The Republican and Democratic Parties Are Heading for Collapse

Lee Drutman wrote about the cyclical nature of American political crisis and transformation for Foreign Policy.

Broadly speaking, U.S. politics has had six party systems—that is, distinct eras in which party competition was somewhat stable, both in the relative balance of power between the parties and in the types of issues that the parties fought over, such as the role of government in the economy. These eras roughly covered 1796-1820, 1832-1856, 1868-1892, 1896-1928, 1932-1968, and 1980 until now. The transitions between each system were generally led from the top down, through rifts and realignments in elite coalitions and ideologies, typically catalyzed by societal crises. The first five party systems lasted, by this count, 24, 24, 24, 32, and 36 years—a certain regularity, with the length expanding as people lived longer. By this pattern, the current party system should probably be collapsing about now.

Overlaid on this pattern of party system and collapse are four major periods of bottom-up democratic transformation in the United States. These are the Revolutionary War (from monarchy to self-governance), the 1830s (major expansion of the franchise to nonpropertied white males), the Progressive Era (major expansions of participatory democracy and expansion of the franchise to women), and the 1960s (voting rights and enfranchisement of Black people, plus some governance reforms). Again, there’s a regular pattern, with some kind of transformation coming about every 60 years or so. Here, too, the United States is due for a wave of bottom-up democratic transformation.

It may seem unlikely that such a complex political system really transforms with semiregularity. And it may seem that this moment is unique, given the unusual confluence of factors the United States is facing, most notably the hyperpartisanship of its politics and sharp racial and cultural differences that seem to power the divide between the parties.

Certainly, past performance is no guarantee of future returns. And no doubt, there are elements of current U.S. politics that make the chances of another transformation and renewal deeply uncertain. But the lessons of history have value. They can tell us what looks like charted territory, what looks like uncharted territory, and what updates are needed to keep the United States’ creaky old system of self-governance working.