Trump’s Re-election Defines a New Era of American Politics

When Barack Obama won re-election in 2012, it seemed to mark the beginning of a new era of Democratic dominance, one propelled by the rise of a new generation of young, secular and nonwhite voters.

With hindsight, the 2012 election looks more like the end of an era: the final triumph of the social movements of the 1960s over the once-dominant Reagan Republicans.

Instead, it’s the three Trump elections — in 2016, 2020 and 2024 — that look as if they have the makings of a new era of politics, one defined by Donald J. Trump’s brand of conservative populism.

Whether you call it a realignment or not, American politics hasn’t been the same since Mr. Trump won his party’s nomination. The two parties clash over areas of former consensus, even as they reach détente on issues that defined the polarizing 2004 and 2012 elections. It can be disorienting for anyone who came of age before Mr. Trump. It can even feel like American politics has been turned upside down.

Until Mr. Trump, there was a lot about American politics that you could take for granted. The meaning of the two parties seemed clear. Republicans represented Reagan’s three-legged stool of small-government fiscal conservatism, the religious right and foreign policy hawks. Democrats represented the working class, change and the causes of liberal activists.

Every four years, the two parties mostly litigated the same fights over the same issues. They rehashed arguments over war and diplomacy; entitlement spending and tax cuts; “family values” and the social movements of the 1960s; or trade and free enterprise versus labor and protecting jobs. It led to predictable demographic divides and recurring, long-term electoral trends.