After the major election upsets since ~2015, the recent landslide Conservative victory in the UK has made me think that the coalitions making up the two political parties in the US and UK (and maybe elsewhere) are in the process of major shifts. In a first-past-the-post system like in the UK or US, there are always going to be two political parties. The parties don't really believe in anything at their core, and they change over time, even if you might be able to briefly describe some sort of overall philosophy right now. In reality, each party is just trying to form minimal coalitions between different philosophical/interest groups such that they can win a majority in the election.

Traditionally, the US coalitions have been:

• Republicans
  
  • Devout Christians: Often this group believes in imposing their religious views on others, though not all do. They're all very concerned with stopping the government from interfering whatsoever with their religious practices. This group pushes the Republicans toward pro-life, pro-homeschooling, etc.
  • Neocons: This group believes basically in taking over the world. They're responsible for the Iraq War, etc.
  • Business, especially smaller businesses: They support low taxes, favorable (but not necessarily low) regulations, expansion of the military industrial complex, etc.
  • Most libertarians: They support low tax, low regulations, gun rights, etc.
• Democrats
  
  • Rainbow coalition: This includes every minority group: racial, religious, sexual orientation, etc. The idea is to offer little giveaways to every minority separately, protect all of them from discrimination, etc.
  • Unions
  • Moderate central planners: I'm thinking here of the type of people who say, "This is a big problem in our country. Clearly, the government should do something to fix it." They're responsible for a lot of what exists now, such as the various welfare systems. Traditionally there was some overlap here with the Republicans, though the Democrats have increasingly dominated this group.
  • Redistributionists: This group more-or-less believes in equality of outcome. They tend to believe that billionares fundamentally shouldn't exist, for example.

(I'm most familiar with US politics, but it seems that the UK parties are fairly similar in composition nowadays.)

In the last decade, however, there have been major shifts in this traditional coalition structure:

• Most notably, the political power of unions and labor in general have been substantially weakened. Union membership is at an all-time low, for example. Due to this, the Democrats have largely lost the white working class: this demographic doesn't really fit into the Democratic coalition anymore, and their interests are in some ways at odds with other groups within the Democratic coalition. This I think is the main reason for the victories of Trump and Johnson.
• Whereas rich people previously tended to support low taxes and nationalism, "the 1%" is increasingly adopting a mindset which is basically globalism/neoliberalism (which includes anti-nationalism) combined with a profound lack of faith in capitalism. They tend to favor social engineering and central planning, such as the "green new deal", banning all sorts of things, expanding mandatory education, etc. They believe that they should guide society toward some great future, and the sacrifices of a few are worth the utilitarian gains which they perceive in the long run. See Mike Bloomberg's platform for a perfect example of this group's platform. This group includes billionaires and the large companies which they control, but also a large number of upper-/upper-middle-class people. It may be becoming an increasingly impactful demographic, as might be visible in the suburban (ie. richer) areas which flipped to the Democrats in 2018, but also just because companies like Facebook have so much influence.
• Religiosity is at an all-time low
• After the Iraq war, the neocons have been largely discredited. Even if they currently still have quite a bit of influence, I think that they're shrinking.

Also, some points of possible instability:

• I think that the rainbow coalition is fundamentally an unstable concept, since it's totally lacking in philosophy. Will large numbers of people continue to vote based near-totally on their membership in some sort of identity? I feel like the concept of "identity" may be in the process of jumping the shark, what with how widespread and almost cliché it is now. Could be wrong, though.
• Psychological research has shown that most people don't care about inequality unless it's right in their face. Most people simply can't be made to get too worked up about some billionaire somewhere buying their 10^th yacht while they're working a dead-end 9-to-5, no matter how unfair it seems. People focus on their day-to-day lives and their peers, not people far away. So I think that the radical redistributionist angle is a dead end politically, even if some welfare programs may be popular.

It seems to me that both parties are currently misunderstanding the shifting coalitions. Democrats are either stuck in the past with labor-oriented policies, or are radical redistributionists, neither of which have a future IMO. Republicans meanwhile are fear-mongering against "socialism", which isn't the policy which actually won the Democrats the House in 2018, and it isn't an effective message in any case. Neither side realizes that the biggest shift is rich people moving Democrat and non-rich people with no "identity" moving Republican.

Trump won by snatching up the white working class, but it's not clear to me that he actually won them over long-term. Deregulation and tax cuts are pretty abstract things, and are probably not politically meaningful. Trump is surrounded by traditional Republicans, and he has governed more-or-less like a traditional Republican. Moreover, I think that the whole idea of a "working class" is a dying concept: labor/unions will get weaker and weaker as a political force until neither side even wants it.

The parties won't continue down failing paths indefinitely, so it's interesting to think about how the coalitions will stabilize in the future. Maybe the Democratic party will shift to cater much more toward the 1% central planners. So they'll support a lot of government, but it'll all be structured in such a way that billionaires and S&P 500 companies still do quite well. Progressives will largely not be happy. In other words, Mike Bloomberg might be a look at the Democratic party's future. While it's really an awful outcome IMO, I think that this may politically be a viable coalition.

If the above Democratic shift happened and ended up being successful, the Republican party in response might support some more economically-left policies, and might become more nationalistic and protectionist. Trump has adopted some rhetoric in this direction, though policy changes have been minor. Maybe the Republicans would adjust their message and policies to try to pick off specific parts of the Democrats' rainbow coalition. Since the Democrats would become more authoritarian, maybe the Republican party would become more libertarian in some ways.

What do you think?