Election 2016: Two weeks, two major political conventions, and both parties are showing the strain from the ideological fractures among their followers. Can the two-party system, a bedrock of American politics, survive as it is now? That's an open question.
The media acted surprised that, after he heartily endorsed Hillary Clinton's candidacy, septuagenarian socialist Bernie Sanders bowed out of his marriage of convenience with the Democrats -- going back to being an independent.
IBD was in Philadelphia for the Democratic Convention, and saw one thing clearly in dozens of conversations with delegates, activists and movement officials: The grassroots energy of today's Democratic Party lay with Sanders' followers, the far-left wing of his party.
They represent by various estimates 40% of the party. Without them, Hillary may have a tough time getting elected.
Now that Sanders is gone, will they leave too? Will they find the Democrats' "rigged" system -- the WikiLeaks release of DNC emails shows clearly how Democratic leaders colluded against the Sanders campaign -- intolerable and form an alternative? Will they join the Greens? Go with the Libertarians?
It's not clear.
The same can be asked of the Republicans. Standard-bearer Donald Trump is the most divisive mainstream political candidate in postwar history. Unlike Sanders, however, he won his race.
He won because Tea Party followers and other grassroots GOP members in America's heartland had grown tired of being ignored or condescended to by the party's elites. Trump represents, as much as anything, a thumb in the eye of those elites.
But it may be something else entirely. The two-party system was created for an era of large-bloc voting, wherein unions, small-business people, corporations, Wall Street and Main Street made up the largest blocs of voters.
Today, it's not so easy, thanks to the internet. As was apparent in Philadelphia, social networks are a way of circumventing the top-down control by the party of its members.
Daily demonstrations in FDR Park in Philadelphia, often with messages starkly at odds with those inside the Wells Fargo arena where the convention was held, showed that clearly.
So did the frequent interruptions of speakers, including former Defense Secretary and CIA head Leon Panetta, whose speech Wednesday night was heckled and repeatedly interrupted with chants of "No more war."
The fact is, the internet genie is not going back in the bottle. Activists on both left and right will continue their virtual organizing, circumventing the dictates of the major parties.
Whether hard-core left, netroots, Green, Libertarian, or Tea Party conservative, it's unlikely that the two parties will ever again be able to rely on a herd of docile voters doing what they're told.
Sure, the Republicans will stay in business, and so will the Democrats. But the old dictatorial way of doing business is going to die. Parties can't survive if they alienate their bases.
Just ask the Whigs, once a powerful force in American politics that all but disappeared after Abraham Lincoln's Republicans emerged with their powerful anti-slavery message.
We may soon witness a proliferation of political parties and splintered interest groups coalescing to relegate the two main parties to the sidelines. For good or ill, things will then get very interesting.
