“the number of people who feel passionately in the same way about several issues is much smaller than the number of people who feel passionately about one issue”
I agree, except political parties are masters of combining diverse views under one tent, especially in the age of “identity politics”. The reason why Democrats were able to build a legislative majority for most of the latter part of the 20th century after they became the Big Government party under Wilson and FDR wasn’t because they pounded home a single issue. They didn’t come out and say, “We’re socialists. If you want socialism, vote for us.” Rather, they conquered group by group, offering something to unions, the “poor”, the elderly, racial minorities, and so on.
Look at things today and ask yourself, what is it that binds liberals to liberals and conservatives to conservatives. No one single thing. Some conservatives are big on national defense, while some are libertarians. Abortion is an indicator, but in itself means little, since both parties are more or less willing to sit with things as they are.
I realize not much of this is to the point, since various shades of opinion flock to either party because they don’t have much of an alternative. The idea being that in the beginning, Democrats and Republicans stood for something tangible. That if they’ve changed since—for instance from Jacksonians to Wilsonians—it was from within. That the only time they ever imploded, besides the Jeffersonian party building an irresistable consesus, was because of the one big issue of slavery.
Well, I don’t deny that the Whigs crumbled because of their mishandling of the slavery issue. But I don’t believe that’s the only reason a party ever could crumble. There are examples outside of American history. Perfectly reasonable to imagine one or more major party decaying, leading to a temporary multi-party system before one party is able to coalition-build its way toward majority.
That’s what worked for the Nazis. There were a lot of big issues swirling around then: “the peace,” the depression, and so on. Moderates were split between Christian “social democrats” and more traditional types. Nazis started out opposing communists, and manuevered their way into power by picking up veterans, proletariats, rebellious youths, national defense-ers, big business, etc. Different reasons for different groups, but in the end, there they all are.
One aspect of slavery as the Big Thing is right on. Something important must be happening. Slavery, depression, impending war. Something momentous. But we usually never know when the times are special while they’re happening. If aliens were able to decipher our language, and were given to study the general period before the Civil War, would they have been sure carnage was coming, and that a new dominant national majority would grow out of it? I don’t know. Hindsight obscures my view.
All I know is, there’s a depression happening, and a variety of issues not being adaquetely addressed for a large plurality of voters, from immigration to the drug war to the national debt to the war on terror to prok-barrel projects.