The US election has ushered in the collapse of the Democratic and Republican parties

If the US elections last week confirmed anything, apart from Donald Trump’s victory , it is the collapse of America’s two main political parties as vibrant organisations that once brought people together, empowered them and were responsive to their needs. There was a time when it meant something to be a member of the Democratic or Republican parties. There was a structure to the party from the local to the national level. People belonged , went to meetings and were proud of their association. Today, for most Americans, being a Democrat or a Republican means being on lists that get emails, text messages, direct mail, phone calls, or targeted social media messages. Most of these are asking for money. There is no organisation, no sense of belonging and no real opportunity to make one’s voice heard. The parties, which once represented voters and empowered them, are now fundraising vehicles that amass billions of dollars during each election cycle. These dollars go to consultant groups that use the money to raise more money to pay for advertising, and conduct polling to shape messaging either to define and promote their candidates or to define and discourage support for their opponents. These consultants set the agendas for the campaigns because they control huge amounts of campaign dollars. They have effectively replaced the parties as the forces driving politics. These consultants are today’s power-brokers and operate without accountability. One of the by-products of this situation is that there is increasingly less voter identification with the parties. The parties themselves have become less membership entities and more fundraising vehicles. This is why it was so easy for Mr Trump to take over the Republican Party and why the Democratic Party has become captive to its big donors and consultants who spend their money. This problem has become aggravated by the emergence of what are known as super-PACs – independent committees that can receive and spend unregulated contributions from billionaires who, often hiring the same groups of consultants, now hold even greater sway over the political process than the parties themselves. One problem with the political consultant class isn’t just the power it wields, it’s the judgments that it makes, and to whom it is ultimately answerable. It’s not to the political parties, or the voters. It’s to the donors who are paying its tab. Another problem is how overly cautious, unimaginative and out of touch these consultants are with voters and their needs. An ex-official in former president Barack Obama’s campaign once decried the “foreign policy blob” that he described as a self-perpetuating cast of characters who had served in past administrations. They now populate the think tanks and the commentariat. They are out of touch with a changing world and yet offer the same ideas – a kind of group-think of conventional wisdom – that failed before and are destined to fail again. The same is true of the political consultancy blob. They are out of touch with a changing electorate and have little more to offer other than the same old ideas that may have succeeded once but, given the changes that have occurred in the electorate, are destined to fail. For example, those who ran this year’s Democratic campaigns failed to appreciate the economic insecurity of white working-class voters, instead focusing their attention on what they called the “Obama coalition” of young and non-white voters, and college-educated women . They rejected as too leftist increasing taxes on the richest one per cent, providing universal health care and raising the minimum wage. Instead of attending to the needs of working-class voters in key battleground states, they had Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris campaign with former Republican congresswoman Liz Cheney believing that she would help win over moderate Republicans , and suburban women – which she could not. And of particular note, they failed to understand the impact of the war in Gaza on not only Arab-American voters, but also on key components of their Obama coalition, in particular young, progressive and non-white voters. Sensing the opening created by the Democrats’ miscues, Mr Trump embraced the largely disenfranchised white working class , promising new jobs, while preying on their feelings of abandonment by railing against immigrants who he accused of taking jobs and bringing crime to our cities. Instead of breaking with this failed approach, Ms Harris embraced it. She backtracked on her earlier left-leaning policies favouring universal health care and support for a green economy. Instead of engaging left-leaning white working-class voters, her campaign largely ignored them, opting instead to campaign with Ms Cheney. Instead of meeting Arab Americans, she left that field wide open for Mr Trump to exploit. And instead of using the short time available to her to introduce herself to key constituencies by personally meeting leaders and winning new allies, she made do with mass rallies of supporters. This is where the consultants failed. Democrats lost the White House and the Senate. Ms Harris won far fewer votes than President Joe Biden did in 2020. And she lost votes with almost every demographic group, including key minority groups . In the aftermath, the Democratic pundits will find fault with the voters and their choices, not with the poor decisions they themselves made. They will denounce white voters as racist or misogynistic. And they will ask, how could Hispanics vote for Mr Trump after what he and his supporters said about them? And how could Arabs and Muslims forget what Mr Trump did to them during his first term? In hearing this, I am reminded of one of the sayings attributed to St Augustine – that in the contest between the church and the world, it’s the church that must go to the world, not the world to the church. In other words, the party shouldn’t blame the voters. If it wants their votes, it must earn them. The party and its consultants made their money, and they made poor choices. But will they pay the price?