Interview
The Issues May Change and the Map May Evolve, but America’s Two-Party System Endures A Q&A with Michael Barone What country has the oldest political party in the world? If you guessed America, you are right. In fact, the United States not only has the oldest political party, but the third oldest party in the world, as well. The Democratic Party was founded in 1832 to reelect Andrew Jackson, while the Republican Party was founded in 1854 to oppose slavery in the territories. The parties are older than almost every American business, most American colleges, and many American churches. Both have seemed to face extinction in the past, and both have rebounded to be competitive again. How have they done it? Veteran political observer Michael Barone provides an answer to that question in his latest book, How America’s Political Parties Change (And How They Don’t). In it, Barone -- who serves as a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and writes a column for the Washington Examiner -- argues that both parties have survived by adapting, swiftly or haltingly, to shifting public opinion and emerging issues, to economic change and cultural currents, and to demographic flux. At the same time, Barone argues, each party has maintained a constant character. The Republican Party appeals to “typical Americans” as understood at a given time, and the Democratic Party represents a coalition of “outgroups.” They are the yin and yang of American political life, together providing vehicles for expressing most citizens’ views in a nation that has always been culturally, religiously, economically, and ethnically diverse. With the 2020 campaign now officially underway, The Ripon Forum asked Barone about the role of political parties today and how the electoral map has shifted in recent years. We also ask him about the election of Donald Trump, which he called a course correction, and whether the country is on track to see another correction this year. Finally, we ask Barone whether the time is right to establish a third major political party in the United States – which many pundits have long been calling for, and polls indicate a majority of Americans support.
RF: At a time when many pundits are predicting the end of political parties, you have written a book arguing that America’s two parties are not going anywhere and are more resilient than ever. Could you talk for a moment about this resilience and why you believe the parties continue to be relevant? MB: I believe the parties are resilient because each of them has, even while changing its positions on issues many times, maintained a certain basic character, personality, DNA over many years. The Republican Party has always been formed around a core constituency of people considered, by themselves and others, as typical Americans — but who are never by themselves a majority. The Democratic Party has always been a coalition of out-groups—people not considered, by themselves or others, as typical Americans but who taken together can be a majority. In a nation characterized from its colonial beginnings by diversity — religious, cultural, regional, ethnic, racial, economic diversity — parties of this character can provide an appropriate form of expression and advocacy for the large bulk of a diverse citizenry.
anchored in the South, you write that this base shifted with the election of Donald Trump in 2016 to also include parts of the Midwest. Could you talk about this shift and its implications for the election this year? MB: This is the first presidential election in some time — I would have to go back over the data to see just when, or if ever, this has been the case — that the Midwest has voted more like the South than like the East or West. (By the way, I depart from the Census Bureau definition of the regions by assigning Delaware, Maryland and the District of Columbia to the East rather than the South.) The Midwest’s increasing resemblance to the South was largely the result of vote switches outside the Midwest’s major metro areas (which I define as those areas with a one million-plus population and in addition I also include metro Madison, Wisconsin). I call these areas, which include about half the Midwest’s population, the Outstate Midwest. Majorities of voters there are non-college whites, with much smaller percentages of white college graduates, blacks, and Hispanics than you find in the Midwest’s major metropolitan areas.
RF: One thing that is evolving is the electoral map. Whereas the Republican base in recent years has been
RF: Let’s talk for a moment about the President. You argue that his election did not represent a “gigantic
24
RIPON FORUM February 2020
