The Slow, Inevitable Collapse Of The Two-Party System
By Tyler Durden
Submitted by Russell Whitehouse via OrientalReview.org,
In this election year, it’s clear that a seismic political shift is rumbling through America. Widespread discontent for the status quo is surfacing from both the left and right. A year ago, it would have been impossible to envision a card-carrying socialist and a pre-WWII style populist mounting legitimate presidential campaigns (much less without Super PACs). Now, far-left and far-right sentiments are emerging from the underground as perfectly palatable options to Middle America. Establishment darlings like Hillary Clinton, Jeb Bush & Marco Rubio have faced extreme pressure from the New Normal in their respective political tents.
It has become clear that the traditional 2-party system in America is starting to erode. Sanders’ supporters view Clinton as too untrustworthy & beholden to Big Business. Meanwhile Trump’s blue-collar base has rejected rank-and-file Republicans as being too unsympathetic to their economic concerns, while his surprising chunk of the evangelical contingent is refuting the Bush-flavored puritanism of Ted Cruz. Conversely, Clinton’s supporters reject Sander’s bold platform as delusional and Cruz’s base is increasingly being filled by #NeverTrump neocon purists and Romey-ite country club Republicans.
One can see political parallels across the pond, in the UK’s 2015 Parliamentary elections. The two main parties in Westminster Palace, Conservative and Labour (roughly equivalent to the GOP and Democrats), were shaken up by two popular insurgencies. UKIP, the UK Independence Party, rose up from the rising flames of the relatively conservative British heartland’s fears of free trade in the EU and immigration, winning an eighth of the popular vote in England. To the north, SNP, the Scottish National Party, won 95% of Scotland’s seats by inspiring among other things, record youth turnout and social media support (sound familiar?), with a message of social democracy and defiance against the British status quo.
Intra-party schisms are also forming in the two Anglophone democracies. The Tories are tearing themselves apart over the Brexit, austerity and jockeying to succeed Cameron as Party Leader, while the American neocons are assessing the fallout of Trump’s ascendance while in free fall. Labour officials are debating whether to follow their insurgent leader Jeremy Corbyn to the far Left after 20 years of Tony Blair’s New Labour movement, which moved the party to the center to win back the support of big business and blue-collar voters. The New Labour centrist putsch coincided with Bill Clinton (and later Obama’s) similar efforts as the face of the Democrats. Now, Democratic voters are beginning to second-guess this political realignment, spearheaded by the presumptive Democratic nominee’s husband. Her opponent Bernie Sanders is siphoning away the youth vote and blue-collar moderates from the Democratic establishment, two of the Party’s traditional constituencies, by railing against neoliberal policies like free trade and social welfare cuts.
Given the rise of social-democratic populism and nativist-protectionist populism to either flank of American politics, it would make sense to …read more
Source: The Slow, Inevitable Collapse Of The Two-Party System
