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Going the Way of the Whigs 1834-1854

Going the Way of the Whigs
24.january.2021

As I commented elsewhere: "The news has been 'calmer' without T stirring the pot and adding eye-of-Hillary, soiled lace and arsenic to his cauldron of conspiracies.

There are so many issues that need to be tackled.

Did you hear that there's a killer pandemic out there?

Obviously, T hadn't.

So, yeah. I think that to move forward we all need a break and there's some glimmer of hope that a certain Ghost of a President-Past won't distract us."

Is it time for the Republican Party to give up the ghost? Doubtful, but political parties don't last forever.

In US history we have had presidents from the Federalists, the Democrat-Republicans and Whigs. All gone now. The Whigs lasted 1834-1854.

There have been attempts at 3rd parties on the national level but because of how our system is rigged to reduce the choice to two they don't get enough support to persist. If we had a multi-party set-up the Greens and Libertarians would probably be in Congress or at least have some power at the state level.

Schisms such as the Dixiecrats (1948, 1968) and Populists (1892-1909) and Progressives (1912-1920) made waves but no tsunami. The Democrat Party (1828- ) is perhaps the oldest party in the world still operating.

T has threatened to start his own party. The prognosis is that a three party system would be unstable unless proportional government (like Europe, Costa Rica) replaces the current system.

The choice then would be right-wing nationalism and nativism versus fiscal conservatives.

There is no way to predict how that would work out. With T as the leader... it could get very messy.

Could the Republicans, founded 1854, go the way of the Whigs and just disappear? Doubtful, but it could further morph or split.

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