Are we seeing the emergence of a new US political alignment?

A political scientist and professor of international relations, Angelo Codevilla is one of the most interesting and thought-provoking observers of the US political scene.  His 2010 article "America's Ruling Class - and the Perils of Revolution", and a subsequent book, "The Ruling Class: How They Corrupted America and What We Can Do About It", have had widespread impact, and many of his observations in them proved seminal in relation to the 2016 Presidential election.

He's written two articles in recent weeks that I found very illuminating.  The first, in the Washington Times, is titled "Replacing the Republican Party:  America needs a virile alternative to the present mess".  Here's an excerpt.

Having refused to repeal Obamacare, the Republican Party is dead, as was the Whig Party in 1854 after it colluded in the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act which opened these territories to slavery.

Republican majorities in both Houses of Congress as well as control of legislatures and governorships in 26 states veil the fact that, in 2017, there are no longer reasons to vote Republican any more than there were to vote Whig after 1854.

The Republican Party’s successes in recent electoral cycles were due to the American people’s desire not to be governed by a ruling class, headed by the Democratic Party, which is restricting, insulting and impoverishing the country. Republican voters were hopeful but doubtful. In the 2016 Republican primaries the overwhelming majority of votes went to candidates least tied to the party establishment.

. . .

When Congressional Republicans and Democrats together affirmed Obamacare; as they set about financing the health insurance industry in explicit contradiction of law; as every branch of the permanent government continues to have its unaccountable way with Americans; as a foreign policy of indecisive warfare continues despite popular opposition, there is no doubt that today’s America is ruled by a single ruling party and that the Republican Party is part of that party rather than an alternative to it.

Why vote Republican when that results, rhetoric aside, in being governed as by Democrats?

There's more at the link.

The second article, published in American Greatness, is titled "The 2016 Election is Not Reversible".

Today, the bipartisan ruling class, which the electorate was trying to shed by supporting anti-establishment candidates of both parties in 2016, feels as if it has dodged the proverbial bullet. The Trump administration has not managed to staff itself—certainly not with anti-establishment people—and may never do so. Because the prospect of that happening brought the ruling class’s several elements together and energized them as never before, today, prospects of more power with fewer limits than ever eclipse the establishment’s fears of November 2016.

But the Left’s celebrations are premature, at best. As I explained a year ago, by 2016 the ruling class’s dysfunctions and the rest of the country’s resentment had pushed America over the threshold of a revolution; one in which the only certainty is the near impossibility of returning to the republican self-government of the previous two centuries. The 2016 election is not reversible, because it was but the first stage of a process that no one can control and the end of which no one can foresee.

. . .

Donald Trump is not and never has been the issue. With or without Trump, the nightmare of those who resist the 2016 election was, is, and will remain the voters who have chosen and will continue to choose candidates who they believe are committed to reducing the ruling class’s privileges and pretensions.

That is why the “resistance” has increased rather than diminished the 2016 election’s import as a revolutionary event. To ordinary Americans, the winds that now blow downwind from society’s commanding heights make the country seem more alien than ever before. More than ever, academics, judges, the media, corporate executives, and politicians of all kinds, having arrogated moral legitimacy to their own socio-political identities, pour contempt upon the rest of America. Private as well as public life in our time is subject to their escalating insults, their unending new conditions on what one may or may not say, even on what one must say, to hold a job or otherwise to participate in society.

. . .

Were an energetic, unambiguous, unapologetic Trump to affirm the majority of Americans’ political identity, not all Republicans would follow. Nor does he need them all. By bringing new elements into his following and, yes, by dropping some Republicans from it, Trump would effectively build a new party, with intact credibility. The departure of major corporations from his business council—big business is deeply unpopular on Main Street America—is an example of  how to gain by shedding baggage. At any rate, it was never possible that the entire Republican Party would represent America against the ruling class.

But by the same token, each action taken by anyone who is creating a new movement must speak for itself more loudly and clearly than the words used to explain that action. Democracy does not tolerate pairing big words with small accomplishments. Today, Trump’s role in fulfilling the political marketplace’s demand is up to him even more than it was in 2016. But now as then, America’s open political marketplace invites all. The anti ruling class constituency is bigger than ever. If Trump does not lead it, someone else will.

Again, more at the link.

Considering that the Wall Street Journal recently opined that political divisions in the US are widening and long-lasting, I think Prof. Codevilla has a point.  I've said for a long time that I trust neither the Republican nor the Democratic Parties.  Both put partisan politics ahead of the needs of the country;  both are too willing to compromise in exchange for benefits to office-holders and political place-holders.  I sincerely hope Prof. Codevilla is right, and that a new political movement will emerge.  I think this country can only benefit from that.

Peter