A Gallup Poll released today shows 37% of Americans describe themselves as Republicans, while only 32% describe themselves as Democrats. This further underlines the dramatic shift that has taken place within the American political landscape since the presidency of LBJ, where at the time of his reelection in 1964, Democratic identification was double that of Republican identification. Ever since than however, the GOP has slowly moved past the Democrats to where we are now, with the GOP controlling nearly every branch of government. The beginnings of this shift began with the Reagan Revolution in the late 70's and early 80's, where Americans openly rejected the big government liberalism of The Great Society and the Jimmy Carter Administration.
The final phase of this shift occurred on 9/11. In this post-9/11 world, no party with weak national security credentials will ever be trusted with guiding this country through the War on Terror, which dooms the Democratic Party of today. The Republicans are today's majority party ( evidenced by the fact that the GOP has won 51% of the popular vote in both the '02 and '04 elections) because they take the right stance on the War on Terror as well as an individualistic stance on domestic issues. The American Electorate is also unlikely to turn to a party who routinely condescends towards anyone who doesn't live in the elitist cocoons of the northeast and west coast.
Unless Democrats do something to fix all of this, they will be dominated by Republicans for many years to come.
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