Opinion: Will this election mark a historic voter “realignment”?

One of the classic mistakes pundits make is writing about politics just before the election. So let's look at what politics might look like after the election. One prediction is simple: expect a lot more political inconsistency and hypocrisy.

The term “Realignment“is commonly used and abused because people have agreed to use it without agreeing to an agreement.” definition. Traditionally, realignments are said to have occurred when majority and minority parties swapped places. Beginning in 1932, FDR attracted black voters, working-class people, and white immigrants to the Democratic Party, making it the majority party for generations. It is a sign of how large this coalition was that it has since shrunk 1960s without the Republicans ever becoming the clear majority party, although the story becomes more complicated with the increase in voters who self-identify as independents.

In the last 20 years the parties have essentially been boundand it seems unlikely that will change any time soon. But there is still a lot of realignment to be done. Donald Trump has accelerated the trend of the white working class fleeing the Democrats. Meanwhile, college-educated and suburban voters have shifted significantly toward Democrats.

In other words, while the parties are at an impasse, the coalitions that make up the parties are changing dramatically.

And this is where the inconsistency and hypocrisy comes into play. Parties reflect the interests of their electoral coalitions. You can see signs of adjustment everywhere. Republicans like JD Vance sound a lot like the anti-war Democrats of 20 years ago, railing against warmongers, chicken hawks and “neoconservatives.” Democrats haven't changed as dramatically, but they're far more comfortable talking about U.S. global leadership and the importance of our alliances than they once were.

Parties also reflect their candidates, which is why lecherous Bill Clinton’s party now talks a lot about good character while Republicans fawn over Trump’s alpha dog.”masculinity.”

Democrats have been far more consistent on the issue of abortion because it is a winning issue in a post-Roe environment. But Trump has moved Republicans toward a de facto pro-choice position by denouncing “heartbeat laws” while insisting that states should be free to do whatever they want on abortion.

Neither party is coherent – or, in my opinion, good – on trade and industrial policy, but Trump has definitely made the Republicans more protectionist and protectionist conductor than ever before in my life. With rank-and-file members of private unions moving toward the GOP, it's not hard to imagine a new partisan divide between public and private unions.

The most interesting change may relate to the question of democracy itself. I don't mean the arguments about Trump's damaging voter fraud lies (the kind). once connected with left-wing Democrats like Robert F. Kennedy Jr.), but also the broader debates about the Electoral College and so-called voter suppression.

Both parties shared this for decades faulty assumption that higher voter turnout primarily benefited Democrats in national elections; Democrats in the big cities took the opposite view Choose. Voter ID laws and tighter restrictions on early and absentee voting were seen as ways to ensure that high-turnout voters—that is, disproportionately Republican, college-educated suburbanites who could be counted on to vote—were overrepresented and low-turnout voters Turnout voters — black, Latino and rural white voters without college degrees — were underrepresented. The overheated rhetoric about “voter suppression” or “election integrity” was unwarranted. But the dynamics were real because the electoral calculus was real.

After 2016, many Democrats reiterated their claim that there is an Electoral College racist or undemocratic, which was in itself remarkably hypocritical given their previous boasts Democrats had an almost-lock out about the electoral college – this is the sentence “the blue wall“ arose. Bragging about your advantage in the Electoral College only to call it racist and undemocratic when it works against you doesn't make a great impression.

The Harris campaign relied heavily on high-propensity voters, while the Trump campaign relied heavily on lower-propensity voters. Assuming these trends are real and become the new normal, it will be interesting to see whether parties change their rhetoric on democracy.

I'll write again before the many states begin counting votes: Imagine a scenario in which Harris wins the Electoral College but loses the popular vote and the hypocritical electoral swing that could lead to it. Suddenly, Democrats could embrace the wisdom of the Founders and Republicans could denounce the Electoral College as a rigged and racist relic.

@JonahDispatch