The party’s over

In the new political world in which left and right are no longer the meaningful anchor points they once were, cosmopolitans have a completely different set of political interests than the localists. From trade and immigration to universal values and tolerance of difference, cosmopolitans throw open the boundaries of cozy and closed groups while localists defend the virtues of community.    Parties that have been built around a left/right continuum cannot cope with a shift to a cosmopolitan/local continuum.    Instead, the traditional left/right parties are rent from the inside by this divide.    Both left and right parties have cosmopolitans and localists within them, and the war between the cosmopolitans and the locals that is currently taking place within the traditional left/right parties has weakened them immeasurably, causing many of them to collapse.  Out of the wreckage of these failing parties come spectacularly bad electoral choices.