With apologies to my co-author's fixation on the wisdom of political "scientists," I think that while historically the rules of the game have forced an eventual gravitation back to a two party equilibrium, they do NOT necessitate that this ALWAYS be the case at every given point in history. There was not always a Republican party and there need not always be a Republican party. A "Bull Moose" party and a "Dixiecrat" party have each won substantial electoral votes just this century -- enough to decide presidential races.
Imagine the GOP disappearing tomorrow -- declaring financial and ideological Chapter 7 bankruptcy and just going away. Would that force the United States into a one-party state under Democratic governance, or would something else evolve quickly to restore competition?
I think the GOP walking off the field would cause chaos all across the political spectrum - and it might even be healthy.
In all likelihood, two or more "third" parties would swiftly evolve and organize from the debris of the GOP. While this would clearly split what was the GOP voter base, these new parties would also draw in otherwise independent voters who have recently made temporary homes as Democrats.
A fiscally conservative, socially indifferent party that was neither in favor of nor opposed to gay marriage or stem cell research would draw in a very different -- to say nothing of wealthier and younger -- voter than does today's GOP. But obviously this comes at the cost of the GOP voters who care deeply about those social issues and want it in their platform.
At least one faction of the GOP remains would be those social-issue voters, and maybe this group is indifferent toward the fiscal issues (not hostile to the economic stuff, mind you, just "big tent" agnostic.) This gives them a wedge to steal union votes and the votes of older Americans from the independent and even current Democratic columns.
Other emphasis and combinations are possible and likely -- I just point out the easy fault lines.
To imagine an only slightly wild hypothetical: Consider a party that opposed abortion, gay marriage, trade with China and highly paid CEOs -- but strongly supported firearms ownership and labor unions. In Michigan, such a populist hybrid would match up VERY well against BOTH of the existing parties.
Meanwhile, if you have chaos in the wake of the GOP going away, there is no longer any relevancy to Democrats frightening their most liberal members away from Ralph Nader or points further Left. A vote for the Green Party or other leftist crusades can no longer can be portrayed as handing an election to the Republicans. Uber-leftist Democrats would no longer need to fear voting all on principle -- if for no other reason than they'd be watching the old GOP voters gleefully endorsing their own radical notions.
Consider the already shaky alliance of environmentalists and industrial labor that got tested when John Dingell's committee perch was yanked away. Absent the unifying force of the GOP on the other side to keep everybody on the same team, there's a much more powerful incentive for those competing forces to go their own way when they don't get their way.
Implosion of the GOP identity would likely and swiftly lead to chaos on the other side of the aisle as well.
In the end, I agree that something like a two party system would eventually re-form -- because of the imperative to win an electoral majority every four years if nothing else. But the two party system that came out of a mess such as this need not look anything like the alliances that we have now and probably would not.
A strong third party -- such as the Bull Moose or Dixiecrats -- could also drive this same kind of evolution in both parties. Much that is the modern GOP is a result of Dixiecrat Strom Thurmand winning four southern states that had traditionally been Democratic for generations.
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