Peter Juul at The Liberal Patriot surveys the state of our two major political parties. It ain't pretty.
"[N]o matter who emerges on top in the coming internal GOP fracas – and Trump appears intent on remaining at the center of the party’s attention – it will still confront the fact that it lacks a coherent political and policy agenda. For lack of any real alternative, Trumpism will define Republican politics and policies for the foreseeable future – with or without Trump himself. In practical terms, Trumpism combined orthodox conservative economic ideology on tax cuts and deregulation with Trump’s own brand of vulgar xenophobia and a belligerent, neo-isolationist foreign policy. Trumpism broke with Republican orthodoxy on trade to little real effect, and a massive and often-promised infrastructure investment program never materialized.
Looking ahead, it’s likely that Republicans will hew to the substance of Trumpism while ditching Trump’s own offensive personal style....
For their part, Democrats face a crisis of political purpose that lurks beneath the surface of their recent electoral successes. While normie voters with bread-and-butter concerns remain the Democratic Party’s electoral base, the party itself has slowly but surely become a vessel for the preoccupations of a vocal faction of highly-educated professionals. This emerging progressive elite occupies high-status administrative and bureaucratic positions in institutions like think tanks, philanthropic foundations, and, when there’s a Democratic administration in Washington, the upper echelons of the federal bureaucracy.
These professionals tend to support left-wing proposals...that are ...unpopular among normie Democrats of all backgrounds. Worse, they often take otherwise popular policies like raising the minimum wage or maintaining social insurance programs and cloak them in the mantle of alienating – and sometimes incomprehensible – progressive political rhetoric."
Read the whole thing at The Liberal Patriot. And subscribe--it's free!
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