For reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sixth_Party_System
It might be wishful thinking. I might just be poisoning my brain with social media, but the absolute slop I’ve been reading on twitter for the past couple weeks is leading me to believe we may be witnessing the death of the Sixth Party System. Liberals framing recent events as “Working Class Joe” locked in a battle against the DNC Elites, calling publications like the New York Times and Axios fake news chaos agents. Long established alliances between institutions and constituencies seem to be falling apart in a way I have never seen before. It has been such a captivating dumpster fire to behold.
I know “Dems in Disarray” is a common election-season trope, but I have never seen this level of disarray in my life. This shit surely has to be cooked, right? Like this is boiling down to QAnon vs. BlueAnon at this point, with no tangible attachment to policy prescriptions, or even reality. We’re supposed to re-elect an octogenarian genocidarie with a life-long political record of strangling the working class while building up the police state to stop fascism. We’re supposed to not lose a single election until I’m 80, toothless, infirm, but still working overtime in 110 degree heat on an orange plantation in Yukon to pay my rent to Blackstone while waiting for all the Trump 45 judges to die?
Most policy distinctions on race, immigration, class, labor, religion, LGBTQ+ rights, bodily autonomy, foreign policy, the war on drugs, militarism, incarceration, and economic rights have been reduced to NOTHING but lip service for a long time now, and with the supreme court holding veto power over the other two branches, the era of pedantic liberal proceduralism isn’t even a convincing fairy tale. Between the splintering of political constituencies and institutions, and the inevitable fait accompli which is necessary to bypass the impasse of the US’s constitutional institutions, I really think this thing is toast. Am I drunk?
End of the beginning or beginning of the end rather than the end itself imo. Most of the voting demographics of the 1980s are the same as today (Black people and queer people vote Democrat while Evangelicals and white people vote Republican). The urban vs rural divide was less intense during the 80s but it was still pretty applicable. Small town in the middle of nowhere voted Republican in the 80s and votes Republican today. The only thing different I could think of is blue-collar union workers are shifting away from Democrats and towards Republicans, which is a pretty significant shift.