But now comes Matthew Continetti with the news that the real cleavage between the parties is on peace vs. war. The Democratic Party is the Peace Party and the Republican Party is the War Party.
[The] invasion of Iraq seem to have accelerated a shift begun some 30 years ago: The Democratic party is increasingly linked with the attitudes, tendencies, and policies of peace, whereas the Republican party is increasingly linked with the maintenance and projection of American military power.
Using this analysis the mid-term election of 2006 represents a collapse in support for the war among independents.
Continetti finds that partisan discord over foreign policy has been the norm in US history. The relative agreement during the early Cold War period was unique, and did not really start to break down until after the Vietnam War, really taking off in the Reagan years when Democrats began to identify against the Reagan military buildup.
To Continetti, the new divide between the Peace Party and the Power Party raises all sorts of questions.
But what happens when the peace party holds power of its own and faces a world in which illiberalism is on the march? What happens when the power party faces a revolt in its own ranks? What does it mean when the party of the social elite identifies more closely with those who wish to constrain American power than with those who wish to use it? Will an American failure in Iraq discredit the power party, just as the urban riots and other social dislocations of the late 1960s discredited the party of the Great Society?
The divide promises an interesting political future. The Democrats believe that war is never the answer. We shall see. On the other hand the Republicans have clearly burned their fingers in the mess in Iraq. Projection of power is not always the answer.
It seems fairly obvious that the mess in Iraq is going to discredit the Power Party. For now. The question is, what comes next?
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