For the past half-century, the party system has moved from one organized around economics to one organized around social/identity issues. This transition has happened quite slowly, and for the past three decades these two issues have essentially fused along a single cross-cutting dimension for an unusually long time, which is probably the reason politics became so deeply polarized. [...]
For Democratic Party leaders, there are three benefits to maintaining race and identity as the primary dimension of conflict in American politics.
The first reason Democrats want to make politics about race and identity is that they probably hold the majority position, at least if the 2016 election cleavages hold. And going forward, the electorate is only going to grow more diverse and more highly educated, which means that if Democrats get to be the party of tolerance and cosmopolitan social values in a politics organized around these issues, they will be in a strong electoral position. [...]
If the Republican Party were just a party of strategic politicians who wanted to win elections, and had no constraints from activists, donors, or its own principles, its strategy would be very simple: Tone down the racism and identity politics, focus on the economic populism that Trump has at times channeled, and became a truly populist party. If Trump had run a strong populist, anti–Wall Street, anti-TPP, "end the crony corruption of Washington" campaign, he might be winning now. [...]
But perhaps the bigger obstacle keeping Republicans from moving into the potentially winning populist position is that the business and wealthy elites who have long controlled the Republican Party from the top would be horrified to see Republicans take a populist turn. [...]
A more decentralized Congress will likely produce more cross-partisan coalitions, and probably more legislation, but also more uncertainty and possibly chaos.
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