Ideology: It's Such a Waste of Energy
As Americans head to the polls today, they participate in a political ritual shaped by centuries of stunning partisan realignment. Scholars have identified six major realignments over the course of our history. Here, I will focus just on three as I read them. The story of America's two major political parties since 1880 is one of remarkable role reversals—a brutal, often angry, slugfest; a dance of ideology, race, and power. Thank God our forerunners gave up dueling.
Most folks I know well who fully understand the fickle heart of partisan politics—including the history I’m going to narrate as well as I understand it—are willing to bet on America’s track record. Nonetheless, there is a lot of hand-wringing, of praying, even among my atheist friends. Worth a try, they tell me.
I understand mechanically how we reached this brink of disaster we face with today’s vote.
I don’t understand why a convicted rapist is on the ballot. No previous candidate has been indicted while running for president, or faced multiple criminal indictments in different jurisdictions, or been charged with attempting to overturn election results, or been charged with mishandling classified documents after leaving office. Note that there is nothing partisan about those raw facts. We shall all know more perhaps by the end of the day.
The American Political Parties and Race Relations: 1880-1930
In the decades following Reconstruction, America's two dominant political parties underwent profound transformations in their approaches to racial issues, reflecting broader changes in the nation's social and political landscape. These shifts marked a dramatic departure from their Civil War positions and established patterns that would influence American politics well into the twentieth century.
The Republican Party's evolution during this period represented a stark retreat from its founding principles. Though the GOP had emerged as the party of Lincoln and emancipation, by 1880 it had begun a calculated withdrawal from its civil rights advocacy. This transformation was driven largely by the party's increasing alignment with Northern industrial interests and its desire to build broader electoral coalitions. Republican leaders, while maintaining some of their earlier rhetoric, steadily distanced themselves from active support of African American rights, particularly in the South where their influence had waned considerably after Reconstruction's end.
The Democratic Party, conversely, consolidated its power through an explicit commitment to white supremacy, particularly in the South where it achieved nearly complete political dominance. The "Solid South" became not merely a geographic designation but a powerful political bloc built upon racial segregation and African American disenfranchisement. Southern Democrats, wielding considerable influence within the national party, systematically implemented Jim Crow laws and other discriminatory measures. This period saw the creation of elaborate legal and social structures designed to enforce racial separation and maintain white political control.
However, the Democratic Party's approach to racial issues was not monolithic. A growing progressive faction in the North began to challenge the party's traditional stance on race, creating internal tensions that would eventually contribute to larger political realignments. This ideological divide within the Democratic Party reflected broader regional and cultural splits in American society, though Southern Democrats maintained sufficient power to block meaningful civil rights initiatives during this period.
The years from 1880 to 1930 thus witnessed a complex reconfiguration of American political alignments around racial issues. The Republican Party's retreat from civil rights advocacy, combined with the Democratic Party's entrenchment of segregation in the South, created a political environment in which African American interests found little effective championship at the national level.
The cynicism of the Plessy vs. Ferguson decision in 1896 is revealed in the ethical bankruptcy for which America redeemed itself for a brief moment in 1965 with the Civil Rights Act. America’s people had failed America. The Supreme Court ruled that segregation was constitutional as long as facilities were "equal.” Justice Henry Billings Brown wrote that separation of races did not imply inferiority, and the Court held that racial separation was within the state's police powers. This era's political amorality would cast long shadows over American race relations, establishing ongoing patterns of dehumanization that remain today.
The Shifting Political Landscape: 1930-1950
The arrival of the Great Depression and Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal marked the beginning of a significant realignment in American racial politics, though these changes would unfold gradually and unevenly over two decades. This period saw the first cracks in the solid wall of racial segregation that had defined American politics since the 1880s, even as traditional power structures fought to maintain their control.
The Democratic Party experienced the internal tensions during this era, perhaps as tight as the tension between Trump Republicans and Liz Cheney Republicans. Roosevelt's New Deal policies, while not explicitly addressing racial inequality, provided economic benefits that attracted African American voters who had traditionally aligned with the Republican Party since Reconstruction. This shift was particularly notable in Northern cities, where Black voters began moving away from their traditional Republican allegiance. However, the Democrats remained deeply divided, as Southern Democrats maintained their iron grip on racial segregation and actively resisted any attempts at reform. The party leadership walked a precarious line, attempting to retain both Northern Black voters and Southern white supremacists within their coalition.
The Republican Party, having largely abandoned its earlier civil rights advocacy long ago, found itself in an increasingly complex position, a bizarre state of formlessness. While some Republican leaders saw an opportunity to maintain their traditional African American support by rhetorically opposing Democratic segregationists, the party's primary focus remained on economic issues and powerful opposition to New Deal policies. This economic emphasis often overshadowed racial concerns, leaving the GOP without a clear civil rights agenda, which it has never recovered. Indeed, the white supremacist wing of the GOP today is defined by its opposition to civil rights, not its vision for civil rights and could be seen as a return to its hollow shell during the New Deal.
By the 1950s, as civil rights issues gained greater national prominence, the strains within both parties became more apparent. The Democratic Party's internal conflicts intensified as Northern Democrats increasingly supported civil rights initiatives while Southern Democrats remained steadfast in their opposition. This tension would eventually lead to major political realignments, but during this period, both parties maintained an uneasy balance between their competing factions, a statement with eerie resonance this Election Day. The emergence of civil rights as a national moral issue, rather than merely a regional political concern, began to force both parties to confront their contradictory positions on racial equality, setting the stage for the turmoil to come.
The Modern Political Realignment: 1960-2023
The period from 1960 to 2023 witnessed the most dramatic realignment of American political parties since the Civil War, as both Democrats and Republicans underwent fundamental transformations in their ideological orientations, constituent bases, and policy priorities. This era can be understood in distinct phases, each marking significant shifts in the nation's political landscape.
The 1960s served as the crucial turning point, particularly through the Democratic Party's embrace of civil rights under Lyndon Johnson's presidency. The passage of landmark civil rights legislation, coupled with Johnson's Great Society programs, definitively aligned Democrats with progressive social policy and strong federal government action. This decisive stance on civil rights triggered the beginning of the Republican Party's "Southern Strategy," which successfully courted white Southern voters who felt alienated by Democratic support for racial integration.
The subsequent decades saw the crystallization of these new alignments. The Republican Party, particularly during Reagan's presidency in the 1980s, consolidated around a platform of free-market economics, social conservatism, and limited government. This period established the modern conservative movement's core principles: lower taxes, deregulation, and traditional Christian, White social values. Meanwhile, the Democratic Party, after some rightward adjustment during the Carter years, emerged as the champion of environmental protection, social welfare programs, and expanding civil rights to new constituencies.
The 1990s and early 2000s witnessed attempts at moderation by both parties. Bill Clinton's "New Democrat" approach and George W. Bush's "compassionate conservatism" briefly suggested possible convergence toward the center. However, the post-9/11 era, followed by the 2008 financial crisis, accelerated partisan polarization. Barack Obama's presidency, particularly the passage of the Affordable Care Act, sharpened ideological divisions over the role of government in American life.
The period from 2016 to 2023 marked perhaps the most dramatic phase of this evolution. Donald Trump's presidency fundamentally reshaped the Republican Party, introducing nationalism and mistrust of traditional institutions into mainstream conservative thought. The Democratic Party, in response, moved further left on economic and social issues such as expanding healthcare access, e.g., Medicare for All proposals, addressing climate change through initiatives like the Green New Deal, and advocating for racial justice reforms—all while building a diverse coalition of urban, educated, and minority voters. This era saw the geographical sorting of the parties become nearly complete, with Republicans dominating rural America while Democrats controlled major urban centers and their suburbs.
By 2023, the transformation was stark. The Republican Party of Lincoln and even of Reagan had become a populist-nationalist-weird party with strong appeal to working-class white voters, while the Democratic Party of the Jim Crow Solid South had evolved into a progressive coalition advocating for expanded government services, environmental protection, and social justice. This realignment fundamentally reshaped American political discourse, creating new fault lines that continue to define contemporary political debate and likely will come get a head soon, an ugly red boil in need of medical care.
Ideology, Be Gone
As voters cast their ballots today, they do so in a political landscape that would bewilder Americans of 1880. The party of Lincoln now champions Donald Trump and rural interests, while the party of James Buchanon advocates for urban progressivism and racial justice. Yet perhaps the most enduring lesson of this 143-year journey is that American political parties are not fixed stars but adaptive organisms, responding to and shaping the aspirations and fears of each generation. Whatever today's election results, history suggests that the only certainty in American politics is change itself. The pace and direction of that change will, we hope, always be determined by the American people themselves.