In the NYT, Peter Baker writes,

Although elected as a Republican last year, Mr. Trump has shown in the nearly eight months in office that he is, in many ways, the first independent to hold the presidency since the advent of the current two-party system around the time of the Civil War.

If so, that is because the two-party system has fractured. Of course, the U.S. electoral system is highly conducive to two parties. But I would say that right now there are four.

1. Hard left. Sees socialism as a term with positive connotations and capitalism as a term with negative connotations. Does not see anything wrong with refusing to allow conservatives to speak in public.

2. Bobo center. Strongly favors lenience on immigration. Liberal on social policy. Generally content with the status quo on most economic issues, but worried about inequality.

3. Anti-Bobo heartland. Strongly favors restrictive immigration policy and “America first” foreign policy and trade policy. Very suspicious of the other three parties.

4. Conservatarians, meaning conservative-flavored libertarians or libertarian-flavored conservatives. I don’t count the fringe folks on the alt-right–they are electorally irrelevant and out of the picture. There are some Republicans in Congress who are conservatarians, but not any that I know of on the alt-right. Conservatarians worry about unsustainable fiscal policy, the power of the regulatory state, and a loss of key values, such as individual responsibility and respect for freedom of speech.

Note that you might not consider yourself to be in any one of these parties. Note that in the wake of the Trump ascendancy many libertarians feel more comfortable in the Bobo center. But I am more comfortable with the conservatarian crowd.

The Democratic Party is a fragile coalition of the hard left and the Bobo center (plus some ethnic groups that may or may not be reliably Democratic going forward). The Republican Party is an even more fragile coalition of the anti-Bobo heartland and conservatarians. Individually, none of these four parties is anywhere close to a majority. Even a landslide win in 2020 by Democrats (or, less plausibly, by Republicans) will not mean that a majority favors anyone’s agenda.

With the debt ceiling deal, President Trump showed a willingness to break with the conservatarians. My guess is that they will end up patching things up and working together, but the message that the President is sending is that he thinks that the conservatarians need him more than he needs them.

There is a good chance that the Democratic nominee in 2020 will cater to the hard left. If so, then this will give the Bobo center the sort of discomfort that the conservatarians feel with the Trump phenomenon. William Galston’s recent piece foreshadows this. It will also make it difficult for the conservatarians to abandon Mr. Trump.