Cross-posted from Patterns That Connect.

With the election behind us, the task before us is enormous, more enormous than most folks realize. Political scientists describe American political history in terms of a series of "party systems," which are divided from one another by decisive breaking points, known as "realigning elections." The last universally agreed upon realigning election happened in 1932.  While things have changed enormously since then, the Republicans were never able to dominate the political landscape with sweeping congressional majorities the way that Democrats were.  The New Deal Party System crumpled, but did not fold.

And yet, that system is held in universal disdain by the punditocracy, even as evidence and rational discourse is held in disdain by the media generally.  What has happened is the elite repudiation of the New Deal--an accommodation with the working [and middle] class necessitated by collapse of capitalism--even though the people still support it.

The elite repudiation can be understood in terms of the concept of hegemony. Whole books have been written about it, but basically it's a $10 word meaning "a dominant ideology in commonsense drag." This post sets up a series on hegemony, devoted to clarifying the battles ahead.

There's more...