Mott the Hoople
Sweet Jane
A very interesting article but he's dancing around several issues or actually in denial abut them.Here you go Mott. To make up for you not banning Desh I offer you this (imo) excellent article on the two different GOP's. I think this does a great job describing the split in the party and why it will stay fractured.
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/433163/two-gops-resentment-republicans-aspiration-republicans
First his assumption about both political parties are based on the current paradigm of "liberal vs. conservative". It's only been that way, from a historical point of view, for a very short time. The key elements of policy of the GOP in Lincolns time was Free Labor, Internal Improvements, Expanding Public Education and a Homestead act. Over time that shifted. Not quite two generations ago the paradigm was working man populism vs. the capitalist, management class.
The second is that one parties coalitions can dissolve without impacting the other party. If, due to Trumps ascent in the GOP primaries, causes a realignment of the GOP coalition that will in itself cause a realignment within the Democrats coalition. It's not unreasonable to assume that such realignments would cause a paradigm shift in both parties on political ideology. That is exactly what happened when the old Whig coalition fell apart and a new "Republican" coalition formed to replace them primarily as a response to the slavery issue. That in turn led to a war, again over slavery, that caused a realignment of the Democrats political coalition and the political paradigm that both parties had been based upon at that time.
In this respect the author is in denial. He see's a split where the "resentfulls" leave the "aspirationals" to go their own way. That's not going to happen.
If the GOP does realign than that would also cause the Democrats coalition to realign and it's pretty hard to predict just where the political paradigm will shift too.
The GOP disintegration of its current coalition was inevitable. It has largely been coalition of elite, propertied, Capitalist/political class aligned with working class traditionalist and nativist. For years the party leaders have used divisive social issues to maintain a base of support among the white working class while virtually ignoring their economic needs and failing to keep their promises to this working class base of their party on social issues. This is where a very large amount of the resentment stems from more so than the darker angels of their nature the author points out and the author completely failed to recognize this major cause of resentment within the base of their party.
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