POLITICAL parties are never monoliths. As those inside them are ceaselessly aware, they are fractious and fractured. And yet, especially in two-party democracies, they endure. A mixture of delivering the goods their voters desire, dividing spoils between internal factions and adapting to external change allows them to overcome their centrifugal pressures. They even manage, much of the time, to look more or less coherent while doing so. For most of the 20th century most Americans knew, more or less, what their two parties stood for.
These times, though, are out of step. Though political scientists proved slow to pick up on it (see article), America’s parties are more fragmented than usual. The state of the Republicans is particularly parlous. But the contradictions among Democrats, though less obvious, also run deep.
Donald Trump’s run for the presidency has prospered despite lacking all the things parties usually provide for a front-runner: not least strategists and policies, money....Continue reading
Source: United States http://ift.tt/1OTfU4M
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