# Is this the Seventh Party System? **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [November 24, 2012, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-the-seventh-party-system/642011 "2012-11-24T20:28:22Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2012, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-the-seventh-party-system/642011/1 "2012-11-24T20:28:22Z")
The OP from my [GD thread in 2008:](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=473444) > [@Is America on the cusp of a Seventh Party System?](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-america-on-the-cusp-of-a-seventh-party-system/454492/1): > > Historians have identified a (controversial) number of “party systems” in American history, each beginning and ending with a decisive election: > > [First Party System:](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Party_System) 1792-1816. Federalists (Hamilton, Adams) vs. Democratic-Republicans (Madison, Jefferson). > > [Era of Good Feelings:](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Era_of_Good_Feelings) 1816-1824. Democratic-Republicans ascendant, Federalists marginalized. > > [Second Party System:](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Party_System) 1837-1852. Democrats (Andrew Jackson) vs. Whigs (Henry Clay). > > [Third Party System:](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_Party_System) 1854-1896. Republicans (mainly Northeastern and Midwestern power base) vs. Democrats (in control of the “Solid South” from 1874). > > [Fourth Party System:](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_Party_System) 1896-1932. Republicans (McKinley, Teddy Roosevelt; in the ascendant) vs. Democrats (Woodrow Wilson). > > [Fifth Party System:](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifth_Party_System) Began in 1933 with the FDR Administration, but whether it came to an end in the 1960s, or the 1990s, or is still with us, is controversial. I incline to the theory that the failure of Goldwater in 1964, followed by the growth of Goldwater’s wing of the party into “movement conservatism,” which ultimately triumphed in 1980 with the election of Reagan, represents the emergence of the > > [Sixth Party System:](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifth_Party_System#Sixth_Party_System.3F) Which we’re living in now. Includes the [“Republican Revolution”](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republican_Revolution) of 1994. The Sixth Party System has been characterized by a wholesale exchange of the Dems’ and Pubs’ geographical-regional bases, following the success of Nixon’s [“Southern Strategy,”](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_strategy) which broke the “Solid South” and transformed the GOP into a predominantly Southern party (which would have bemused both Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis to no end). This realignment has resulted in making both parties more ideologically homogeneous than they were before – conservative “Southern Democrats” and liberal [“Rockefeller Republicans”](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rockefeller_Republicans) have alike been marginalized, or or else switched party affiliation. However, in the process, **both** parties have shifted their political center-of-gravity to the right. > > The Dems took control of Congress in 2006; most pundits expect them to increase their majority this November; and Obama is leading McCain in the presidential polls. I’m thinking this might mean the end for movement-conservative predominance. In the next decade, the Democrats will be in the ascendant, and the most important political fights will be between their pro-business and left-populist wings (Obama represents the **former,** by the way; his economic policies and advisors are mostly Chicago-School libertarian). The Republicans may recoup their fortunes by marginalizing the movement conservatives within their ranks and becoming a party that has a place for liberals, as the party was in Nixon’s day; indeed, many conservatives already feel marginalized, and have loudly said so, by McCain’s candidacy. > > However, this does not mean movement conservatism will be entirely irrelevant; it still has a vast network of well-funded think-tanks, grassroots organizations, and wholly-owned media outlets. It will be interesting to see what role they play as a party-in-opposition – not only to the Dems but to the Pub institutional leadership – in the coming period. > > A good description of “movement conservatism” can be found in [_Right Nation_](http://www.amazon.com/Right-Nation-John-Micklethwait/dp/0141015365/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/102-0323301-0796122?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1185035246&sr=8-1) by John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge; excerpted [here.](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8794765&postcount=263) The Republican resurgence in 2010 seemed to cast doubt on this analysis, but it seems to have peaked. Now, after the hardest-fought, most expensive election ever, Obama remains president, the Democrats still control the Senate, the Republicans still control the House – nothing changed. The new party system appears to have more or less stabilized. Movement conservatism is on the ropes, but it’s not going away. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2012, 11:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-the-seventh-party-system/642011/2 "2012-11-24T23:14:48Z")
This _might_ be near the end of the Sixth System, but it can’t be the beginning of the Seventh yet. Even if the Republican party does finish self-destructing (and I don’t think we can say that until and unless they’ve lost both houses, at least), the Seventh System won’t start until something else rises from the ashes. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2012, 11:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-the-seventh-party-system/642011/3 "2012-11-24T23:18:45Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > This _might_ be near the end of the Sixth System, but it can’t be the beginning of the Seventh yet. Even if the Republican party does finish self-destructing (and I don’t think we can say that until and unless they’ve lost both houses, at least), the Seventh System won’t start until something else rises from the ashes. Doesn’t a bat have to drool blood on the ashes, or something? ---
**Author:** ![Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/f04885/32.png) [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qin_Shi_Huangdi)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2012, 2:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-the-seventh-party-system/642011/4 "2012-11-25T02:10:43Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > This _might_ be near the end of the Sixth System, but it can’t be the beginning of the Seventh yet. Even if the Republican party does finish self-destructing (and I don’t think we can say that until and unless they’ve lost both houses, at least), the Seventh System won’t start until something else rises from the ashes. A party doesn’t have to self-destruct for there to be a new party system-the last few have all involved Republicans and Democrats in various incarnations. ---
**Author:** ![appleciders](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85f322/32.png) [@appleciders](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/appleciders)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2012, 2:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-the-seventh-party-system/642011/5 "2012-11-25T02:14:38Z")
No. These things are basically impossible to identify while living through them. We won’t know for some time yet. ---
**Author:** ![Simplicio](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c37758/32.png) [@Simplicio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Simplicio)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2012, 3:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-the-seventh-party-system/642011/6 "2012-11-25T03:03:15Z")
> [@appleciders](#): > > No. These things are basically impossible to identify while living through them. We won’t know for some time yet. So its not a Seventh Party System because we can’t know for certain if its a Seventh Party System? That seems weirdly solipsistic. > [@BrainGlutton](#): > > The Republican resurgence in 2010 seemed to cast doubt on this analysis, but it seems to have peaked. Now, after the hardest-fought, most expensive election ever, Obama remains president, the Democrats still control the Senate, the Republicans still control the House – nothing changed. The new party system appears to have more or less stabilized. Movement conservatism is on the ropes, but it’s not going away. You think we’ll have a long period of a divided legislature? That’s pretty uncommon. There were six years under Reagan, and that’s about it for the twentieth century (only seven of the last 55 Congresses were divided, and the three under Reagan that were divided was the only time in the last hundred years where they were consecutive). The next congress will give us two in a row. It would be unprecedented in US history for that state of affairs to continue past 2016. ---
**Author:** ![etv78](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/d78d45/32.png) [@etv78](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/etv78)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2012, 3:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-the-seventh-party-system/642011/7 "2012-11-25T03:18:35Z")
**Simplicio** -Point of clarification: Do you mean divided _government_ is rare or divided _Congress_ is rare? I assume the latter. ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2012, 3:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-the-seventh-party-system/642011/8 "2012-11-25T03:27:17Z")
> [@Simplicio](#): > > The next congress will give us two in a row. It would be unprecedented in US history for that state of affairs to continue past 2016. I believe there were far fewer competitive House districts than in previous years due to successful gerrymandering on both sides. Despite continuing demographic change, I don’t think the Dems will take control of the House in 2014. In order to do so in 2016, they’d have to do most of the following: 1. Nominate a white male for President, 2. Who is just as good in all other aspects as Obama, 3. Who runs a good campaign, 4. Who runs a 50 state campaign, 5. Not have the economy tank for a year or more before 2016. Which isn’t to say that #1 is the be all end all, but in order to have a chance of overcoming gerrymandering you’ll have to have the coattails from the 5% or so (might be more, might be less) of people who won’t vote for anyone but a white male. Which isn’t to say that it will not happen in the medium term, but I think the medium term is more like 10-15 years rather than 4. And what’s more important, the GOP will not have much chance to recapture the Senate or the Presidency with their current platform considering the continuing demographic and ethical shift taking place. They will only continue to hold the House due to favorable districting. And these districts are _so_ favorable that anyone who speak out against the right-line will be primaried out, forcing them to play to their base which will leave them weak nationally. ---
**Author:** ![Simplicio](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c37758/32.png) [@Simplicio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Simplicio)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2012, 3:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-the-seventh-party-system/642011/9 "2012-11-25T03:40:59Z")
> [@etv78](#): > > **Simplicio** -Point of clarification: Do you mean divided _government_ is rare or divided _Congress_ is rare? I assume the latter. The latter of course. > [@Ludovic](#): > > I believe there were far fewer competitive House districts than in previous years due to successful gerrymandering on both sides. Most evidence I’ve seen has redistricting netting the GOP six or seven seats this cycle. Not trivial, but hardly enough to maintain control of the House all by itself, considering recent elections had shifts of up to 60 seats. ---
**Author:** ![etv78](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/d78d45/32.png) [@etv78](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/etv78)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2012, 4:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-the-seventh-party-system/642011/10 "2012-11-25T04:53:23Z")
Thanks **Sim** , I did assume the latter. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2012, 5:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-the-seventh-party-system/642011/11 "2012-11-25T05:22:10Z")
> [@](#): > > Most evidence I’ve seen has redistricting netting the GOP six or seven seats this cycle. Is that relative to previous gerrymandering, or relative to some ungerrymandered ideal? And by “net”, I assume you mean Republican gerrymandering gains minus Democratic gerrymandering gains? ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2012, 5:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-the-seventh-party-system/642011/12 "2012-11-25T05:58:49Z")
> [@Simplicio](#): > > You think we’ll have a long period of a divided legislature? Well, by Seventh Party System, I mean a long period where the Dems predominate but the Pubs are always in there, while movement conservatism hangs on, sometimes dominating the GOP, sometimes not. In such a period, Congress probably will never be Pub-controlled in both houses. The Sixth Party System being the Pub-dominant/centered system that lasted about from 1980 to 2008 – yes, even through the Clinton years. That Obama was able to accomplish some form of health-care reform where Clinton failed shows the sea-change. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2012, 6:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-the-seventh-party-system/642011/13 "2012-11-25T06:01:01Z")
As Sam Tanenhaus [said in 2009:](http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2009/08/28/requiem-for-the-right.html) > [@](#): > > **Meacham: So how bad is it, really? Your title doesn’t quite declare conservatism dead. > Tanenhaus:** Quite bad if you prize a mature, responsible conservatism that honors America’s institutions, both governmental and societal. The first great 20th-century Republican president, Theodore Roosevelt, supported a strong central government that emphasized the shared values and ideals of the nation’s millions of citizens. He denounced the harm done by “the trusts”—big corporations. He made it his mission to conserve vast tracts of wilderness and forest. The last successful one, Ronald Reagan, liked to remind people (especially the press) he was a lifelong New Dealer who voted four times for Franklin D. Roosevelt. The consensus forged by Buckley in the 1960s gained strength through two decisive acts: first, Buckley denounced right-wing extremists, such as the members of the John Birch Society, and made sure when he did it to secure the support of conservative Republicans like Reagan, Barry Goldwater, and Sen. John Tower. This pulled the movement toward the center. Second: Buckley saw that the civil disturbances of the late 1960s (in particular urban riots and increasingly militant anti-Vietnam protests) posed a challenge to social harmonies preferred by genuine conservatives and genuine liberals alike. When the Democrat Daniel Patrick Moynihan called on liberals to join with conservatives in upholding “the politics of stability,” Buckley replied that he was ready to help. He placed the values of “civil society” (in Burke’s term) above those of his own movement or the GOP. > > Today we see very little evidence of this. In his classic The Future of American Politics (1952), the political journalist Samuel Lubell said that our two-party system in fact consists of periods of alternating one-party rule—there is a majority “sun” party and a minority “moon” party. “It is within the majority party that the issues of any particular period are fought out,” Lubell wrote. Thus, in the 1980s, Republicans grasped (and Democrats did not) that new entrepreneurial energies had been unleashed, and also that the Cold War could be brought to a conclusion through strong foreign policy. This was the Republicans’ “sun” period. The reverse is happening today. The Democrats now dominate our heliocentric system—first on the economic stimulus, which is already proving to be at least a limited success, and now on the issue of health-care reform. These are both entirely Democratic initiatives. The Republicans, so intent on thwarting Obama, have vacated the field, and left it up to the sun party to accept the full burden of legislating us into the future. If the Democrats succeed, Republicans will be tagged as the party that declined even to help repair a broken system and extend fundamental protections—logical extensions of Social Security and Medicare—to some 46 million people who now don’t have them. This could marginalize the right for a generation, if not longer. Rush Limbaugh’s stated hope that Obama will fail seems to have become GOP doctrine. This is the attitude not of conservatives, but of radicals, who deplore the very possibility of a virtuous government. > > **Is there an analogous historical moment? Conservatives argue that this is 1965 and that a renaissance is at hand.** > I disagree. Today, conservatives seem in a position closer to the one they occupied during the New Deal. The epithets so many on the right now hurl at Obama—“socialist,” “fascist”—precisely echo the accusations Herbert Hoover and “Old Right” made against FDR in 1936. And the spectacle of citizens appearing at town-hall meetings with guns recalls nothing so much as the vigilante Minutemen whom Buckley evicted from the conservative movement in the 1960s. A serious conservative like David Frum knows this, and has spoken up. It is remarkable how few others have. The moon party is being yanked ever farther onto its marginal orbit. Again, there seemed reason to doubt this judgment in 2010, but this election reaffirms it: After the hardest-fought, most expensive election ever, Obama remains president, the Democrats still control the Senate, the Republicans still control the House – nothing changed. Apparently the people want the Dems as the sun party and the Pubs as the moon party. That does not make the Pubs irrelevant – they were relevant throughout the Roosevelt and Truman years, weren’t they? ---
**Author:** ![appleciders](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85f322/32.png) [@appleciders](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/appleciders)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2012, 6:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-the-seventh-party-system/642011/14 "2012-11-25T06:19:38Z")
> [@Simplicio](#): > > So its not a Seventh Party System because we can’t know for certain if its a Seventh Party System? That seems weirdly solipsistic. OK. Strike the “No” from my response. We’re too close to these events. We can speculate, but I genuinely don’t think that we can seriously identify trends like that right now. We might be in such a major shift now, or we might not. However, to conclude that we are in such a shift based on the 2008 and 2012 elections kind of ignores the 2010 election, in which the Republicans, running on one of the most extreme party platforms of the last thirty years, made tremendous gains in Congress. Unless you’re making this conclusion based solely on the 2012 election, which is foolish. You can’t have a trend from a single data point, and you can’t draw much of a trend from three when they’re as disparate as the last four years. ---
**Author:** ![Simplicio](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c37758/32.png) [@Simplicio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Simplicio)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2012, 6:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-the-seventh-party-system/642011/15 "2012-11-25T06:48:35Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Is that relative to previous gerrymandering, or relative to some ungerrymandered ideal? And by “net”, I assume you mean Republican gerrymandering gains minus Democratic gerrymandering gains? Its this years districts compared to those that existed prior to 2010 redistricting. > [@appleciders](#): > > We’re too close to these events. We can speculate, but I genuinely don’t think that we can seriously identify trends like that right now. We might be in such a major shift now, or we might not. However, to conclude that we are in such a shift based on the 2008 and 2012 elections kind of ignores the 2010 election, in which the Republicans, running on one of the most extreme party platforms of the last thirty years, made tremendous gains in Congress. Unless you’re making this conclusion based solely on the 2012 election, which is foolish. You can’t have a trend from a single data point, and you can’t draw much of a trend from three when they’re as disparate as the last four years. I agree. While there are some decently strong arguments that the Dems have a long term advantage, I think people are being overly cavalier in handwaving away the House elections in 2010 and 2012. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2012, 7:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-the-seventh-party-system/642011/16 "2012-11-25T19:17:34Z")
> [@](#): > > Its this years districts compared to those that existed prior to 2010 redistricting. In which case, you could argue that the latest round of redistricting just turned an already-strong gerrymandered incumbent advantage, and made it even stronger. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2012, 1:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-the-seventh-party-system/642011/17 "2012-11-26T01:26:27Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > In which case, you could argue that the latest round of redistricting just turned an already-strong gerrymandered incumbent advantage, and made it even stronger. But that and money appear increasingly to be the Pubs’ only advantages. Gains in the midterms are unlikely. ---
**Author:** ![GreasyJack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/df705f/32.png) [@GreasyJack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreasyJack)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2012, 1:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-the-seventh-party-system/642011/18 "2012-11-26T01:43:01Z")
> [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](#): > > A party doesn’t have to self-destruct for there to be a new party system-the last few have all involved Republicans and Democrats in various incarnations. I don’t think “self-destruct” in this context necessarily means literally disbanding, but simply ceasing to become electorally competitive. Obviously there wouldn’t be too much question that we were entering a new party system if one party actually disbanded! ---
**Author:** ![WillFarnaby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/willfarnaby/32/514_2.png) [@WillFarnaby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WillFarnaby)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2012, 2:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-the-seventh-party-system/642011/19 "2012-11-26T02:24:49Z")
You’re talking as if something has changed. What major shifts in policy or demographics are you seeing? ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2012, 12:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-the-seventh-party-system/642011/20 "2012-11-26T12:33:06Z")
The GOP resurgence in 2010 was due to turnout, not an ideological shift among the electorate. In 2008 about 70 million people voted for Obama and 60 million voted McCain. In 2010 about 40 million people voted for democrats, about 50 million voted for GOP. I don’t know exactly what % voted in 2008 vs 2010, but basically a lot of Obama voters stayed home in 2010 while the GOP went out and voted. I do remember reading blurbs showing far far more people who voted Obama stayed home while McCain voters did not. But that is an issue with turnout, not ideology (a lot of dems seemed to feel there was no point in voting, if the dems are so disorganized, outclassed and promoting conservative bills with super majorities, what good would bigger majorities do). If the nations ideology shifted then Obama wouldn’t have won the 2012 election by a 3% popular vote margin despite being president during a mild depression. I do think we are in a shift. Assuming millennials (born 1978-2000) maintain their 30 point margin for democratic candidates and issues, by 2020 they will make up almost 40% of the electorate. Also by 2020 a sizable chunk of the fox news/talk radio audience will have passed from old age. Even in 2012 the millennial voters outnumbered the 65+ voters. So by 2020 you are (assuming demographic trends are still tied to the same voting habits, no idea if that’ll stick) going to have a nation where 51% of the nation easily supports more liberal and progressive causes due to millennials, non-whites, GLBT, white liberals, single women, etc forming a coalition, and the voting base of movement conservatism (elderly white people) have been decimated by old age. Plus with registration effort states like Texas could be a swing state by 2020, making it nearly impossible for the contemporary GOP to get to 270. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-the-seventh-party-system/642011.md?page=2)