Today’s blue model liberals face a challenge. Can they find a path that actually restores states like Michigan and cities like Detroit to the kind of health they knew back when the blue model actually worked?

Red state conservatives, for their part, have yet to show that they can deliver something better than the mere destruction of the blue system: an alternative way to raise living standards and generate an acceptable basic level of personal security for ordinary workers in the American economy.

Voters seem to understand that both alternatives on offer are deeply flawed. The future of American politics will neither be blue or red as they are understood today; there are new solutions and new methods out there that can address many social issues that engage blue concern but getting there involves the creative destruction of many of the institutions and programs that blues have come to see as ends rather than means.