The 2024 presidential race once again pits elites versus the people. Viewed historically, there is nothing unusual in this juxtaposition. What makes this race unusual is how definitively the parties have switched the group they represent.
While the campaign rhetoric may lag — and Democrats will assuredly deny — the reality of each party has flipped.
In the 1950s, French political scientist Maurice Duverger theorized that in states where winner-take-all elections award offices, a two-party system would emerge. The reasoning is straightforward: Both parties and voters will realize that two parties maximize the chance of winning while still preserving a differentiation of positions.
Since its inception more than two centuries ago, the U.S. has served to prove Duverger’s Law. While the parties have changed over that time (long gone are the Federalists and the Whigs) — though with decreasing frequency — there have always been just two major ones that have effectively contested elections. For over a century and a half that has meant Democrats and Republicans.
While the system itself has been one of stasis regarding the number of parties and even the particular parties, there has been a continual churn of issues and party positions within them. Yet even here, there has been a conventional perception of who and what Democrats and Republicans represent.
On July 9, 1896, at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, the former congressman from Nebraska, William Jennings Bryan’s, Cross of Gold speech held the delegates spellbound. Bryan had been a dark-horse candidate at best, but with his advocacy for an easy money policy and his oratory —“You shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold”— he stampeded the convention to his nomination.
Bryan seemingly transformed the Democratic Party into the Populist Party. However, the literal opposite occurred: The Populist Party endorsed Bryan in 1896. A major third party, the Populists aspired to break Duverger’s Law and had won over eight percent of the popular vote in 1892 and four western states.
Having both the Populists’ and the Democrats’ endorsements were to no avail to Bryan; he, like almost all Democratic nominees between 1860 and 1932, lost. But what he did achieve was to forge a Democratic legacy of representing the common man.
It is one that today’s Democrats still tenaciously cling to while labeling the Republicans as representing the elite. Yet by any objective standard, that legacy is long gone. Today, Democrats and Republicans have not simply shifted positions on issues or even areas of the country where they are dominant, they have shifted their constituencies at the most basic level: Now Democrats represent the elitists and Republicans are the populists.
Democrats have long dominated the establishment media. This is hardly inconsequential since this was (and still is for many) the way the public stays informed. It is a surprise to no one that college campuses are Democratic nurseries. However, if the aftermath of the Hamas terrorist attacks on Israel has shown America anything, it is just how far left academia is — especially on the most elite college campuses.
Now they also dominate entertainment, sports and the arts. The same applies to science, where nothing short of a cabal exists that enforced groupthink on COVID theories during the pandemic that influenced social media policy. Of course, the same has existed on climate change for years now.
Even the wealthy are far more to the left than the rest of the country. And these wealthy financially back the Left and Democrats too. In the case of some, like George Soros, their support goes far beyond even regular Democrats.
Virtually everywhere there is a group that would have an elite, that elite supports Democrats and Democrats return the favor.
Conversely, look at the Republican side. Trump is nothing if not a populist. And his base is populist too.
In the latest NYT/Siena poll of likely voters, in which Trump trailed Biden 45-47 percent overall, Trump led among voters without a Bachelor of Arts degree 54-39 percent but trailed 59-32 percent among those with the degree. Among those earning less than $50,000 per year, Trump led 49-46 percent; among those making over $100,000, Trump trailed 42-50 percent, and 43-49 percent among those earning $50,000-$100,000.
Assuredly, the rhetoric has not caught up with reality. This is especially true among Democrats. And we should not expect it to during this year’s campaign. Among Republicans, Trump has been the most comfortable with it; this is probably the reason he has won the last two Republican presidential nominations and is essentially lapping his primary opponents now as well: Republicans’ constituents are now populists.
America still has its two-party system. And it still has the same two dominant parties it has had for over a century and a half. But the broad constituencies these two parties represent have not simply changed; these constituencies have fundamentally reversed.
The 2024 race will again be a race of elitists versus populists, just as it was in Bryan’s 1896 race. But this time, it will be a race of Democratic elitists versus Republican populists — and never has this reversal been clearer than it is today.
J.T. Young was a professional staffer in the House and Senate from 1987-2000, served in the Department of Treasury and Office of Management and Budget from 2001-2004, and was director of government relations for a Fortune 20 company from 2004-2023.
Our new political reality: Democratic elitists versus Republican populists
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10.01.2024
The 2024 presidential race once again pits elites versus the people. Viewed historically, there is nothing unusual in this juxtaposition. What makes this race unusual is how definitively the parties have switched the group they represent.
While the campaign rhetoric may lag — and Democrats will assuredly deny — the reality of each party has flipped.
In the 1950s, French political scientist Maurice Duverger theorized that in states where winner-take-all elections award offices, a two-party system would emerge. The reasoning is straightforward: Both parties and voters will realize that two parties maximize the chance of winning while still preserving a differentiation of positions.
Since its inception more than two centuries ago, the U.S. has served to prove Duverger’s Law. While the parties have changed over that time (long gone are the Federalists and the Whigs) — though with decreasing frequency — there have always been just two major ones that have effectively contested elections. For over a century and a half that has meant Democrats and Republicans.
While the system itself has been one of stasis regarding the number of parties and even the particular parties, there has been a continual churn of issues and party positions within them. Yet even here, there has been a conventional perception of who and what Democrats and Republicans represent.
On July 9, 1896, at the Democratic........
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