A four-party system?

Thomas L. Friedman divides the nation into four major political faction, each of which might field a presidential candidate in the 2020 general election. Both Democrats and Republicans are effectively split, he claims, the former between neoliberals and socialists, the latter between the familiar limited-government types and less-principled Trumpism reactionaries. I'll spare you the clumsy labels Friedman actually applies, except to note that his center-left and center-right are both committed to "growing the pie" while the socialists are more concerned with redividing the pie and the Trumpites simply want to hoard it. This analysis seems sketchy to me. Looking at the right, Friedman seems to downplay the Trumpites' commitment to economic growth, most likely because he can't imagine economic growth without free trade and free movement of peoples and capital. He may be closer to the mark when he perceives a mass abandonment of the limited-government principles that have defined the GOP for the last century or so in favor of security on several levels, though he may be off the mark if he means to imply that the two Republican factions are equal in strength.

Looking at the left, Friedman's assessment may be too conservative. Arguably there are at least three major factions within the familiar Democratic coalition. You need only recall Senator Sanders' notorious failure in 2016 to connect with many of the party's core constituencies to dismiss the idea of a united "socialist" front.  Class consciousness may be the ultimate form of intersectionality to some people, but to others classism as espoused by an old white guy sounds like a denial of that important principle. It may be possible to divide the old Democracy into four parts instead of two: neoliberal (Clintonian), neoliberal-multicultural (Obamite), socialist (Sandersite) and intersectional-socialist (Ocasio-Cortez etc.). These are more likely to be enduring divisions in the absence of an Obama-style unifying figure, while it's not hard to imagine limited-government Republicans eventually marginalized into a disproportionately articulate fringe movement as more emotionally conservative Americans look to a powerful, sympathetic state for protection against waves of globalization.

All of this might make for more interesting times politically if electoral politics didn't still operate according to the capitalistic principles that allow someone like Sanders, ironically enough,to threaten to price his competitors out of the market. If Americans' changing alignments force a change in those rules, things could get really interesting.