COMMENTARY: We do have two parties — they are just different
The primary election victory of Zohran Mamdani for mayor of New York City has brought clarity rather than confusion to conversations and rants about the death of our two-party system. It is alive and well, but different.
Liberal and conservative are no longer the defining philosophies that shape the parties and their policies. Under this system, Bill Clinton was able to successfully triangulate to own the middle ground and have a successful second term in office. Under these rules, conservative Barry Goldwater was deemed to be dangerous and Ronald Reagan unifying.
As the nation shifted from right to left and back again over the decades, there was a general sense that the political system was predictable and reflected the will of the American people. Within this paradigm, Lyndon Johnson, Franklin Roosevelt, Richard Nixon and Warren Harding were all elected with greater than 60 percent of the popular vote. George McGovern won only one state and 17 electoral votes in 1972, and Walter Mondale won only his home state and 14 electoral votes in 1984.
Ronald Reagan was denied the nomination of his party or place on the ticket in 1968 and 1976 by mainstream Republicans, and Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont met a similar fate in 2016 and 2020, despite winning 23 states and 43 percent of the Democratic primary vote in 2016.
In 2024, Donald Trump would certainly not be considered a conservative acolyte of Edmund Burke or a follower of William F. Buckley Jr., and Kamala Harris was not grounded in the philosophy of Thomas Paine or the views of Arthur Schlesinger Jr. They each represented new perspectives around which they built new coalitions that have transformed politics in America.
Trump’s Republican Party grew out of a reaction to globalism. Trump gave voice to this position, arguing that America should not be conceding wealth and working-class jobs to foreign competitors. His “America First” movement seeks fairer trade deals, a return of manufacturing to America, leveraging American markets to gain a competitive advantage, seeking investment in America’s future, unleashing the power of American energy, streamlining regulations focused on growth, and providing more opportunity to acquire wealth to middle-class Americans.
The new Democratic Party is predicated on the belief that America is a systemically racist and structurally unfair nation that is run by a white patriarchy. It supports global organizations that can put America in its place in global governance. Their foundational belief is that there is not much about America that is worth saving, so something new (progressive) must be created to replace it and create a more equitable America.
Trump’s Republican Party is a hybrid. It is pro-growth and pro-labor; forward-thinking and traditional. Trump embraces old approaches such as President William McKinley’s position on tariffs, claiming they are a proven path to prosperity.
A YouGov analysis of Trump’s first term found that 27 percent of his positions were conservative and 16 percent were liberal or moderate. Trump is not rigid ideologically; rather he is flexible and transactional while keeping his eye on the goal of creating a more prosperous America.
The new Democrats have been rumbling for nearly a decade. In 2016, Sanders ran for president and was widely accepted. In 2018, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was elected to Congress as a progressive Democrat. In the years that followed, she would be joined by other progressives forming “The Squad.” At first, they were little more than a sideshow, but as events unfolded, they found their voice.
Trump’s first term provided the opportunity to frame traditional America as racist, sexist and xenophobic. His two impeachments helped legitimize their narrative about him as dangerous and corrupt. COVID-19 restrictions confirmed the limitless potential of government power to control society, and the Capitol riots on Jan. 6 validated their call to protect the American people from Trump’s insurrectionist horde. The anti-Trump meme became the prevailing narrative, and the party coalesced around it.
The progressive view of America manifested under Joe Biden with mandated DEI policies, support for transgender athletes in women’s sports, purposeful anti-white and male bias, gender affirming care for children, sanctuary cities for undocumented immigrants, assaults on police, defacing America’s history, pro-Hamas demonstrations, pervasive antisemitism, and policies that willfully create reverse discrimination. These policies reflected the values of the new Democrats and the framework for an equitable society.
In this context, Mamdani is not an aberration but rather an affirmation of the worldview of this movement. His remedy for lifting the poor and disadvantaged is to uproot our system and replace it with American socialism, to close the “power gap” that defines America.
We do have two parties that are focused on improving the lot of the middle class. Trumpism seeks to supercharge American capitalism. The New Left seeks to uproot capitalism and replace it with American socialism. The next series of elections will be zero-sum battles in which there can be only a victor and the vanquished.
Dennis M. Powell is a strategic issues management consultant and author of the book “Leading from the Top: Presidential Lessons in Issues Management.” He wrote this for InsideSources.com.
