Will the events of this election push a change to current US Party structure

Politics & Elections
21

Question from an ignorant Brit, how far left is the left of the dem party? I may be wrong but it seems pretty moderate viewed from these shores. If that is the case would a split in the party be truly catastrophic?

22

No change for at least the next eight years. Maybe if Andrea Ocasio-Cortez tries to run for the Democratic candidate for President in 2028 and loses to a moderate in the primaries, then she might run for President in the general election with the Greens intending to reinvent them as a viable left-wing third party. Maybe Hawley would do the mirror thing to the Republican Party if they nominated a Bloomberg type candidate, although I don’t know if he’d go with the Libertarian Party or try to form a new third party. However, I don’t think he’ll have a similar personality-based following as AOC does/will.

23

I don’t see any fundamental changes in the near future.

The Democrats are in a pretty solid position. They have a popular majority but not an overwhelming one. So they don’t need to change their policies in order to gain power. But they’re not so powerful that different factions will think about splitting off. I feel the centrists and the progressives in the Democratic party will stick together in order to keep the conservatives in the Republican party out of office.

The Republicans lost in this election. But it wasn’t the kind of overwhelming defeat that will force them to rebuild from the ground up. They came disturbingly close to winning. So they’ll dismiss the loss as being connected to a few individuals (which has some truth to it) and not the party as a whole. The only changes they’ll make is tightening up control over candidate selection and continuing their ongoing work to disenfranchise Democratic voters.

24

By the standards of recent Europe, the far left wing of the Dems is about equal to a mainstream party of the European Left. While the least-left wing of the Dems is about equal to a mainstream party of the European Right.

IOW the “far left” of the Dems is only “far” when measured by the reactionary standards of the US’s current Overton window.

25

I keep thinking about the Whigs and the Know Nothings…

26

Going from right to left, and obviously generalising:

  • Ethnic-minority conservative Democrats are equivalent to ethnic-minority Labour voters. They’re socially conservative, but support the party’s economic and race policies.
  • White conservative Democrats (there’s a few) are equivalent to Teresa May Conservatives. Moderate on most social issues, somewhat conservative on economic issues, quite conservative on religion, law-and-order and foreign policy issues.
  • Biden/Obama Democrats are equivalent to Cameron Conservatives. Essentially centre-left, but moderate in policy and spending.
  • Clinton Democrats are equivalent to Blair Labour. Not much different than Biden/Obama-Cameron parties, but more interested in the billionaire and Hollywood classes. Also more hawkish.
  • Labor union Democrats (what’s left of them) are equivalent to Prescott Labour. Generally moderate, occasionally socially conservative, main focus is on maintain the powers of trade unions. Prescott’s north-England support matches to the Democrat’s midwest-US support - fickle and diminishing.
  • Left-wing Democrats match to Corbyn Labour. Bernie Sanders and Jeremy Corbyn could just about trade places.