In this piece, Lee Drutman explores the political implications of the emergent splits between the different wings of the Republican Party.
The crack-up of the Republican-business alignment doesn’t necessarily mean that corporate America won’t continue to succeed in Washington. It just means that there won’t be one clearly pro-business party. Instead, for the immediate future, both parties will likely have corporatist and populist wings, and businesses’ successes will come from careful building and nurturing of cross-party coalitions. (Though eventually, I expect Democrats to be the pro-business, urban cosmopolitan party while Republicans become the nationalist populist exurban party as my New America colleague Michael Lind has also predicted.)
All of this will lead to a period of depolarization, in which a corporatist-populist dimension of politics will exist somewhat separate from the long-standing Democratic-Republican dimension of political conflict. Or, put another way, both parties will have internal insider-outsider conflicts for a period of time, making them looser coalitions.
This will offer some new opportunities for populists who want to challenge corporate power, creating openings that did not exist until recently. It’s a real chance for political entrepreneurs to challenge some of the most egregious upward-redistributing policies.
You can read the full article on Vox at: http://www.vox.com/polyarchy/2016/5/2/11565278/gop-big-business-alliance