Hello and welcome to the political orphanage, a home for plucky misfits and problem solvers.

I'm your host, Andrew Heaton, probably doomed to be politically homeless in any time or place, but particularly in our era.

In large part, because we find ourselves in the middle of a great political realignment.

Many people who came of age in the 20th century and understood their corner of a given political coalition

now have the unsettling experience of feeling their coalition

shift and break apart right under their feet. Republicans and Democrats who used to hate each other

are now to their mutual bafflement bedfellows, while erstwhile allies within the major parties

are pulling the knives out for each other. We are living in the

midst of a great realignment, but not the first. If we were arguing about politics in the 1780s,

we weren't arguing about capitalism or socialism. Economics was of secondary import to governance.

Are you in favor of modernizing the state,

giving the power of the aristocracy to Republican government, curtailing the king, defanging the power of bishops? Or are you on the side of the ancient regime and protecting the old

institutions, hierarchies, and privileges from modernity and chaos.

By the 19th century, modernity had won out. The debate was no longer the Enlightenment versus

the ancient regime. In the United States, it was about slavery. Your position on tariffs, tax

rates, infrastructure spending, women's rights,

public education, these were all of secondary import to the singular division of the day, slavery.

In the 20th century, around the world, the defining division became economics. Do you want a free market and private enterprise or the

state to control the heights of industry? That was the relevant primary organizing principle of

politics during my childhood. What balance of capitalism and individual action against socialism

and regulation do you want?

Consider for a moment all the other things which did not constitute your position on the

...