Deep Dive with Shawn

The Great Party Shake-Up: What Happens When Both Parties Lose Their Way? (w/ Dr. Hans Noel)

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American democracy is crumbling. The Republican Party, once defined by traditional conservatism, has transformed into a vehicle for Trumpism, while Democrats struggle to maintain their coalition after unexpected losses. Dr. Hans Noel, Associate Professor of Government at Georgetown University, and co-author of the book Political Parties, joins the pod to explain the complex forces reshaping our political landscape.

According to Dr. Noel, while we're not experiencing a complete political realignment, significant shifts are occurring beneath the surface. The Republican Party hasn't abandoned conservative principles but has dramatically changed its emphasis - elevating immigration concerns and national identity while making loyalty to Trump personally a defining characteristic. Meanwhile, Democrats face their own identity crisis as working-class voters, once their reliable base, become increasingly divided.

Gender matters here - and is critical dimension in this political transformation. Trump's aggressive masculinity appeals strongly to male voters across demographic groups, while Democrats attempt to counter with an alternative vision centered on care and inclusivity. This represents not merely an electoral calculation but a genuine values difference between the parties.

The consequences for democracy are profound. When citizens become so frustrated with politics that they're willing to abandon basic democratic principles, the entire system becomes vulnerable. Dr. Noel maintains cautious optimism about democracy's long-term resilience but acknowledges the medium-term outlook appears concerning: "Long-term, Germany is a thriving democracy that went through a very tough period. In the medium term, including the rest of my lifetime, things could be really ugly."

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Speaker 1:

long-term. Germany today is a thriving democracy and has a lot of success and it went through very tough period, right. So you know it's it's like long-term it could, could still be in. In the medium term, including like the rest of my lifetime things could be really, really ugly. I think that there are a lot of people who are so frustrated with politics that they're willing to give up basic democratic principles like you know, congressional representation and they don't respect the role that those things play. They don't understand the role that that plays and we don't do a very good job of defending that. So things I mean right now things look pretty, pretty grim pretty grim.

Speaker 2:

Welcome to Deep Dive with me, sean C Fettig. American politics is clearly at some type of crossroads. The Republican Party, once synonymous with traditional conservatism, has been reshaped into a vehicle for Trumpism, blending populism, nationalism and an unrelenting loyalty to its figurehead, donald Trump himself. At the same time, the Democratic Party finds itself adrift, grappling with internal divisions about how to approach the Trump presidency and struggling to define a cohesive vision. What the Democratic Party is after losses in the 2024 election. All of this matters because, as we're living through and experiencing right now, the weaker the parties are, the less able they are to act as a bulwark against the rise of authoritarianism under Donald Trump.

Speaker 2:

Today's guest is Dr Hans Knoll, associate Professor of Government at Georgetown University, leading expert on political parties in American democracy and co-author of the book Political Parties. He's here to help answer some questions like how did Trump consolidate his grip on the GOP and transform it into an extension of his MAGA movement? Why are Democrats unable to rally around a clear strategy or leader, and what does this mean for the country? Could this political alignment offer an opportunity for renewal, or are we truly witnessing the unraveling of democratic norms and democracy itself? All right, if you like this episode or any episode, please give it a like, share and follow on your favorite podcast platform and or subscribe to the podcast on YouTube. And, as always, if you have any thoughts, questions or comments, please feel free to email me at deepdivewithshawn at gmailcom. Let's do a deep dive dot com. Let's do a deep dive, dr Noel, thanks for being here. How are you?

Speaker 1:

I'm doing great.

Speaker 2:

Thanks for having me Absolutely so.

Speaker 2:

A lot of focus on party ID and partisanship over the past decade has really been on the evolution of the Republican Party into one that is wholly Trumpist, largely MAGA.

Speaker 2:

But there does seem to be a shift in the Democratic Party as well, and I think we saw glimmers of that in the 2015-2016 race that Bernie Sanders was really exposing a rift in the Democratic Party that was probably, in retrospect, more enduring than perhaps we all realized at the time, and this past election shows just how real shifting alliances and identification seem to be in our politics, and I guess it remains to be seen how permanent this realignment is. But the reality is that it's not limited to the Republican Party and it is impacting our entire country, and I want to work our way through, you know, the impact or the form that this is taking within each of the parties, but perhaps before we even get there impact or the form that this is taking within each of the parties, but perhaps before we even get there we should just, you know, establish whether or not you think that there actually is some type of a realignment that we're living through and, if so, what the impact is that it might be having on our politics.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, sure, that's a really good place to start. I mean, the concept of a realignment in political science is, you know, sometimes pretty precise and we talk about, you know, that there's this major change of groups that are in the parties, moving from one party into the other, or what the parties stand for is changing. Realignment of the Republican Party from the, you know, lincoln era, when the party was mainly about ending slavery and then other things, to today when the party is principally the party that is most embracing of, say, the Confederate flag or symbols of the old South, that kind of realignment, no, I don't think we're seeing something quite that big. But I also think political science like saw some really big moments in the past and said, oh, like, these are really big shifts and so we have this really high bar for what it amounts to as a realignment. What I think we're seeing now is there are some, you know, more gradual shifts.

Speaker 1:

The two parties remain the two parties. Much of what they stand for remains very similar. There's more of a shift in focus than in you know, any actual, you know things that they care about or switching sides on policies. Some, but not mostly, and so broadly. The coalitions are similar, but voters are, you know, new generation of voters are responding to those coalitions a little bit differently, and there's some other changes, and so there are some very gradual changes and of course it's hard to know where those are going. And so I do think there's something happening under the surface, but it's not the kind of realignment where we're going to say in 20 or 30 years we have completely new parties.

Speaker 2:

So one of the narratives about what's happened with the Republican Party, if we start with them, is that they've been completely reshaped and reformed into being essentially sycophantic Trumpist, and that it is divorced from and I guess this cuts a little bit against what you've just said, so maybe we need to dig into the nuance here but it's divorced from the traditional kind of conservative identification that sits comfortably within the Republican Party, that has become much more populist and nationalist that it's, that it's moved away from being elite driven which in and of itself this last point isn't necessarily a bad thing but that it's become something that is not at all characteristic of what it used to be. So I guess I'm wondering how we would characterize the current identity of the Republican Party, and if you say that it is largely built of the same components, then how does that comport with this narrative?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, well, I mean, I think that the narrative is true that there is a general shift in the last you know decade or so towards Trumpism and whatever Trump stands for, but the underlying, you know, material that Trump is working with is still Republican, conservative policies, and so one way to think about that is, like you know, conservatives tended to be very, you know, pro free trade and Trump is not right. So there's a reversal there. But it is still the case that the kinds of policies Trump is advancing are fiscal conservative let's not spend too much money, let's, you know, give not, have, not have tax policies that are especially punitive on the rich, these kinds of things that were, you know, republican principles before. And some of his argument about tariffs even is not so much about I'm going to want to implement tariffs to change, you know, and bring back, you know, lots of support for working class jobs although that is part of what he says but also building American industry in general, top to odds with the past Republican coalition. But it doesn't seem like there's this, like you know, completely new group of people.

Speaker 1:

It is the case that most activists look at Trump and say that's where the Republican Party is and that's what conservatism is.

Speaker 1:

And so if you ask them like, who is more conservative, they'll say that Trump favoring politicians are more conservative, even if they are more or not more conservative on sort of more traditional things like, say, free trade, but that that shift is more about input emphasis. It used to be that conservatives some conservatives were really concerned about immigration and national identity, and Trump has taken that as one of the elements of the Republican Party and put it right at the top. The other big thing that Trump has shifted the Republican Party about is about himself, his personal policy questions like you know his own legal challenges and his, you know his, how much power he should have and those kinds of things. And that's not really that wild to have a party backing their own president on those kind of personal things. It's just Trump has a lot of them and he really does push them hard. And there are very few politicians who are defecting in the way that, say, many Democrats defected from Clinton during the Lewinsky scandal.

Speaker 2:

Mm. Hmm, you know, often the the construction or the structure of a party is the reflection of some strike of a balance between elites within the party and their representation of what they believe the Republican Party or conservatism should be balanced against what the Republican or conservative electorate is hoping that the party is. And we're living through a time where it feels as if Trump embodies the entirety of Republican identity. And I think one argument is that some evidence of this is the fact that Republicans in Congress are ceding a lot of control to Trump as opposed to exerting some of their own. And I think the argument here is that if they felt like they had their finger on the pulse of the Republican Party at the electorate level, that they would feel a bit more empowered to flex some of that muscle in Congress, but that they're instead being a bit reflexive. And I wonder if that is a signifier that the Republican Party at the elite level in Congress isn't quite sure who or what the Republican Party at the electorate level is and is just taking their cues from Trump.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I mean, I think that's that's right, and maybe not just taking them from Trump, but using what they've learned from Trump's success to tell something about what what Republican voters want.

Speaker 1:

And so it used to be, for instance, that the argument was that, you know, republicans used social issues and populist appeals to try to bring around voters and then turn around and they would vote for, you know, economic policies that benefit the wealthy and business owners.

Speaker 1:

I mean, to some degree that's still happening, because Trump is OK with policies in some cases that help big businesses.

Speaker 1:

Trump is okay with policies in some cases that help big businesses, but exactly what kind and how far that's going to go and whether or not you really want to fully embrace it is something that a lot of Republican leaders are now saying. Well, you know, maybe we don't need to or we shouldn't go towards some of these more traditional conservative economic policies, because we do want to get this growing working class element in our party, and that means you know policies that are oriented towards helping the working class, but you'll notice that the way they talk about it still is. You know, unions are still the problem right, and we want to embrace working class voters that are not in unionized jobs and we want to have less government and saying that it's government policies that are making problems for the working class. So there's a lot of continuity in the kinds of issues and it's more you know the places where there is a shift. Trump is showing that that's more electorally successful that's more electorally successful.

Speaker 2:

So if we look at this through the lens of history, I guess I want to take head on, or discuss head on, this argument that the Republican Party in its current configuration is an existential threat to democracy in the United States, and I think there are probably elements of our politics generally that could lay to that argument. But I do wonder, if we look at this through, like I said, the lens of history and the evolution of parties and party ID and shifts in alignments and realignments if this is something that we could expect to see at any given time you know, the politics that we're living through are something that we could expect to see at periods of time in which there are alignments, or if there are elements here that are truly concerning.

Speaker 1:

I think there's a mix of things and then maybe there's like four levels of things that we want to think about when we talk about like threats to democracy and that often get lumped together, especially for Democrats who see this threat. I mean, first there's just a lot of policies that Democrats don't like and they think, you know, make us a different country than they want to have, and those are not. I mean, that's different disagreements and maybe the Democrats are right about how important those policies are, but that's not about lack of democratic representation. That's just a policy difference. There's also some policy differences that are more fundamental about citizenship and what it means to be an American. That I'd sort of call, you know, illiberal policies that some of the Republicans are advancing and those I think people have a reasonable connection to. If you start saying certain kinds of people don't belong here, that used to belong here, then that can be sort of eroding of the notion of American identity and therefore erodes, you know, the republic and our logic of democracy. But it's still not exactly a threat directly to democracy. It's a threat to something like what kind of democracy we're going to be. And then there's, you know, things that are like, I think threats to sort of constitutional order and the rule of law, where you know the Constitution says that Congress gets to decide how we spend money and what agencies are going to exist, and yet Trump seems to be saying, no, he gets to decide what those things are going to be and he's signing and issuing executive orders that you know sort of invade on Congress's territory and the like, and so that starts to get to be like well, you know that's, you know it's not strictly undemocratic in that you know he was democratically elected, so that's the case. But our, you know, democracy isn't just or is there voting going on, but you know we have a system that is based on, you know, checks and balances and constitutional order of who gets to make these kinds of decisions. And there's a threat there and I think that's pretty, pretty legitimately a concern. And then there are, finally, there are some things that seem to like actually undermine the ability of the country to have democratic elections, and that's.

Speaker 1:

There are a lot of elements in the Republican coalition's views about democracy that democracy scholars worry about.

Speaker 1:

So there's a really excellent book by Jacob Grumbach, which I just happened to be reading with my students, called Laboratories Against Democracy, and his argument is that because politics at the national level has gotten so polarized, national parties now are shaping state party policy on in many different ways, including especially in how democracy is run.

Speaker 1:

So things like you know whether or not you have early voting or who's allowed to vote, or you know absentee, how absentee ballots are handled, or whether you have mail in ballots, and all those kinds of things, and he builds a scale out of that that talks about like how democratic or you know how good for democracy are each state's policies, and he shows that in states that have Republicans in control there's less democratic, less of what he calls democracy.

Speaker 1:

Now it's worth noting that his scale is a scale that gives you points for having you know early voting and mail-in voting and would take away from how democratic it is if you have you know voter ID laws and other restrictions, which Republicans would say no, those are empowering our democracy. But I think a lot of you know sort of scholars of democracy would say that the Republican view on what is empowering democracy and what is not is is incorrect. And so then that does like OK, that does look like it's a threat, but it's a threat that's got an ideological component to it of Republicans thinking that these things that other people think are democracy actually aren't.

Speaker 2:

So let's switch and talk a little bit about the Democratic Party and before we dig into the party today and what it might be struggling with, I prefaced in the preamble this idea that maybe Bernie Sanders was a warning sign to the structure of the Democratic Party in 2015, 2016 in a way that the party didn't take seriously, 2016 in a way that the party didn't take seriously, but I don't want to posit that as a fact. So I guess I'm wondering if you think that was a moment that suggests the party was losing touch with a certain segment of its base, or if there's something else that we could point to.

Speaker 1:

So I think I mean there's a lot of different cleavages within both parties. American parties are coal Democrat and then the sort of more, you know, educated, you know like sort of more white collar type Democrat, is not new, but the degree to which Democratic policy had moved, democrat policy priorities, democratic Party priorities, the degree to which Democratic Party priorities had sort of shifted to more cultural issues, things that are not the sort of bread and butter for union members of working class, that had been happening, it is real. Some of it's because it's hard to make changes in the economic policy and it might be easier to make changes on the civil rights front. Some of it's because of the decline in union membership, which means that the power of unions within politics in general and also within the Democratic Party is weakening. And so I don't think it's true that the Democratic Party was just ignoring that this was happening, but it had been happening and there was a trend in that direction and Sanders caught onto it and emphasized it.

Speaker 1:

There's a certain aspect of when you start to make an issue out of a cleavage like this and highlight it in this way and use the kind of rhetoric that you know politicians who are would have been like, yeah, that Democratic Party is probably the better party for us and they're not doing as much as we'd like, but that's our party.

Speaker 1:

And then Sanders says, oh well, the Democrats don't care about you. And then afterwards they're like, oh, maybe the Democrats don't care about me. And then they start thinking, oh well, what else does? And they see Trump there. I don't want to blame Sanders per se, but like that this comes up and then it starts to like shape people's views of what the party stands for and a different reaction of the Democratic Party that more embraced some of the elements of Sanders policies although it's worth noting that not all of his things, you know both, make sense or necessarily better for the working class but embrace some of that like appeal might have forestalled some of those shifts in working class voters towards the Republican Party. It's also worth noting that, while there is a shift on this, this cleavage is real and there are a lot of working class voters who are now thinking of looking elsewhere. It's not the case that, like, working class voters are now a solid Republican bloc. It's that they're more divided, which they didn't used to be.

Speaker 2:

So if we look at the Democratic Party today, you know the story is that the party is adrift, it's in the wilderness, it's vulnerable and it's weak.

Speaker 2:

And I think there was a moment, after the you know Supreme Court struck down Roe v Wade, that the Democratic response in that election year was to run essentially against, at least in part against that SCOTUS decision, and there was a concern in the back of my mind that this wasn't a proactive agenda, this was more of a reactive agenda and that that wasn't sustainable. And I think in this last election it felt much the same to me that the Democrats were running on a reactive agenda and not a proactive agenda. And I wonder if that helps explain where they are now in that, between 2015, what happened in that election, and now that the Democratic Party hasn't really figured out how to develop a proactive agenda. But I also wonder if that might be ignoring some of the work that doesn't get enough attention that came out of the Biden administration. And so the question here really is like what do you think is happening with the Democratic Party right now?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I think some of that like broadly speaking, that narrative probably has some truth to it, but I do think that it overstates a lot of things, which is, I mean, that's the conventional wisdom, but it overstates a lot of things. Um, I think the first thing is that we tend to look at things like oh, now the Democrats are adrift and they're in disarray and this is where we are today, but, um, you know, they just lost an election. Uh, meanwhile, everyone was saying something very similar about the Republican party two years ago when, after SCOTUS decision on abortion, Republicans did much, much less well than you would have otherwise expected in that condition, and people thought Republicans were also doing, had taken a blow in 2020, but now it was like, oh, it's really a blow. But of course, you go back to 2016 and then we're back in the same place where, like, how did they possibly lose this election? And Democrats are unsure how to manage this new shift in what the party stands for, what the, what the working class wants and all these things. And in fact, if you go back pretty much in the like year or so after every election, you know the losing party is, you know, sort of panic, trying to to figure out what to do and how to how to regain their position. Sometimes the good strategies come out of that, Sometimes they don't, and so some of that's just normal right behavior. Right, we're just had an election, and so the democratic party is, in fact, trying to figure out how to react to the 2024 loss and how to build something going forward, and so that's just like that happens.

Speaker 1:

I also think it's true that in 2022, the Roe v Wade issue did help Democrats. I don't think it was the only thing that helped Democrats, but I think it was. It did help them and I think, on balance, it was probably also a good issue for 2024. It's just that, you know, it was now into the past a little bit and it wasn't, you know, it wasn't very proactive, as you say. It was like reacting to something that was now several years into the past, and I think the Democratic Party does need to figure out a way to reestablish its brand and it's working to do that. But that's like sort of like the natural thing. It's what the Republicans felt like they needed to do after 2012. They needed to reestablish their brand. They said they were going to do it by backing off of some of the immigration issues. Instead, they know that's not what ended up happening and it turns out embracing immigration even more forcefully turned out to be politically effective.

Speaker 1:

But of course, a lot of the variation in what happens in the elections is beyond the party's direct control anyway. Happens in the elections is beyond the party's direct control anyway. You know, the COVID event shook up incumbents and it shook incumbents across the world. And so I'm not I don't want to say this, you know absolves Biden or the Biden administration for any responsibility for what they did. I think there were a lot of policy moves that they could have done. Maybe that would have been better, but they've got to do this in sort of the. You know, in the context of these bigger shifts that sometimes there's nothing that can be done about them. But then afterwards we draw stories based on what happened. That may or may not be true, and then of course they become self-reinforcing if we decide that this is what happened and therefore the party has to change and therefore it tries to change and it struggles and etc.

Speaker 2:

This might be more of an observation than a question, but I have been somewhat fascinated in the Democratic response this election, this past election, particularly because it's not like it was a blowout. This election was won for the Republican Party by a one and a half point margin and Democrats did pick up in the House. They lost in the Senate, but again, that wasn't a blowout. So I'm a little surprised at how existential the Democratic Party seems to be taking this past election. So maybe this is a bit removed from your research per se, but it's surprising to me that the Democratic Party is reacting this way, where and I think they do have an actual they do have some footing to fight back. And I wonder if this is more as a result of what seems like momentum on the Republican Party side or if they might be seeing something in the tea leaves that I'm just missing.

Speaker 1:

Well, I think you're right that it means it's definitely an incredibly close election and yet the you know sort of the way we talk about it is that oh, it was this huge change, and I think in the back of a lot of people's minds as well. But okay, in two years or in four years there'll be another election and maybe then, you know, that'll be the chance to have some change. And it's just, you know, it feels existential, because two years is a long time, especially with an administration that is doing so much, so quickly that you know, seems threatening. It'd be something else if the administration was just sort of like you know, puttering along the way that oftentimes they do in a you know sort of polarized gridlock kind of policy setting. But I think part of it is that this sort of story of that there's chaos feeds on itself. I mean, the first half of our conversation was all about there's this chaos, and so that's what we're saying, and everybody else is saying that I'm sure that there are some Democratic Party leaders in fact this may explain why it seems like Democrats are not doing very much who are like we'll, we have to tough it out, but our brand will bounce back, especially after a year of Trump and Doge and all the chaos that's happening.

Speaker 1:

But there's not an election right now. So what we just have to do is, you know, start to build and plan ahead and maybe keep our powder dry, and then we'll jump out in a year with this tactic and then that looks like paralysis and lack of direction. But it is also true that there is a lot of different direction that different Democrats want to have, and when you're in this moment of I don't know which direction to go, then that empowers people to say let's push it in my direction. So that's why you're hearing these like here's the abundance agenda, let's make that be our thing. No, we need to embrace a more, you know, progressive, bolder, bernie Sanders style direction of the party or whatever. And those are fights that are always going to be in the background, but they're now foreground because there's not much else for the party to do to be in the background, but they're now foreground because there's not much else for the party to do.

Speaker 2:

One of the arguments that Democrats in the Democratic Party often give when they're on the losing side in an election is that they're a big tent party.

Speaker 2:

They have a lot of people to please, a lot of groups to please a lot of constituencies in a way that the Republican Party doesn't.

Speaker 2:

But in this past election, while we might not be seeing a wholesale realignment amongst the electorate or within the electorate, it is true that the Republican Party does seem to be benefiting from a shift in vote from some percentage of working class voters and voters of color away from the Democrats, and it remains to be seen if that's enduring, if that's personality based, if that is, you know, ideologically based, so that you know that's all to come.

Speaker 2:

But if that's true, it suggests that the Republican Party might also be inheriting the same problem that the Democratic Party had, if we buy this argument that the big tent is a difficult tent to make happy, and so that there are vulnerabilities in this coalition for the Republican Party, and so that there are vulnerabilities in this coalition for the Republican Party, and so that's one thing I think we could talk about. But I think the thing further down the road is that if the Democratic Party remains to some degree a big tent party and the Republican Party is also building a coalition, that makes it a big tent party. If that also suggests that we are in for a tumultuous period of time, as both parties are really struggling to keep their constituencies happy in a way that at least the Republican Party maybe didn't have to so extensively in the past.

Speaker 1:

Yeah. So I think generally that we should, we should think of both parties as big tent parties and that they always have been, they have to be, because, uh, we have only two and they're both trying to get majorities. So, like in the in the sort of peak pre-trump period, when we're talking about sort of like you know, um, george w bush and mccain and romney, like the republican party was, you know, they talked about the republican party as this three-legged stool and it had the social conservatives and the economic and fiscal conservatives and it had the you know foreign policy hawks. And these three different groups, you know, oftentimes didn't have very much at all to do with each other. They were a big tent and, in fact, as one of the things that Trump had discovered was that this tent, you know, didn't have people who were embracing all of those, those legs of the stool that the social conservative folks who were had sort of like this America first, let's protect our interests. Less immigration, we want to have a more. It's a particular picture of what it means to be American, which for some people is white, but also for some people, whether it's whatever the race is, it still has a particular set of values and views what it means to be American, and that that was what matters. And fiscal conservatism and free trade and some of the foreign policy hawkishness none of that. That stuff didn't matter as much to those people, and maybe they didn't even like it, and so Trump managed to appeal to this um by dropping some of the pieces of the republican big tent, but meanwhile those pieces are still there, um, and without them, you're not, he's not going to win, he's just he's managed to amplify this other part of the story.

Speaker 1:

So I do think that, though, if there's more working class voters is becoming major, more part of the republican coalition, then yeah, there's more working class voters is becoming a major, more part of the Republican coalition, then yeah, there's going to need to be some delivery on that. There's going to need to be policies that actually it's one thing to say. Well, the Republic Democrats are not doing a good enough job and they're letting inflation happen and wages aren't growing. So see, look they're. They say they're your friend, but they're not. It's something else to then go a term without actually delivering anything to that group, and so some of them won't go in that direction.

Speaker 1:

I think the other thing to note is you know, when it comes to voters of color, there's a shift there and I think some of it's just that you know many, many voters who are, especially as we make, you know, sort of progress on racial issues. You know they're the issues are. You know, other issues matter to them more. A lot of Black voters are socially conservative and conservative in other ways. They voted the Democratic Party because it's been a part of sort of what it means to be a Black American. But that is breaking down, perhaps, especially for younger voters and non-white voters, for whom their racial identity is really important. That is continues to be how they vote. The other elements in the working class is more complicated in that, you know, it depends a little bit on how you define the working class.

Speaker 1:

We used to sort of think about it as just sort of like an income level thing, but obviously that's not quite right and you know, there's a lot of you know working class voters who you know make quite a lot of money and maybe run small businesses but didn't go to college and don't think of themselves as elite or, you know, well-to-do or in the elite part of the country.

Speaker 1:

And so there's this like notion of a you know, lap clock, laptop class versus the you know real working class. And some of that isn't about income at all, and I think it's actually not, you know, with analyses that focus on that and say see, look, you know, these are the haves and have nots are wrong, but it is a real cultural and social difference. And so there's a kind of working class appeal that Republicans have and the Democrats seem to have lost in embracing academic ideas and you know all the things that get labeled woke. And so Democrats are now having to hold that coalition together, and I think Republicans will now also have to try to hold that coalition together, and it may be that the working class voters become increasingly a swing group in the way that they hadn't been. And then, of course, that presumably means both parties are going to try to compete for them, and that might actually work out to their advantage.

Speaker 2:

Who knows? I suppose there's another cleavage here that might be explaining this a bit more but also might suggest that this is maybe more of an enduring issue, and that is the male-female cleavage. The Democratic Party has always been cast as being weaker kind of across the board and the Republican Party has always been. I mean, this is obviously an oversimplification, but the Republican Party is cast as being stronger kind of across the board and as long as that's being cast or molded and shaped along the male-female divide, I do wonder if this last election, if it reflects that, suggests that it will be more difficult, if this image holds or this characterization holds, for Democrats to attract the male vote back from the Republican Party.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I'm really glad this came up because I think it is a huge part of what the cleavage is about. I mean, it's been for a long time now that women voters, especially women voters who care a lot about the issues that we think of as mattering a lot to women so you know women's access to health care, women's employment, and you know equal opportunities and equal pay, abortion, all those kinds of issues Women who care a lot about those issues have tended to be, have increasingly been, democratic voters. You know, back when you're talking about this, you know expansion of the franchise and the, you know, women's suffrage movement. It was, if anything, republicans who were more, you know, supportive, but that's a different coalition than we have now. And the new coalition that both parties have had really since you know the seventies and eighties and definitely in you know everything since 2000, has been that, this turning in this direction and then, but, that, but, but even then it hasn't been had that level of, like you know, sort of masculinity and masculine identity that the current Republican image is really built around, especially the Trumpism is built around, and you know it's a, it's a you know strange kind of masculinity that you know someone like Trump, who you know, I think objectively just sort of doesn't look like he's that masculine and tough, but then he changes and with the way his language works and the way he's portrayed is a different thing than the way he was if it was sitting across the table from you, and that kind of like masculinity toughness is a difficult thing to resist in for a lot of voters.

Speaker 1:

I think what Democrats tried to do in 2024 and make may find some successful path later is to sort of re describe a you know different kind of masculinity, a more, you know, inclusive fathers caring for their families, taking care, not being, you know, dominant, and all this sort of thing, which is why I think what like Tim wallace is trying to to represent, and whether that was successful or not, uh is is a is a question, but I see the democrat party trying to do that to try to win back, um, these uh male voters, um, and this like sense of a responsibility and and not, um, just masculine toughness, whether or not that's politically the right path.

Speaker 1:

I think Democrats are stuck with. That's the direction, if anything, because Democrats and liberals believe that that is the right way to think about being masculine, right, and so you know it's not like these things are all just about electoral appeals. There's also, you know, ideological and you know, principled difference on the roles that the roles of gender and the ways in which gender and race and sex and all of these identities should play in daily life, and the Democrats represent a particular vision on that. That may cost them some young male voters in particular who don't embrace that.

Speaker 2:

So full disclosure. I think I am a bit of a pessimist, maybe even a fatalist, so take that, as it were, in this, in this next question, which is so I think, parties, us parties anyway, historically some have, you know, blinked in and out of existence. Some have been more enduring than others, and you know, when there are shifts amongst the electorate, it can be existential for parties such that they do actually collapse or they do fail and then other parties fill that void or they do evolve. And so there have been moments in the last decade or so in which I've wondered.

Speaker 2:

This started with the Republican Party. I wondered if the Republican Party was on the verge of collapse and then would reformulate itself in some other type of constitution. But now I'm wondering the same of the Democratic Party, if that's the position they're in. And this is going to sound like a stupid question, but I guess I'm wondering if there are examples of existential party threats in which the party actually can evolve successfully and and rebuild itself, or if there are more examples of parties just collapsing and then an experience of different parties rising up and taking their place.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, this is a good question. I mean, in the United States we have, because of both the two-party system and because of some you know, a number of other institutions that are sort of in place. It's very hard for new parties to emerge, and so you know, it's worth noting that we have had the same political parties in the United States since the Civil War, right, so we're talking about, you know, a century and a half of the same parties. You look at other democracies, even other, like major democracies, which there are parties that have lasted a long time, right, you know, sort of stab long established. Tomorrow there's still shifts and changes and new parties and and adjustments and so forth.

Speaker 1:

The United States we had the same two parties and instead they have, as you were saying, they evolve, they change, and so the party of Lincoln is not the party of even the sort of late 1800s, not the Republican Party of the early 40th century, not the Republican Party today, and similarly the Republican Democratic Party has evolved and shifted in different ways. Those evolutions and shifts include, like moments where one party is just like clearly down. In the big part of middle part of the 20th century, you know, we essentially had what we'd call sort of a three party system, with northern Democrats and southern Democrats both uniting in the Democratic Party for a lot of procedural purposes and electing presidents and like and the Republican Party was this like, you know, smaller, you know element, and of course, now it's come back. So I think there's like shifts and changes but like, in a lot of real ways, like the label Democrat and Republican, those entities aren't the things that we really care about. It's really about the ability of a coalition to organize and to compete and to bring forward the issues that matter and everything else.

Speaker 1:

And I think that there's a good chance that both you know, the important constituencies in the United States are going to struggle to get attention from either party going forward.

Speaker 1:

On the other hand, you know who knows, like there's a mixing and combining and so forth. It really does sort of call this kind of crisis moment, if you think that's what's happening now. So it really calls attention to the fact that we do have a two-party system and that there's things that could happen in a multi-party system that we just don't see here. And we don't have a multi-party system for a whole host of reasons, like every possible explanation that you could have for why we don't get more parties, the United States has that explanation. So, like every possible explanation that you could have for why we don't get more parties, the United States has that explanation. So, like you know all of the things. So everything from our electoral institutions to the fact that we have primaries, to the kinds of cleavages that we have, to everything. But there's a good case to be made that if we found a way to allow third and fourth parties to emerge, then the cleavages within the parties could be expressed in a way that didn't bring down the whole party in its electoral efforts.

Speaker 2:

We've lived through different eras in the United States, the eras in which government and politics are shaped by different coalitions, different issues. I guess I'm wondering how you would characterize the forces that are shaping American politics today and maybe into the near future.

Speaker 1:

Well, I think that, like, if you want to sort of sum it all up into some place, there's some, there's a populist movement and it's around the world that the parties are having a hard time reacting to, and part of it's because the populist movement, like all populist movements, you know, has elements that are problematic, and so you don't want to just say, okay, we're just going to appeal to your you know cultural identity as Americans and we're going to trash experts and give you a commanding figure that you can get excited about and that kind of thing, which is, you know, one way in which you can kind of tap into the this populism. But people are frustrated, and part of it's that you know the state where you're in with the current um, you know global economy and people are struggling to to succeed and trouble that, struggling to uh, um, have the kind of life that they thought they were going to have, things that they thought were um, were, you know, guarantees or not so much guaranteed and all the rest of it, um, and I don't know what. We know how to deal with that, and so different parties are offering, uh, solutions that they're struggling with. But I do think that, like there are solutions. There are answers to this and there are things that we can do to be to do better, helping working people and voters and make them, you know, give them the kinds of things that they're asking for. But the party system is struggling.

Speaker 1:

I think Republicans, as an electoral speaking, electorally speaking, the Republicans have done a better job because they've got a leader, an appeal that taps into things that frustrated populists want, but that comes at perhaps the cost of some of the principles of democracy that we think are important and certainly comes at a cost of appeals to racial identity and American identity that might be corrosive. Democrats are having a harder time appealing to this and trying to hold their coalition together, but that, I think, is the ultimate thing, and I do maybe I'm more of an optimist. I do feel like there is a solution that can be found for this and that you know will come out the back end of it with something that isn't a, you know, return to a totalitarian period or something Not that that's not on the menu, so to speak.

Speaker 2:

Well, to that point, and recognizing that you're an optimist and that you may have to some degree answered the question, but to put a fine point on it, through the lens of this conversation and your research, how concerned are you about liberal democracy in the United States?

Speaker 1:

I mean I am pretty concerned, right. I mean I say like long term, things will get, you know, find some place, but long term, germany today is a thriving democracy and has a lot of success and it went through a very tough period, right. So, you know, it's like long term, it could still be. In the medium term, including, like the rest of my lifetime things could be really, really ugly.

Speaker 1:

I think that there are a lot of people who are so frustrated with politics that they're willing to give up basic democratic principles, like, you know, congressional representation and they don't respect the role that those things play. They don't understand the role that that plays and we don't do a very good job of defending that. So things I mean right now, things look pretty grim. The source of optimism I have is that there are a lot of people who I see noticing this and are hoping to do something about it. You know my students, and this is part of part of what keeps me optimistic is I talk to students who are, you know, they see problems and they're frustrated and they're, you know, don't have a have all the answers, but they want to do things about things, they want to respond, they want to push things into a new and better direction. And they don't always win just like every other generation doesn't always win but they are, they're sort of ready for the fight, but I think a fight is coming.

Speaker 2:

OK, final question You're ready for it? Sure, what's something interesting you've been reading, watching, listening to or doing lately, and it doesn't have to be related to this topic, but it can be Sure.

Speaker 1:

I love this kind of question and I also never have a good answer for it. But since we've just been talking a lot about you know sort of people struggling and class and everything else, I'll just say that I, you know, we just I'm a pop culture guy and I'm watching you know shows and movies and everything else, and we just finished watching Severance, which I think is, first of all, it's just great. If you haven't seen it, somebody go check it out. It is really interesting. It's a really great story.

Speaker 1:

The basic premise of it is is that you could imagine separating your memories into the past sorry, what you do at work and what you do outside of work, and you basically have two identities that evolve forward. But you do outside of work and basically have two identities that evolve forward. But the show is really a metaphor then for how our relationship is to work and what we do and our relationship to our bosses and our employers and what our employers do to us. And so it's got a very sort of both populist element to it and an almost Marxist element to it in a lot of ways, and yet Marxist element to it in a lot of ways, and yet it's a white collar work environment that it depicts, and I'm pretty sure that the people who are watching it are mostly, you know, more educated, not what we think of as sort of working class consumers, and I think that's telling that that appeal of these kinds of clashes and the need to resist the man and the corporations and religions that are shaping our world is something that you know, white collar middle class and upper middle class consumers find appealing, and I think that's because these same dynamics are sort of present and the same concerns are present across everything, and that may be one of the reasons.

Speaker 1:

One of the difficulties that the Democratic Party has is that it's sort of made up of people who watch severance but not people who actually live through the really difficult things that some people are living through, at least the leadership of the party, and so while they have empathy for the sort of fight that working class voters are having, they also see it on their own context and they're having, you know, they're having a hard time figuring out how to address all those questions, and so maybe it's, you know, everything I watch kind of ties back into the things that I'm thinking about, but I see a lot of that in Severance, which is also just a great show and I'd recommend people see it.

Speaker 2:

I think you're making an interesting point here, because I've often wondered about shows that are carrying a much deeper kind of social and cultural point, that I think have political components or that would fit nicely in political arena for some type of attention. You're talking about severance, but I also think about shows like Billions and even Succession that are really touching on, I think, issues you know kind of across the electorate that are important to people, the electorate, that are important to people, and I always find it fascinating when these are very popular shows but they don't really generate some type of a movement around the issue that you'd think it might. Like it does have its finger on a pulse, but it's not really moving beyond that. I wonder if maybe you're hitting on the reason, and that is who the consumer is.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, that may be part of it. I think you know it's a piece of it, but it's also, you know it is. It's a piece of it, but it's also, you know it is just. It's also true that, like you know, people who have more leisure time, more free time to do other things, you know they're often the workhorses in political movements, at least in organizing right, and they organize other people who then go on to do other stuff, but people you know, cultural things that tap into frustrations, and of course, you just you watch the show and then it's like, ok, well, I had some expression of my, my concerns, and maybe that's all that I have time for.

Speaker 1:

And we don't have, meanwhile, institutions that are designed to sort of organize and bring that energy into politics, to sort of organize and bring that energy into politics. And here's where I think you know the importance of political parties as institutions is often overlooked, where you need organizations to then bring people together and say, ok, we are the Democratic Party and this is what we care about. And, by the way, you know you saw this fight on severance the other day and this will, you know, this should inspire you in this direction. We're the Republican Party, we care about these things. We saw this fight on severance the other day and this should inspire you in this direction. We're the Republican Party and we care about these things, and you saw this fight on.

Speaker 1:

Whatever show that you're tapping into, that is energizing you maybe the same show and it energizes you in this way. But the sort of grassroots-level party organizations are not as central to people's politics as they once were. I don't know how we build that back or whether it needs to be the parties per se, but that kind of institutional organization is, you know, is the next step, and we do see it occasionally. I know that there's like there are movements, you know, in response to the Trump administration right now that are, you know, building out institutions, but we don't have the kind of institutional capacity to do politics that the moment it calls for.

Speaker 2:

Dr Noel, thanks for being here. I truly appreciate the time.

Speaker 1:

Oh, thank you. This was a great conversation. I had a lot of fun.

Speaker 2:

If this conversation should make anything clear, it's this the American party system is at a pivotal moment. The Republican Party's transformation into a Trumpist movement and the Democratic Party's struggle to find its footing signal deep shifts in our political landscape. Americans, we hold power to shape this realignment by mobilizing within local party structures, by demanding accountability from leaders and by supporting grassroots movements that prioritize democracy and inclusive governance over oligarchic and corrupting influence. Whether this moment leads to renewal influence Whether this moment leads to renewal and it really could or further polarization, which it also really could depends on collective action to bridge existing divisions and sweep this Trump era into the dustbin of history. All right, check back next week for another episode of Deep Dive Chat. Soon, folks. Thank you, thank you.

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Shawn C. Fettig

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