Realignment? I Think Not

The wave of love that has cascaded over the internet (at least) since Obama's election is warm and cuddly. So are predictions that reek of the Republicans not-so-long-ago predictions of a permanent majority in their favor. The question of whether this past election was a "realignment" or not won't be known for, well, at least four years (and probably quite longer than that) but the data does not look good. A great study of the realignment phenomenon and its historical relevance can be found here. Note, for example, the flip-flopping of New York State as shifting the power balance for Grover Cleveland in 1884, 1888, and 1892, and the fundamentally massive shifts (fueled by ideological distinctions) that took place in these pivot-point elections that appear to be nowhere to be seen today.

Even so, the closeness of the Bush victories means that a relatively minor shift could have lasting import for national politics. For example, if North Carolina and Virginia are bellweathers of a long-term shift in the South back towards Democrats, then that would be significant (though I'm not sure what, exactly, that would say about the Democratic party). But remember that Clinton won Arkansas, Louisiana, Tennessee, Kentucky, West Virginia, and Georgia - and of such victories did not a permanent majority make.

It seems, in this age, that electoral decisions are made more on the basis of personality and the national mood (and, therefore, how each candidate becomes stereotyped through a not-too-complicated dance between the media and their campaign) than on the types of issues that divided the nation during the realignment elections. Such might be, as it were, the difference between living in Rome during its ascent (i.e., the tale-end of the Republic and the beginning of the Pax Romana - c. 133 BCE-106 CE), as opposed to its long and glorious heyday (c. 106 CE - 376). Maybe when those distinctions return, we shall truly know we are living in the twilight of the American Empire. I severely doubt I will live to see the setting of the American sun, however; and until then, though "the dawning of a new day for America" is a (drawn out) circumlocution for hope, it need not actually indicate anything substantial. We ride a pendulum back and forth, back and forth.

And on that pendulum, we hope for continued demographic gains and stability in states with large blocs in the electoral college. Yet as we do so, I also fear the excess baggage of those who join us on our team, like the Obama bumpers who also seemed to effect the passing of Proposition 8 in California.