycle). I see it as a distinct possibility that we move towards a more European-style party system with the left/Bernie-wing of the Democratic Party splitting off and the Democrats operating as a more traditional Conservative party oriented around moderation and stability and a new left wing party oriented around progressivism and structural change - sort of like the German or British dominant parties. I’d like to know your thoughts, excellent video!
great series...however please turn your flag around as it's correctly displayed with the blue to the left
love this channel
There is a Sixth Party System. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sixth_Party_System
See my reply to your comment above to SethLooks. Wikipedia is wrong on this!
There are indeed people who hold a Sixth Party System began somewhere between the 1960s-1980, but this is neither the majority view of history or political science nor (do I believe!) is it correct. It's mainly people focused on demographics who don't understand or study what realignments are or how they work. Demographic changes or shifts in political advantages for a party without a fundamental change in ideology aren't actually realignments. This is still the Fifth Party System since both parties are still united around the ideologies that came out of the New Deal--advancing New Deal liberalism and conservatism fighting against "big government."
I would hope the 6th will focus on climate but I worry it will just be a deepening of culture war garbage
Climate is definitely one important neglected issue, although I'd say part of the bigger issue of adapting our institution for this new post-industrial global world.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sixth_Party_System Says that it began under Reagan or Nixon.
@@12KevinPower There are indeed people who claim there was a realignment between the 1960s and 1980s. I talk about it in the book and I'll talk about it more soon in the series. They are however in the the minority on this and (at least I think) wrong.
There was a movement from the late 1960s to the 1980s to declare the start of a new party system because the Fifth had lasted so long. Longer than any previous one. A lot of people back then liked to think realignments happened on about a four decade cycle. There was also the major demographic shifts everyone knows about (although those actually took into the 1990s to fully play out). The problem is this completely misunderstands party systems and realignments as a theory of politics. They're not about demographics but changes in ideologies and ideas. And those didn't really change.
Post Reagan, the GOP was still based around fighting "big government". They just started focusing more on social "big government" in addition to economic. The Democrats were also still based around advancing New Deal liberalism, just moving from the economic New Deal to the social Great Society. The demographics no doubt changed over times, but ideas and ideological coalitions didn't. Thus, not a realignment. This moreover remains the majority view of political science (at least among the people who actually understand and study realignments and realignment theory!).
So Wikipedia is wrong here. I would delete that article if I could. That said, there are people who believe that view, and some of them are academics (who should know better!). But most are people focused only on demographics and statistics who don't actually understand what realignments are about. To put a realignment at 1980 you in fact contradict the entire idea of realignments--you're advancing a static left-right spectrum with two stable parties competing for demographics of voters over time. To find a realignment and new party system in 1980 you have to essentially assert realignments don't exist!
I'll be talking about this a lot more when we get to the 1960s in the series, which will be soon.
I’ve watched several of Frank’s videos and although I find them informative and entertaining I do have an issue with the consistent reference to FDR and the new deal as Strictly Central planning . The inception of the National Labor relations act is by no means an arm of central planning . The right to organize is a direct and collective Democratic venture not some Stalinesque’ form of forced collectivism void of personal expression. The New Deal would not be the new deal without the Organized Labor component. Furthermore , I do agree that America is not a Democratic nation , but I lament this . This guy , considering is idea that “majoritarian” politics is immoral is anti democratic . He seems to believe in the tyranny of the minority. He Must love the Jim Crow filibuster.
I believe New Deal Deal liberalism, the ideology that grew out of the New Deal era, roughly holds we can use progressivism (using social science and expertise to plan national progress) to advance traditional Democratic Party populism (helping workers and the least well off). FDRs New Deal agenda of course was a hodge podge of policies that backed into that philosophy instead of a ideologically planned thing and one could argue about which parts fit into the ultimate philosophy (although I do think New Deal labor policy was meant as more of the populist side with a progressive overlay than the other way around.
As for majoritarianism I am a strong Madisonian. I believe in a complex republic with strong checks and balances with some sacrosanct individual rights so both no faction or minority or any organized majority can always get its way. There’s nothing sacred about the idea of a small majority that means 60 percent of the people should be allowed to oppress the other 40, turning them into their servants or objects of abuse. I think the American republic got this one right.
@@FrankDiStefano Strongly Disagree, what we’ve seen over time is the opposite. The rise of Executive Action and Authority is a result of anti Democratic Values. Furthermore , nothing happens here anymore. So you have popular vote landslides with minor Electoral Gains , not only Country wide , but within the states as well. You’re a historian . You know the history of the senate and the electoral college . There’s no whitewashing the intent. I’d also ask, if this idea of majorities setting policy decisions is so tyrannical then why has no other country adopted our form ? These supposed swings in oppression just do not happen in Parliamentarian Democracies as you’d have us believe. Furthermore , when you look to the more Direct Democratic-nations such as Scandinavian countries why is there more movement in progress and less Social Hostility? Our fixation on granting minority views a lopsided tilt in representation has resulted in absolute stagnation and hostility . Proportional Representation is fair , not tyrannical. The constitution was not written by GODS or Deities. It was written by men. Remember this. I respect your opinion, but I just don’t see how anybody can continue to believe that the level of stagnation and minority rule has worked out. In my opinion as a humble Mail man we need a hyper expansion of direct democracy in this country . National Referendums, Federal Expenditures given to further devolved localities built from the bottom up - not to Governors and Top down Representatives. We need to broaden our imaginations not look to the Hundreds of year old documents as if they strictly apply to the 21st century. You say , I’m some of your interviews and lectures that parties need to stop looking backwards. But. Holding on to an antiquated ( and extremely Racist , misogynistic and anti Working Class document ) is exactly that. Why on God’s Earth would we exalt Someone Like Madison , whom believes that Black people were only 3/5ths human and women had no right to property as A force of sacrosanct and moral virtue ? That is Crazy talk. I want to be clear that I’m not attacking you personally or accusing you of anything. I just disagree with the notion of republicanism. I believe in the future. And in Hyper forms of direct democracies , social Democracies and participation. Not central planning nor representative republicanism. I just think that this fixation on negative Liberty is really childish. You and I both know that the construction of the Constitutional “ Republic “ was not founded on preserving the “Individual” rights of the minority. It was founded on preserving the ruling power of the property owning class , which will always be a minority. If it was truly founded on Individual rights then we both know that this country would’ve began on more egalitarian footing. It was not . Civil rights were delayed by almost a couple decades because of this fixation on preserving the will of the minority, oddly enough by incorporating the language of Individual Rights within the framework of that mentality. The same strain of philosophical thought overturned and rolled back reconstruction. How did that work out? Millions of innocent people hung from trees, churches burned , children forced into deaths over lack of humane labor laws, women subjugated to domestic slavery, mass illiteracy etc etc. All to hold onto to this view of preserving The “ Individual Liberties “ of a minority. It is incoherent at at best.
I'm guessing the next system will be between Socialists and Nationalists, just judging by the direction of both parties.
That's America now. Lord help us.
Socialist vs Capitalist. Nationalist vs Globalist. Christians vs Non-Christians.
I would argue that is shaping up to be a clash between national populism and cosmopolitan liberalism instead. And that's not just the case in the United States but several Western nations. I think France provides the clearest example of these trends playing out. The traditional Right and Left, represented by the Gaullists and Socialists, are now being overshadowed by Marine Le Pen's National Rally and Emmanuel Macron's Renaissance or the March of the Republic as it was known until recently. The former being a national populist party that, while ostensibly considered to be on the same side of the political spectrum as the Gaullists, has drawn more support from the traditional working class base of the Socialists in Northern/Eastern France. On the flip side, the latter is a cosmopolitan liberal party that, while led by a politician who started out among the Socialists, is more popular with the traditional professional class base of the Gaullists in Southern/Western France.
The same underlying trends are playing out in other countries, but due to the particularities in the circumstances of their histories and electoral systems are manifesting themselves in different ways. The old guard Right in the United States and United Kingdom, the Republicans and Tories, both hit a crossroads. The national populist MAGA Movement which followed in the wake of Donald Trump has firmly entrenched itself within the Republican Party and is popular with the white working class base that used to reliably vote Democrat. Brexit ushered in a similar sea change in British politics which saw the rural Labour Red Wall in the Midlands and Northern England come out for the Conservative Party under Boris Johnson who promised an ambitious policy of Levelling Up. But the Tories have been much slower to break with orthodoxy and the slack is therefore being picked up by Reform UK which started life as the Brexit Party.
The corresponding parties of the old guard Left, the Democrats and Labour, are vey clearly at war with themselves. There are the moderate establishments on the one hand, represented by the likes of Joe Biden and Keir Starmer, and the anti-establishment progressives if not socialists emboldened by Bernie Sanders and Jeremy Corbyn on the other. But waiting on the wings there's also the Liberal Democrats in the UK and Andrew Yang's Forward Party in the US that want to seize the opportunity to gain ground with increasingly disaffected feeling voters. They are comparable to Renaissance and look to compete with the Democratic and Labour parties for that cosmopolitan liberal space for which sympathies are most prevalent amongst the professional class which used to lean toward the mainstream parties of the Right.
It's hard to tell where the chips will ultimately fall. As said before, so far there has been some divergence in how the Republicans and Tories have responded to these realignments. But if Trump were finally ousted then a new party, the Patriot Party was a name that was floated around awhile back, would then no doubt arise to champion the same causes as a direct counterpart to the National Rally and Reform UK. The fact that Le Pen has shifted considerably to the left on economic issues, such as her taking up the gauntlet against Macron's pension reform which raised the retirement age, might be something to take note of. Which direction the Democrats are going to head is not set in stone yet, but their increasingly upscale allies does not bode well for a pivot toward actual socialism. Perhaps the most foreboding sign to the contrary was when a vast majority of Democrats, including most of the self-described socialists, voted to ban railroad workers from striking despite the empowering of organized labor being a central tenet of the philosophy.
@@johnweber4577 That small percent of dems that voted say. JFK era. That percent has been switching. Mostly because of the Civil Rights stuff. Which I will never understand why people vote against their own economic interest just because of that. I'm sure the working class always was diverse. Why I have a problem when people just phrase it, "white working class". That small percent that did back then eventually switch. Would have been the old Dixiecrats. Because they were economically liberal but not socially.
And about the "professional Class', you would be right. They used to be Republican in the 1950's. That's what I remember in the book "listen liberal". That came out in late 2016. When he started back in the 70's in that book.
I would see on certain issue's of the 'Patriot Party' as to the old Know Nothings of the 1840-50's. Even W. saw it some of it. I remember reading it back then. Or even in the interview back in 2011. The pure definition of "socialism" will never happen. No worker is going to ever take the means of production. Someone would have to be crazy for that to happen here in the US.