This nation is fast approaching a generational change election! I am not supposed to be getting ahead of myself as in “don’t count your chickens before they hatch”, as I am a Math guy but the trends appear unmistakable. That timeless cliche now a relic of the past when many households, even in cities, had chickens, like saying a Category 5 hurricane is approaching the Gulf Coast but wait it might turn and go out to the Atlantic. This is a political 100 year-storm and is becoming obvious each day as we approach November 3rd. Forces appear to be converging towards a generational climax. You can feel it every waking hour and possibly when you are also sleeping. Anxieties have frayed the nerves of families, neighbors, and most thankfully, politicians, Democratic and especially conservatives but most of all Republicans and those secret groups of dark money.
Indeed, Michael McDonald, who runs the United States Elections Project, estimates that we could be up to as many as 58 million people [updated] have voted by the end of this week.
“This is a completely different election than anything we’ve seen in the past,” McDonald told me. “The numbers are off the charts.” The great majority of early votes have been by mail, McDonald noted.
The upcoming election is a true determinate election, much like 1860, 1896, 1932, and 1968. Each of those historical elections America redefined the political landscape and our nation. Each time the electorate stunned the entrenched out of touch political establishment, which is what functional democracies are designed to do, even in the face of great suppression and obstacles. Fundamental political change happens with a crescendo that not even Beethoven could compose, it is a societal climax.
The last determinate election was in 1968 when as a 5th grader I witnessed Nixon run on a campaign theme of “Law & Order”, a message invoking the electorate’s reaction to the exploding civil strife occurring in the nation’s streets and neighborhoods. He won a narrow victory over a fracturing long-standing Democratic coalition. Although when you add up George Wallace’s 3rd Party vote along with Nixon’s it was trouncing 55% for the reactionary conservative side. Nixon’s election despite his Watergate scandal proved to be determinate unlike Eisenhower’s a decade earlier because it was preceding a new Sixth Party System established by Reagan’s election in 1980. The 6th Party system did away with a one-party rule for the sake of divided government, which except for brief periods has held true to now. Known among political scientists as generational party systems, the 6th Party System, held that a divided government between the Presidency and the Congress, and even within the Congress was preferred in retrospect by the voters. It is what most Americans have lived under and only know for over fifty years and unless you were born before 1950 and cognizant of the FDR-New Deal era what you might believe is the norm.
As this election nears less than twenty days out, the electoral and campaign trends are obvious: President Trump is in stormy political waters approaching a rocky shoreline, his engines are malfunctioning and he has lost his mast. Only three other modern incumbent presidential administrations, Herbert Walker Bush, Jimmy Carter, and Herbert Hoover, (Gerald Ford excluded) and they all lost badly. In 1980, some forty years ago when I was a naive senior in college; Carter was polling at 44% as Reagan surged in October before election day. Carter it was concluded had a failed presidency because of the Iran Crisis. In that election Reagan won with 50.7% to 41% as a third party candidate, Congressman Anderson collected 6% of the vote. Also in that election, only 53% of the electorate turned out, a drop of 1% in percentage even though there were 10 million more eligible voters.
More devastating to Carter and the Democrats was Reagan’s Electoral College score of 489 to 49. It was the second Electoral College trouncing in eight years as Nixon in his reelection bid of 1972 trounced McGovern, 520-17. Subsequently, Reagan would win reelection again trouncing the Democrats 520-17. Yet the government still remained divided as the Democrats held onto a majority in the House of Representatives. This political structure defined the Sixth Party System which we have been living under as the divided government period.
More telling is that 1980 buried into the political graveyard the Fifth Party System that ruled the national political structure from 1932 to 1966 as the Republicans took over the majority in the Senate. In 1980 they flipped unexpectedly 12 seats gaining their first majority in the Senate chamber since 1954. The Republicans have held the majority 12 out of the last 20 Senate sessions. In the House, each party has held the majority 10 out of the last 20 sessions. While the Republicans held the Presidency 6 of 10 Presidential terms. The split government-defined with the Republican Party holding a slim advantage.
Looking back to 1932, the nation was embroiled in the continued spiral of an economic and societal decline, known as the Great Depression. This dominated every aspect of daily and political life for Americans as well as the rest of the World’s Industrial society. A quarter of Americans, mostly single male breadwinners were unemployed. Wholesale foreclosures occurred on farms. There were systemic bank failures, as whole industries shuttered. Europe was beginning its descent towards World War II as authoritarian fascist regimes rose to power in Italy, Germany, and Spain. The consecutive period of a historic economic calamity led to a world war that was fought on four continents. This era defined two generations that included my grandparents and parents. My father, his older brother, and father-in-law are one of an estimated 2 million-plus Americans still living who are over the age of 90 who can recall living through this period as they grew up into adulthood.
So I see a light ahead. Just days away, a unified and electrified coalition of Americans, coming together like our country did in World War II, standing united to send a message that will be heard around the world to all those who look with expectant hope to the America that led the crusade more than half a century ago: That America has not succumbed to a demagogue and would-be autocrat. That we have overcome. And that Donald J. Trump is not who we are.
In just a short time, America will go from its darkest hour to its finest hour.
Historically, when demographics fundamentally change over a generation so does the Party System. In 1980 the demographics shifted where moderate white suburban voters grew large enough to overtake the urban-city vote. First characterized as “white flight” of the ’60s and ’70s, suburban voters joined with the rural and Southern/Sun Belt voters to propel the Republican Party into power with its neo-conservatism dominating national politics from the ’80s into the ’00s. Much of the suburban demographic consisted of Baby Boomers, then Gen X’ers who are now aging. Boomers are presently between the ages of 74 and 56 half are considered seniors. In fact, more than half of the nation’s total population are now members of the millennial generation or younger. Combined with millennials, Gen Z’ers, and younger numbers over 166 million as of July 2019, 50.7% of the population—larger than 162 million Americans associated with the combined Gen X, Boomers, and the older cohorts born before 1946. It will be interesting to see the new age voter turnout joining with part of the Boomer progressive-Democratic vote making it a juggernaut of a political force. Below is a pie graph illustrating the new age demographic of the United States.
This will be the first election poll where voting will be dominated by generations younger than 40, since 1980 when a similar breakout emerged ushering in the Reagan Revolution. Unlike 1980 when 88% of the electorate was white, the voting demographic measured in 2018 was 66% white wherein 2020 in all likelihood, will fall further and be closer to 60%. The American electorate is fast moving away from a largely white majority, where the baby-boomer-dominated political landscape and its culture is morphing into a more racially diverse country fueled by a new younger generation: This is not new in the American Experience as governing demographics have coincided with previous changes in the Party Systems.
In 1932, when a new urban demographic ushered in the one-party rule known as the New Deal, propelled by a huge migration of young and middle-aged displaced voters out from farm country into the cities. America had transformed into a modern industrial consumer-based economy from its agrarian small-town economic roots. The tipping point came about when the second generation of European immigrants who came at the turn of the century moved into major cities and became part of the electorate at the same time being displaced by the ravages of the Great Depression.
Thirty-six years earlier in 1896, as small-town America was growing, that sea-change was fueled by the explosive economic engine of a new middle class, especially throughout the northern Midwest changing the demographics from the previous post Civil War Reconstruction era. This era also experienced a one-party rule fueling the laissez-faire economic system that eventually collapsed in 1929. In 1854, as Irish and northern European immigrants came in waves pioneering fertile farmlands and again a developing small town mercantile industry that challenged the economics Slave-States. Finally, in 1828, the new frontier of the Western state's expansion into the Ohio & Mississippi Valleys proved to be a changing demographics overtaking the one-party rule of the Eastern Seaboard Jeffersonian Democrats. The ingredients are all the same, society grows and changes, soon forcing a fundamental political change because the previous system is unwilling and unable to address the needs of a society necessitating a new vision and power structure to address its welfare. Below is a brief summary of the previous Party Systems. Ultimately a new expansive group of voters come into play and vote for change. Below is a capsule summary of the six previous party systems.
1968 to present the Sixth Party System (Divided government characterized as Democrats bi-coastal & urban centers vs Republicans southern, Sun-Belt and rural where battlegrounds were moderate suburbs.)l
1932 to 1968 the Fifth Party System (New Deal redistributionist programs and Democratic dominance)
1896 to 1932, the Fourth Party System (Republicans built a winning coalition of business and the emerging middle class.)
1854 to 1896, the Third Party System (northern Republicans vs southern Democrats
1824 to 1854, the Second Party System (Jacksonian Democrats vs Henry Clay and the Whigs)
1796 to 1824 the First Party System (Hamiltonian Federalists vs the Jeffersonian Democratic-Republicans)
The 6th Party System that has dominated since my youth, came to power after the Civil Rights Laws that were passed in 1964 as the reactionary defection of the Southern Dixiecrats to the Nixonian body politique. Yet even after the disastrous Republican 1976 Presidential election following Watergate, the 6th Party System continued to emerge in the ‘80s. After temporarily losing their majorities in 1992 by 1994, the Republicans gained majorities in the House and blocked Clinton. This divided government was the mainstay outside of a few years in the ‘00s and ‘16. As history runs in patterns the Sixth Party System parallel’s the era preceding the Civil War as the nation vacillated between Jacksonian Democrats and Clay Whigs entrenched partisan camps over slavery.
The purpose of this review is to underscore the value of history as a guidepost to our future. America and its democracy indeed go through fundamental changes in its make-up from generation to generation. Party Systems is actually a generational consolidated consensus allowing for society and government to organize seeking to achieve progress, maintain its own general welfare, and in some times exploit portions of society for another. But a critical review of the cycles of Party Systems that have emerged in this constitutional republic demonstrates that a pattern of one-party generational rule is followed by a competitive two-party organization that eventually invites a period of great polarization between the camps until a political climax is determined---thereby a determinate election.
I end with some insight from a leaked CitiGroup set of the memo’s called the Plutonomy Memos:
“Spending by the uber-rich overwhelms that of the average consumer and helps explain why the U.S. economy has continued to do well. The United States is one of the plutonomy countries whose economies are powered by a relatively small number of rich people...
The world is divided into two blocs - the plutonomies, where economic growth is powered by and largely consumed by the wealthy few, and the rest.
We project that the plutonomies (the U.S., UK, and Canada) will likely see even more income inequality, disproportionately feeding off a further rise in the profit share in their economies, capitalist-friendly governments, more technology-driven productivity, and globalization.
RISKS -- WHAT COULD GO WRONG? Our whole plutonomy thesis is based on the idea that the rich will keep getting richer.
Furthermore, the rising wealth gap between the rich and poor will probably at some point lead to a political backlash. Whilst the rich are getting a greater share of the wealth, and the poor a lesser share.
One person, one vote. At some point, it is likely that labor will fight back against the rising profit share of the rich and there will be a political backlash against the rising wealth of the rich. This could be felt through higher taxation on the rich or through trying to protect indigenous laborers, in a push-back on globalization.”
And there you have it. Democracy as a self-correction as a nation rises up to retake its reins of power addressing the exploitative and injustices of a plutonomy. This is where we are at, three weeks before election day.
Participate in America if you haven’t already. in the closing words of James Carville:
Very seldom in American history have there been periods when people can nobly wage a crusade to create real and lasting change. But when these crusades do occur, when those moments arrive, what we do to vanquish the threat to freedom builds something everlasting into the framework of our society.
The American Revolution, the Civil War, World War II, Seneca Falls, Stonewall, and Selma, were all historical flashpoints where Americans displayed their patriotism against oppressive forces in a resounding way. These movements overthrew an empire, ended slavery, staved off totalitarianism, and paved the way for the establishment of fundamental civil rights and liberties for women, LGBTQ+ and black Americans.
We find ourselves again at such a turning point. Donald Trump’s authoritarian presence behind the Resolute Desk is amongst the gravest threats America has ever faced from within. And Americans have risen to meet this threat.
This resistance has created its own seismic shift. Look at the rallying cries for racial justice coming from Americans of all colors, who have joined in arms to speak out. Look at the willingness of voters to wait for hours in lines in Georgia to exercise their democratic right to the franchise. Look at the coalition that has been formed, from Republicans to Democrats to activists, who are determined to stand up to this threat.
