1hundredsixty8

For the last few months, I’ve been beating the drum for the march to the demise of the two-party system. I have coupled my observations with, among others, those of the Washington Post’s conservative blogger Jennifer Rubin and Rolling Stone’s Matt Taibbi. The latter, in particular, regularly offers a serving of meta-cynicism in relating the antics of our political leaders. In a post yesterday, he offers the narrative of a Democratic Party in peril of being engulfed by the same sort of fracturing currently afflicting the Republicans.

Taibbi’s thesis is that the Democratic establishment will draw the wrong conclusion from Hillary Clinton’s victory over Bernie Sanders. Because the Democratic leadership- much like their Republican counterparts- are creatures of the the Beltway bubble,  they have come to believe that “the only action that matters is inside the palace.” They are in danger of missing the truly significant takeaway from this year’s primaries- the emergence of a progressive populism animated by a younger demographic that is more than an “organic expression of mass disgust.”

You would think that, with their vaunted data operations, our political elites would understand that millennials are now the largest segment of the population and are poised to have an impact on electoral politics in the near future.

I should begin a pool on what year we will see the first four-party contests for Congress. My money’s on 2028.  

You?