American politics is now a four-way struggle. Gridlock lies ahead

Hasn't political gridlock been the normal state of affairs since 2006?  The political establishment of both parties has been under attack for at least a decade.  Both parties are being forced to accept a new normal.

The TEA Party movement really did fundamentally change the establishment politics of the Republican Party.  The internecine struggle within the Republican Party weakened both the TEA Party faction and the political establishment.  The Republican Party needed a Donald Trump to introduce chaos and allow the Republican Party to transition to something different.  Do not ignore that Donald Trump overwhelmed both the TEA Party faction and the Republican establishment during the 2016 primaries.  Trump has transformed the Republican Party with renewed purpose and priorities.  The results of the 2020 election shows that the Republican Party remade by Trump is politically competitive.  Today's Republican Party is still uncertain what it represents; that is still a work in progress.  But there is no denying that the Republican Party has changed.  IMO the Republican Party will eventually settle upon a mixture of policy priorities that resemble those of Eisenhower, Goldwater, and George H. W. Bush.  

The Democratic Party, on the other hand, has yet to face the future.  Joe Biden did not unite the Democratic Party.  The nomination of Joe Biden did not translate into down ballot success.  The Democratic base is more deeply divided over the purpose and priorities that Democrats should pursue.  Joe Biden may actually encounter more opposition from Democrats than from Republicans because the various factions within the Democratic Party will be vying for Presidential support.  Joe Biden pursuing incremental symbolic gestures through executive action is not going to unite the Democratic Party.  The large voter turnout has diminished the value of racial politics.  Democrats cannot plan for low voter turnout among Republicans in the future so must appeal to a different and broader set of issues.  The establishment of the Democratic Party will likely attempt the stale politics of introducing poison pills that ensure Republican opposition as they have done for well over a decade.  But that tactic may not retain support from the Democratic base.  The political base of both parties have been rejecting that establishment status quo and may punish the Democratic establishment at the polls.

Gridlock is the very likely outcome in the near term.  But using gridlock to avoid changing either political party will ultimately be punished by voters.  The Republican Party has changed but may backslide without someone like Trump prodding them.  The Democratic Party has been actively taking steps to avoid change and protect the party establishment.  The divisions between the parties will be accompanied by increasing divisions within the parties.  The next four years may prove to be very tumultuous indeed.

S E E D E D   C O N T E N T

Everyone agrees that American political parties are deeply polarized. However, last week's elections point to a new political dynamic. While there's no doubt that the two main parties remain bitterly hostile to one another, new fault lines within them will take center-stage.

Intra-party factions have a long history in American politics and have often been engines of change. Emerging now is a four-way struggle between ideologically distinct factions, which may render compromise difficult.

The American political landscape increasingly resembles European multi-party systems, which rely on delicate and shifting coalitions that inevitably have a strong centrist bias. Looking under the hood of America's two big parties, it is evident that the current factions have the potential to yield similar outcomes.

The main fault-line within the Democratic Party is well-known. There's a deep programmatic divide between a progressive faction, advancing bold but controversial policy proposals such as Medicare for All and the Green New Deal, and a more centrist party establishment, focused on electability and bi-partisanship.

Interestingly, both factions have claimed validation from the recent elections. Centrists point to Biden's increased vote share among white males in the Rust Belt states as evidence that flipping swing-voters is the most reliable way to electoral success. Meanwhile, progressives underscore that their candidates did well in many congressional races, increased youth and minority turnout, and that the size of the so-called Squad almost doubled in the House.

Division within the Democratic party is likely to intensify. Biden has already signaled that he intends to govern by seeking to find common ground with the Republicans willing to work with his administration. This will frustrate progressives, who argue that moving towards the center is a recipe for losing further congressional seats in 2022.

Republicans are also divided. Despite losing the election, Trump has retained the loyalty of all but a rump of Never-Trump usual suspects who have been consistently critical of him. Clearly, Trump - or Trump-ism - aren't going away. The President performed better than expected in these elections and is reportedly considering running again in 2024. So he will remain a powerful force within the party, savaging anyone willing to work with the Democrats.

Yet the rest of the Republican party did well electorally, picking up seats in the House and in state legislatures. If they also manage to retain control of the Senate, the prospect of scoring some policy victories may embolden a more pragmatic faction of Republicans, willing to cooperate with the Democrats. Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell has already made clear that a Biden administration would have to compromise, on Republican terms, or expect systematic obstruction.

The latent cleavage within the Republican Party mirrors the explicit one within the Democratic Party. In both parties, there is a radical wing ready to pour scorn on a more centrist one for opposite but ultimately symmetrical reasons: making too many concessions to the other side.

The consequence will be a four-way struggle, with only two concrete possibilities for effective government, both of which appear improbable. One is cooperation between the two centrist factions across party lines, which would have to crystallize around a moderate, pro-business agenda. While this is likely to please Wall Street, it is also sure to inflame the two more radical factions in both parties.

The other option - which depends on a Democratic capture of the Senate - is a leftward shift of the Democratic party. But that would surely alienate centrist Republicans, creating an unbridgeable gulf between the two parties.

All the other alternatives point to institutional gridlock. In fact, political scientists argue that such gridlock can be strategic when intra-partisan conflicts run deep: extreme factions on both sides encourage obstruction as a set-up for the next election, when they hope their side will increase its power at the ballot box. Refusing to make compromises can be good electoral strategy - even if it is bad for governing.

The paradox emerging from these elections is this: although ideological conflict is at a fever-pitch high, both between and within the parties, the most likely outcome remains a modest and incremental policy agenda.