A Historic Election

This election was a historic election, and I don't mean in the sense that a half-black guy one and a female VP lost. I mean in a political science sense, this election is one of those elections that shows that there has been a dramatic shift in the political center of the United States, that key voting blocs have re-aligned, and that the rules of the game have changed. It stems from a theory by V.O. Key, if you want to look it up.

Realignment elections happens in American history every now and then- in fact, it happens about pretty regularly for some reason every 30-40 years. Historic re-alignment elections have been 1800, 1828, 1860, 1896, 1932, 1964/1968, and 1980. In each of these elections, voting blocs changed, one party registered large gains across the board, and a different ideology strongly emerged as the dominant one. I would contend that this election of 2008 is also a realigning election.

From 1980, when the great Republican Reagan won, to 2004 when Republican Bush won, our country elected Republicans in 5 of 7 Presidential Elections. And the Republicans that were elected were usually conservative Republicans, and even the one Democrat who won twice, Bill Clinton, was a considered a moderate "Third-Way" Democrat. In Congressional elections, Republicans regained control of Congress in 1994 behind a conservative coalition, and held on to it until 2006. At the state level, Governors and state legislatures were won by Republicans, usually conservative, and governed from the right. Even ballot proposals and initiatives that have been proposed at the grassroots over the last 30 years are largely conservative in nature.

But now things are different. 2006 was an indication that things were changing. And it's not just because Obama won. It is the fact that even though Obama ran as a moderate, he is reality a liberal Democrat. It is the fact that up and down the ticket, at every level of our government, liberal Democrats won election. They won at the local school boards, they won county commissioner seats, they won judge positions- all over the ballot, liberal Democrats won.

Even the grassroots is going liberal. You can see it in the defeat of abortion regulations, it is the expansion of stem cell research, the legalization of drugs, the allowing of assisted suicide, the banning of dog races, and laws against caging chickens. The nation is shifting to the left, and did so in a dramatic way different, and 2008 was the official point it did so.

After re-aligning elections, things usually settle down into a long period of domination of one party, of one ideology, over the other. In my opinion, we are now about to undergo a 30 year period of liberal Democrat control, where they expand the state and government to a level where America no longer exists. Change is coming- accept it.