I wonder if the liberal/conservative divide has run its course in American politics? We seem to be at an apex for the two ideologies...at least from the perspective of the House of Representatives. Hell, I'm not even sure what the words liberal and conservative mean politically anymore. I've had this notion that liberality was about embracing change or at least trying something new; that is was akin to progression...future thinking and that conservativism was about preserving the status quo or even retrogressing to a time or way of doing things perceived to be better than the way they are being done now. Liberalism was about trying out untested ideas and Conservativism was about proven ones (even if those ideas had been proven ill-advised).
Yet that's not what the words mean. Like how "theory" means one thing to scientists and means quite the opposite colloquially, liberal and conservative, when worn as political labels, take on very different senses from the dictionary senses of the words.
But where do we go from here? If liberalism and conservativism are on the way out, what ideologies replace them?
In the past, there were liberal and conservative Democrats as well as liberal and conservative Republicans. What was their ideological dividing line? What did the parties back then ultimately disagree on before reaching an apex that allowed the current liberal/conservative paradigm reign?
I'm not sure. I'm guessing this was the turn of the century (the 20th one) right up and through World War II that defined it. I imagine it came to a head in the McCarthy era. The Cold War paranoia may have ended the one reign bringing about the current liberal/conservative divide.
Or maybe it goes back further to the ascendancy of the Republican party. Abraham Lincoln was its first President and soon after the Whig party died out. Perhaps a third party will rise soon in this country, electing its first President causing one of the two major parties to go extinct (I'd bank on the Republicans going extinct because they seem to be rushing headlong into it with their Tea Party and overzealous conservative factions).
What might tomorrow's paradigm be? Libertarianism/authoritarianism? Labor/Capitalists?
Personally I'd hope for the rise of a true labor party in this country. One emerging paradigm is the Haves vs. the Have Nots and there's a lot of Have Nots in this country who are unrepresented in government or at best marginally so. Congress is comprised as a percentage of their body by many more millionaires than are present as a percentage of the nation's population. Congress is also heavy on lawyers and businessmen. As Neil deGrasse Tyson asked (and I'm paraphrasing), where are the engineers, the scientists, the teachers, the service industry, the philosophers, hell even the ditchdiggers? Can we truly be represented by a government if that government's representatives do not even remotely resemble its constituencies?
Personally I'd like to see a political party comprised of the actual poor, working, and middle classes and if any of its leaders are wealthy, they should have worked their way up to it. They should know intimately what it is like to be in the trenches so to speak.
I would think the next divide would be between labor and the capitalists. The Republicans seem almost totally comprised of the latter category and the Democrats mostly so. What about the rest of us?
But given the very close, very bipartisan vote on defunding the NSA (I believe it was 217 - 205 against defunding it), perhaps the next partisan divide that will shake up and reorganize the parties will be that of libertarians and authoritarians (though I'm sure the latter side will pick a better moniker). Privacy versus Need to Know.
I hope something happens in the next few election cycles because this current stalemate between the two parties is preventing the government from governing at all and it's really annoying. To paraphrase a line from Babylon 5, the two parties are like divorcing parents fighting in front of their children and trying to make those children choose sides. It's one or the other we're told. I just look forward to a modern-day John Sheridan who can rise up and remind us that we don't need either of those parties anymore.
As a Facebook friend suggested, we need to form the Mercutio Party...a pox on both your houses!...and figure out our own way through liberalism and conservativism; libertarianism and authoritarianism; labor and capitalists; privacy and publicity; individualism and community; etc. etc. etc.
ADDENDUM: This Daily Kos rant I offer as an example adding weight to my argument that the next division will be between labor and capitalists. If professionals organize in this country into guilds like screen actors and writers have in Hollywood, then I think the country will begin moving toward a real middle class again. Loyalty to companies seems a quaint and antiquated notion these days. It is further brought about by declining benefits and loss of pensions. Why bother sticking around? Accountants, lawyers, secretaries, hell even clerks, et al. need to organize into guilds.
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