America may be in a reinforcing feedback loop of growing inequality and Republican rule

Democrats really are in big trouble for the foreseeable future.

Updated by Lee Drutman on November 4, 2015, 12:00 p.m. ET @leedrutman

There is a debate emerging on these pages (and elsewhere) as to whether the Democrats are in deep trouble.

Vox's Matt Yglesias thinks they are. Not only, he notes, do Republicans now hold majorities in the US House and the Senate, but the GOP also now has unified control of 25 state legislatures, while Dems control only seven. More significantly, Republicans are using their power. They are going after unions, which have traditionally been a key organizing force for Democrats. And they are enacting stricter voting rules, which tend to disenfranchise those voters most likely to vote for Democrats.

Political scientist Phil Klinkner has disagreed, arguing that there is a natural, almost "thermostatic" ebb and flow to partisan fortunes in America. When one party controls the White House, public opinion naturally moves against that party. Put a Republican in the White House, he argues, and voters across the country will readjust to favor Democrats.

Who is right? It depends on whether you think American democracy operates primarily by balancing feedback loops (in which partisan electoral victories are always short-lived because they provoke an equal but opposite reaction) or primarily by reinforcing feedback loops (in which electoral victories translate into policy victories that can cement long-term advantages).

Almost certainly, it's a little bit of both. But the timelines on which these loops operate vary. Reinforcing feedback loops are likely to prevail for the immediate future, possibly even for decades. Balancing feedback loops operate over much larger timescales.

Or, shorter version: Yglesias is probably right. Democrats likely are in deep trouble for the next few decades, barring any unexpected changes.

The macrohistorical perspective

While party fortunes certainly do ebb and flow from election to election (and, yes, in some opposition to White House control, as per Klinkner and others), these ups and downs are secondary to a larger pattern in American politics. Traditionally, there has always been one dominant and one secondary party — a "sun" party and a "moon" party, as Samuel Lubell once famously labeled it.

Read more...
http://www.vox.com/polyarchy/2015/11/4/9665842/republican-inequality-future-loop