American Political Parties and Trump

Political party affiliation in the U.S. is a funny thing.  The fluidity with which people can switch parties and the lack of any requirement beyond indicating one's current preference mean that being a "member" of a party is really based on personal integrity.

Which brings us to the funny situation of the Republican party not being able to use expulsion as leverage over Trump (unclear if they would want to expel but not even having the tool is a handicap).  Trump, of course, is not a Republican (or a Democrat) but, more importantly, as someone without personal integrity, the traditional constraint on abuse of a claim of membership falls away.  And so he hijacked the Republican party machinery and nomination rules to become president.

I raise this because such a threat of expulsion (during the election or now, during the presidency) could spur the creation of new parties (with new platforms and alignments) but, unfortunately, because the threat cannot be invoked, that creation remains unlikely.

And so, we will have a populist democrat president in three years who will likely be just as inept and destructive (albeit in different forms and perhaps less obvious forms) as Trump.