Is it possible that we are seeing the start of a new realignment of American politics since Nixon's Southern Strategy and the rise of the New Left, as well as an end to a Republican attempt of social engineering?

It took the events of September 11 2001 to allow the philosophy of neo-conservatism to come to the unopposed forefront in the Republican Party. The philosophy dictated that the financial and military apparatus of the U.S. nation-state be aimed towards eliminating perceived foreign threats to American interests, and to raise U.S. power and prestige. However, there was indeed an interesting domestic agenda to go along with it. The modern conservative economic philosophy of 'small government' and fiscal balance had long been in decline but the neoconservative-dominated Republican Party gave it the last shove in the back off the GOP wagon.

The Republican Party used the financial apparatus of the state to start a project of social engineering of sorts. The U.S. like other modern liberal democracies was an organism dominated by a bourgeois class which dominated the financial, intellectual, cultural and political life of the country. The Bush Administration, taking its cues from experiences learned by the Reagan Administration as well as its intimate relationship with corporate entities decided to restructure the tax system so that capital and economic activity be further dominated by the most wealthy. It was an effective transfer of political and economic power away from the middle class to Corporate America, and an attempt to undermine the bourgeois nature of the U.S. state in favour of a new plutocratic dominant class.

The experiment brought discontent and falling standards of living amongst the working class who had already been hit hard by neo-liberal open-markets and outsourcing of their higher-paid jobs. The middle class became increasing disconnected from the political process in favour of social conservative Christian groups and the power of wealth and media. The forces of discontent remained under wraps as the Bush Administration used September 11 2001, fear of terrorism and gays and the resulting interventions abroad (jingoism) to constrain dissent at home even about non-foreign policy matters.

The continuance of the current economic arrangement is now unlikely due the Democratic ascendancy in the House of Representatives and the intent to readdress the financial balance in favour of the middle class. The middle class deserted the GOP this election because they had felt disenfranchised by economic restructuring; its intellectual professionals were offended by religious pseudoscience; and the sense that the GOP valued the opinions of (and often beholden to) corporate interests and greed. The bourgeois class had watched Iraq implode into a mess, and political corruption on behalf of the GOP became increasingly unavoidable in the media. The moral hypocrisy on behalf of some Republicans gave the electorate the message that the GOP was not the moral party it said it was. The middle class felt strong enough and sure enough to reassert its control of the political, intellectual and financial life of the country and were willing to use the ballot box to do it despite prodigious Republican fundraising and organisation.

In light of this electoral disaster for the Republicans, they will inevitably attempt to become attractive once again to the middle class. The philosophy of neo-conservatism is not likely to survive this process despite the protestations of thinkers such as Richard Perle who have scapegoated President Bush and other advisers for its ideological failures. The instrument of gay-bashing was not utilised this election, as it was in 2004. The U.S. is slowly becoming more tolerant and GOP hypocrisy on this issue is becoming steadily more noticeable to the electorate. The valuable electoral contribution of the Religious Right for the GOP was less so, with exit polls showing almost a third of evangelicals voting for Democratic candidates. Republican thinkers and strategists will already be thinking about where the GOP goes from here as their electoral base seem to have bottomed out, considering the Democratic sweep of Governor’s Mansions and State Legislatures.

The Democratic Party seems to be in a transitional stage of bringing together a successful political coalition that can bring it some of the success that the New Deal coalition of old did. Pollsters are convinced that blue-collar working class and lower middle class ‘Reagan Democrats’ are returning to the Democratic Party. The Democrats are intent to sit right on the political centre as they have plenty of space to occupy given the Republican jump to the Right. At the moment the Democrats have a coalition where many are voting against Republicans rather than explicitly for Democrats, but their occupation of the centre-ground does put it in a strong position for something more permanent. 

It will be interesting to see if the 2006 mid-term elections will be seminal and formative for future political realignments of the two major parties, and whether the bourgeoisie will once again firmly control the cultural, political and economic life of the United States.

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