The Center
The latest addition to the right side of this blog is The Radical Center. So far I’m not too impressed because it states that we are in a period of “dealignment.” In our history there have been a few points at which support for the major political parties has shifted: The 1820s, 1860s, 1890s, 1940s, and, arguably, the 1980s or 1990s. At base, realignment is the reorganization of subgroups among the major parties of the day (the first and second actually involved new parties: the Whigs and Republicans, respectively). The idea behind dealignment is that party identification has eroded to a point where party doesn’t really matter. It may be true, but what bothers me is that the book doesn’t present any evidence beyond the fact that more people self-identify as “Independent.” What is more important is how the constituent parts of the coalitions are voting. Are they still voting for the same parties? Are they voting in the same numbers?
Maybe it will get better.