The Realignment – Episode 599: Henry Tonks on the Lessons from Liberalism’s ‘Wilderness Years’ and the Incomplete Realignment

Date: March 31, 2026
Guests: Host Marshall Kosloff with historian Henry Tonks
Topic: The status of American political realignment post-Trump 2024, the ongoing crisis of the Democratic Party and American liberalism, and historical lessons that could inform the future of center-left politics.

Episode Overview

This episode of The Realignment takes a deep dive into the unsettled state of American political realignment following Donald Trump’s return to the White House in 2024. Host Marshall Kosloff is joined by historian Henry Tonks, an expert on 20th-century liberalism and the Democratic Party. Contrary to commonplace narratives, the guests argue that the current political order is not truly settled, and neither party possesses a winning ideological or electoral majority. Their conversation centers on the Democratic Party’s present crisis—a lack of coherent vision, governing ideology, and historical narrative—and draws lessons from liberalism’s struggles in the 1970s-1990s to hypothesize what it would take to rebuild and reimagine American liberalism today.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Myth of a Completed Realignment

• Realignment as an Ongoing Process

  • The 2024 Trump victory is not equivalent to the epochal realignments of FDR or Reagan. Instead, the U.S. is mired in a “messy political status quo” in which both major parties are highly competitive, but neither offers a new, durable political order.
  • Tonks: “These gains were quite dependent on inflation, economic discontent, potentially a sort of general alienation…what we’ve seen ... is these gains were very much rooted in the context of late 2024 and not a sign that the GOP has built a permanent new majority.” [03:41]

• Incomplete Realignment and Contestation

  • Trump and post-2016 conservatism have shifted elite policy consensus and party coalitions, but as yet, there’s no broad or stable political order—neither ideologically nor electorally.
  • “Conservatism is not the same as it was in 2014, but a long-lasting order only emerges when the opposition party adopts central tenets.” [06:37]

• Historical Markers for Realignment

  • True realignments are cemented when the opposing party adapts the policies and frameworks of the dominant party, as Eisenhower did with the New Deal or Clinton with Reaganite neoliberalism.
  • Tonks: “A realignment is solidified when the other party is forced to adopt the realigning party’s arguments due to consistent electoral defeats.” [09:08]

2. The Democratic Party’s Current Predicament

• Opposition to Trump Insufficient for Durable Power

  • Democrats’ short-term electoral gains hinge primarily on not being Trump, but this lacks the substance needed to form a governing vision.
  • “The key thing with simply being not Trump is it means you’re vacating responsibility for actually coming up with your own long-term distinct sort of proactive political and policy agenda.” [20:26]

• Fragmented Internal Debates

  • The party is a contest of left-populists, “abundance” advocates, centrists, and those who push for selective cultural or economic moderation.
  • Tonks notes, “Democratic elites realize that they need to come up with an agenda for winning multiple elections in a row and governing once they’re in power.” [22:41]

• The Bidenomics Disconnect

  • Attempts at bold policy (like the various facets of “Bidenomics”) lacked a compelling narrative or popular buy-in, leaving the agenda unmoored from Democratic identity.
  • Marshall: “Even most DC creature types couldn’t have articulated what Bidenomics actually was…something that I think is thoroughly unique and that is the type of problem which is a structural one, that I think is the result of a broken Democratic Party.” [25:48]

3. The Collapse of Liberal Ideology

• Liberalism vs. The Democratic Party

  • On the right, conservatism is distinct from the GOP—an ideology first, party second. On the left, liberalism as a worldview has all but collapsed, becoming interchangeable with party identity, eroding the possibility of ideological coherence or renewal.
  • “We stopped conceiving of liberalism…as an actual ideology that meant something, that had visions, that had ideas.” [27:57]

• Fragmented Storytelling and Lack of Vision

  • Neither politicians nor voters can articulate a clear liberal or progressive vision for the country or respond coherently to major structural changes and challenges.
  • Marshall: “There’s just so many different ways [the right] could spew out in different directions…we just don’t think of being a liberal or being a left liberal or being a progressive as truly meaning something.” [28:50]

4. Lessons from the 1970s-1990s: The Strange Death and Afterlife of American Liberalism

• The Rise of the “New Liberals”

  • A new generation of Democratic leaders in the 1970s-80s, shaped by higher education and the knowledge economy, attempted to reboot liberalism for the age of globalization and post-industrial economy, but ultimately drifted from broad-based growth and labor politics to managerial and meritocratic politics centered in affluent, urban regions.
  • Tonks: “The center of gravity shifted from the union hall to Whole Foods.” [47:54]
  • “These new liberals who are later much maligned by the left…saw American liberalism as fundamentally identified with a sustainable, broad based growth model.” [57:34]

• Loss of Narrative and Technocratic Drift

  • With the end of the Cold War and Japan’s stagnation, Democrats lost their rationale for state-driven industrial policy and settled into managing the neoliberal order, focusing on redistribution rather than broad-based economic renewal.
  • “They…retreat into managing the new neoliberal economic order more prudently and kindly than the Republicans.” [64:44]
  • “You have this political economy of...‘compensate the losers’...we’ll let growth happen and then redistribute...to the so-called left behind parts of the US.” [68:10]

• Structural Consequences

  • The Democratic coalition became increasingly educated, urban, and meritocratic, losing connection to its industrial and working-class roots.
  • “The party has politically…demographically changed a lot…but it then has policy stasis because the Democrats aren’t committed to some ideological vision…” [68:10]

5. Toward a New Fusionism — Rebuilding Liberalism

• The Need for Narrative, Growth, and Ideological Fusion

  • New liberalism, or any relevant center-left project, will need to build a “story” that aligns policy with a long-term vision, learning from 20th-century successes: proactive government investment (“rural electrification, not just Social Security”), compelling narratives, and fusion politics.
  • Tonks: “The debate to be had is if that’s the vision, what are we prepared to do to get to it?...That may sound very simplistic, but…you’ll actually find people almost are refusing to admit what their desired outcomes will be.” [76:39]

• Fusion vs. Faction

  • Both guests argue that the center-left’s future lies in “fusion”—building broad, mutually accommodating coalitions across intra-party factions, as was once achieved both by the New Deal coalition and, to a degree, by the Reaganite right.
  • Marshall: “Because there is no longer any such thing as American liberalism today…we can build a new thing...People love projects. People want to join something, right? That’s exciting, it’s different, it’s new.” [70:46]

• The Overton Window & Tactical Convergence

  • Concrete policy divisions may appear entrenched, but consensus can move: public option health care is now a shared plank, when it was radical in 2009.
  • “The left’s whole demand in 2009 was a public option. And now…the center rising millennial part of the party now agrees with that point.” [82:04]

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the incomplete realignment:
  Tonks: “I would argue that the Reagan neoliberal realignment is actually itself incomplete and that it’s always very contested…What we’re seeing now is the result of four decades in which American politics was only partially realigned and…a large number of American voters were not happy with the neoliberal realignment…” [12:30]

• On the disconnect between ideology and party:
  Marshall: “Conservatism as an ideology is different than the Republican Party…The fact that we just don’t think of being a liberal...as truly meaning something...is probably not enough to actually govern successfully.” [27:57]

• On the historical shift in the Democratic Party:
  Tonks: “The center of gravity shifted from the union hall to Whole Foods…they have this generational experience of massively expanded higher education, a sort of growing…knowledge economy, and broad based economic growth that expands the American middle class.” [47:54]

• On the limits of opposition politics:
  Tonks: “You’re relying on basically playing off your opponent every other election cycle.” [24:55]

• On the importance of fusion:
  Tonks: “If we can agree on that outcome, then the question becomes, well, in order to get to that outcome, maybe the left will have to think about prioritizing that over redistribution. And maybe the center...will have to think, well, that might involve government interventions they have a knee-jerk lack of comfort with.” [77:40]

Important Timestamps

• 00:00: Introduction and framing of current realignment debates.
• 03:41: Tonks on the 2024 Trump victory and why it’s not a true realignment.
• 09:08: Discussion of when realignment actually becomes permanent.
• 19:42: Democrats’ current strategy of “just not being Trump”—its limitations.
• 27:57: Marshall on the collapse of liberal ideology as a worldview.
• 47:54: Tonks recounts the Democratic shift from blue-collar to meritocratic base.
• 64:44: How the end of the Cold War and decline of Japan derailed Democratic industrial policy and fed into technocratic neoliberalism.
• 76:39: Final section on fusion, center-left coalition-building, and the way forward.

Final Reflections

Host and guest agree: The Democratic Party’s drift without a cohesive governing ideology or economic vision mirrors liberalism’s “wilderness years,” and unless a new, compelling narrative and coalition are built—one that fuses pragmatic growth, public investment, and broad-based opportunity—the party risks continuing its cycle of electoral narrowness and ideological fragmentation. The episode closes on the notion that only through such fusion, drawing on lessons (and mistakes) from history, can a genuine realignment and renewal of American liberalism take place.