U.S. Politics Realign Into Populists Versus Neoliberals

[Geee]

The Federalist:

Donald Trump and Sen. Bernie Sanders’ emergence into the political scene has potentially irreversibly altered the political landscape as we know it. Both candidates represent a form of their respective party’s ideological populism taken to its logical extreme.

On the right, Trump has galvanized a faction of the Republican Party that is more interested in protectionist trade and immigration policies than in party orthodoxy on free markets and low taxes. On the left, Sanders has satiated the Democratic Party base’s yearning for an unabashed economic socialism to confiscate wealth from the rich to redistribute to the middle and lower classes.

 

The success of both candidates has exposed deep ideological rifts in their respective party’s governing coalition that has the potential to undo a generation-old political order. The previous political dividing line of liberals versus conservatives is no longer sufficient to describe the fault line in contemporary politics; instead, the major difference fracturing both parties is one of populism versus neoliberalism.

 

Destroying Reagan’s Three-Legged Stool

 

The last major political realignment occurred with Ronald Reagan’s ascendance to the presidency in 1980. Reagan built a Republican coalition built on the three-legged stool of conservatism: fiscal conservatism, social conservatism, and neoconservatism. In this political realignment, Reagan seized disaffected working-class voters and foreign policy hawks from Democrats to form, respectively, the social conservative and neoconservative legs of the three-legged stool. This conservative coalition has been the foundation of the Republican Party ever since.

[Valin]

 

On the right, Trump has galvanized a faction of the Republican Party that is more interested in protectionist trade and immigration policies than in party orthodoxy on free markets and low taxes.

 

Disagree. DT appeals to those who are "Mad as hell and are not gonna take it anymore".

 

As I have posted at TOS "Ok, you're mad, I'm mad, my 3rd cousin twice removed on my mothers side is mad....But Donald Trump!....Really?

 

 

 

On the contrary, neoliberals would comprise Mead’s Jeffersonian American political tradition. Jeffersonians believe the United States should actively participate in international relations and pursue a more business-friendly domestic economic policy. Neoliberals represent the business elites who favor global trade agreements, interventionist foreign policy to protect American interests abroad, and pro-business economic policies. Neoliberals support subsidies to business, liberal immigration policies, industry deregulation, and a lighter tax burden. The neoliberal’s base of support would exist primarily in the coast and urban centers.

 

What is the downside of this? Also what exactly does pro-business economic policies mean? Dose he mean crony capitalism, or getting the Federal Government out of the way of business? Because both can be called Pro-Business.

 

 

Thing is what we are seeing in this election is also part of The Hinge of History. Human society is changing...radically, and this confuses frightens people. So they look to a (choose one) Messiah, Leader, Daddy. You could call it blind faith in DT or Bernie.