Gerontological Old Party

A friend wrote to me recently, wondering if we're starting to see another historic partisan realignment, as when the Whigs disintegrated and former Whigs united with Free Soil Democrats to form the Republican Party. He said he can't see moderate Republicans ever wresting control of the GOP, and suggests that they will leave to form a new party.

I think that on the narrower question he's wrong, but on the larger question he could be correct. This is only surmise, but the early evidence seems to me to support the likelihood of a lasting and significant partisan shift occurring.

In my estimation, President Obama has both the opportunity and the inclination to drive a wedge between the more moderate and the more extreme Republicans. He appears to clearly favor communication, compromise and reconciliation, so he has a natural inclination to reach out to the more centrist Republicans. He has already shown this in his selection of his cabinet, naming a significant number of Republicans and centrist Democrats, and very few from the more progressive portion of the Democrats.

Plus he's going to be pushing some major issues that are not going to be easy to duck for the moderate Republicans, such as the forthcoming stimulus. Since he may need the help of a few moderate Republicans, especially in the Senate, in order to accomplish much, he's really got an incentive to do that, anyway. Bear in mind, too, that the stimulus package will inevitably and unavoidably be, in effect, a gigantic constituent bill (watch the right wing media portray it as a humongous piece of pork barrel legislation), so fairly centrist members of Congress will have enormous incentives to be on board, regardless of party affiliation. At the same time, he seems to be shying away from the sorts of policies the more progressive of his supporters want.

Add all this together, and he's perfectly positioned to drive a wedge through the Republican Party, peel off the more moderates AND reward them ... and to tell the unreconstructed conservatives to get lost.

George W. Bush (Remember him? He's AWOL now, but he used to live in the White House) has made such a hash of his presidency that right-wing Republicans have little else left other than their traditional weapon, the race card. However, this past November's election shows that in a nation that is becoming increasingly comfortable with its diversity, the race card doesn't play so well any more. Moreover, President Obama is perfectly positioned to further defuse its political utility for the Republicans,

Combine this with the economic meltdown and we have a political opportunity not unlike the one FDR had in '33. So, if I am reading all of this correctly, and Obama manages to pull it off, we could indeed be seeing the beginning of a major and lasting shift.

However, I cannot see the GOP disintegrating. During the realignment of the 1850s, the new Republican Party drew not only from the disintegrating Whigs, but from the more progressive, northern segments of the badly fractured Democrats. Today the Republicans may be fragmented, but the Democrats are not (well, they always are, of course, but even Will Rogers would see them as more unified than usual), so there really isn't anywhere for moderate Republicans to go to form a successful new party.

In other words, any major partisan shift will play out within the context of the existing two-party system, with the GOP ending up more like what it was during the Eisenhower era but with the seeds of Goldwater/Reagan reactionary politics still intact within an at least temporarily marginalized right wing of the party.

And if the Republican right-wing controls enough of the party to run Palin in '12 they seal their doom, at least for a generation.

Note: this originally posted on ketches, yaks & hawks 2 January 2009