And until 2016, it seemed that the parties were succeeding in representing their supporters: Partisans in the electorate increasingly hold a range of positions consistent with “conservative” or “liberal” lines on issues, as they have come to be defined. The case for a major transformation by merging a party faction or two with a minor party movement and abandoning names, symbols and infrastructure from the past, was not clear.
What we’ve observed in 2016 changes all this. The process by which the Republican Party chooses its nominees has allowed the nomination—via a plurality of primary votes—of a candidate who has no history with the party, no traditional qualifications, and who engages in political rhetoric that pushes beyond the boundaries of even the most polarized partisan discourse. The GOP’s leaders have proved unable—or perhaps unwilling—to stop it.
In a less dramatic fashion, it is also possible that the Democratic Party has outlived its usefulness as an organization, or will in the not-so-distant future. Party divisions informed by economic class lines have not been the historical norm in the United States, which has long impeded the emergence of a serious leftist or workers’ party. Because our system’s current design can sustain only two major parties for any length of time, the formation of such a party would entail coalition-building and compromise—yet the nature of an ideologically-oriented party is that compromise would deflate the base of support and potentially render the entire exercise pointless.
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