The NY Times today has
this article on the demise of traditional political parties across Latin America, and the rise of new populist movements and governments. Columbia aside, South America is getting its act together, by thumbing its nose at the U.S. and at the old patronage-based parties that used to dominate political life. Central America and even Mexico may not be far behind.
My question is, could it happen here someday? Perhaps not until things get truly desperate (as they have been in Latin America for a long time). But in principle, yes, I think eventually it could. Perhaps the blogs' influence is the beginning of the end for the Democrats and the Republicans. I know, there's never been anything but a two party system here. But look at what's happened all over Latin America -- in its way as revolutionary as the end of Apartheid in South Africa (and just as unexpectedly bloodless) -- and perhaps we have to admit strange developments are possible.
Just not here. Not yet.
One thesis is that nobody in the Soviet Union anticipated its collapse; nobody in Latin America woould have predicted the current rennaisance even ten or fifteen years ago; and so perhaps the U.S. is on the edge of some big phase transition we can't see coming, as well. The people inside the system, to whom change comes, are usually the last to see it coming. And the longer the system has been in place, the more impossible it appears that it should ever cease to own the place.