This article is published in partnership with The Lever, an investigative newsroom.
The 16 years sinceThe Uprisingwas released have delivered much of the tumult I imagined.
The big questions are about intangible vibes, brands, and emotions the forces that now determine elections.
Former President Donald Trump (left). President Joe BIden (right).Andrew Leyden/NurPhoto/Getty Images; Mario Tama/Getty Images
And those questions are haunting: How did the two political parties flip their zeitgeists?
A Realigned Republican Brand
The GOP rebrand was long overdue.
The partys Achilles heel was always its tenuous coalition described in Thomas Franks seminal tomeWhats The Matter With Kansas?
the paradoxical alliance between Bible thumpers cultural conservatism, middle class strivers anxiety, and country clubbers greed.
MAGA belligerence instead courted the larger set of swing voters thedisaffected working class.
Trump comprehends what Newt Gingrich and Bill Clinton before him knew: that politics isthe permanent campaign.
That doesnt matter in elections decided by vibes and a society riven by the culture war.
What matters is only the call to arms which both Trump and his partys younger stars innately understand.
Behold Sen.Josh Hawley(R-Mo.)
excoriatingBoeings CEOorJoe Bidensjudicial nomineefrom Wall Street, or watch Trumps running mate Sen. J.D.
The result is the newfangled GOPs reactionary cultural agenda mixed with the argot of economic populism.
There areargumentsonboth sidesof that Rorschach test, but for now, its still probably the latter.
Either way, the ambiguity is shrewd politics in pursuit of the working-class electorate.
Pining togo back to brunch, many liberals scoff at all this as neither smart politics or new.
To them, its just deplorables and rubes being hoodwinked by the same cynical right-wing politics.
Their problem is bigger than Biden.
The Democrats current brand contrast could not be more tone deaf to the times.
Where Trumpdoes battlewith recalcitrant Republican legislators, Biden hascoddledhis partys obstructionists as they undermine his presidency.
To be sure, its not that Democrats havedonenothing.
They have shied away from waging protracted, messy battles in pursuit of ideals.
After all, that might be uncivil and politically unrealistic, in the vernacular of Washington.
Obama all butadmittedhis primary goal was good decorum and conflict aversion.
But those battles are rarely a central part of the Democratic story.
Of course, Democratic leaders dont lack the capacity to fight.
There is theshock and aweofincumbent protectionin primaries, where challengers are routinely spent into the ground.
There is theblacklistingandbanishmentof those who step out of line.
Its enforcers have been a bizarre coalition offormer presidents,party apparatchiks, andpower brokers.
