Ron Brownstein has been writing politics as long as I can remember, and though he leans left, he knows too much to turn him completely into a propagandist. Here writing for The Atlantic and copied out from behind their paywall by msn.com, Brownstein uses an analytic framework by Yale political scientist Stephen Skowronek that looks at "late regime" presidencies, men who served at the ends of multi-cycle period of dominance by one party or the other.
He identifies a couple of the most recent as Hoover and Carter. Hoover led to FDR and a long period of Democrat dominance, Carter led to Reagan and a stretch of Republican presidencies. Brownstein asks the question is Biden another of these late regime presidents whose successor Trump redefines partisan boundaries, shifts constituencies, and begins another dominant cycle lasting for several presidential cycles?
Brownstein concludes there is a serious possibility that 2024 was one of those inflection points in our nation's political trajectory. That Biden will be grouped with Carter and Hoover meaning, if you've done the math, Trump can be as consequential as FDR and Reagan.
Brownstein writes he asked Skowronek if Biden-to-Trump fit the pattern of Carter-to-Reagan and Hoover-to-FDR. Skowronek agreed that the key factors were in place. I'm sure it gives Brownstein little pleasure in writing this, see his conclusion.
For Democrats, however, the sobering precedent of the Carter era is a public loss of faith that set up 12 years of Republican control of the White House. They can only hope that the late-regime rejection of Biden doesn't trigger another period of consolidated GOP dominance.
Brownstein is careful not to name the Democrat stretch which may be ending. It is the 16 year Obama era that encompasses both his terms in office, the Trump term when Obama wasn't in office but dominated his party, and then the Biden term which many have viewed as Obama's de facto 'third term.'
