The Joseph Schlitz Brewing Company was an American brewery based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and was once the largest producer of beer in the world. Schlitz first became the world’s top beer producer in 1902 and enjoyed that status for most of the first half of the twentieth century. As late as 1976, it was ranked #2 in the USA. But when faced with a desire to meet large volume demands while also cutting the cost of production, the ingredients were gradually reduced in tiny increments, which appeared to go unnoticed by the public. Yet, it finally did get noticed, and their market shrunk to the degree that they were sold in 1981.

From 1915 through 1975, A&P was the largest food retailer in the nation and, until 1965, the largest US retailer of any kind. A&P was considered an American icon. The Wall Street Journal, in an editorial on December 10, 2010, said that “A&P was as well-known as McDonald’s or Google is today.” Yet, like Schlitz, it also failed to keep pace with the times and could not find a way to combat operating costs and increasingly poor customer service. When it was no longer the grocery store of choice, it slowly died and was sold in 1982.

Pan American World Airways, commonly known as Pan Am, was the principal and largest international air carrier in the United States for almost the entire 20th century. At its peak in the late 1960s and early 1970s, Pan Am advertised under the slogan, the “World’s Most Experienced Airline.” It carried 6.7 million passengers in 1966, and by 1968, its 150 jets flew to 86 countries on six continents over an unduplicated scheduled route network covering nearly 100,000 miles. The airline was well regarded for its modern fleet and experienced and professional crews: cabin staff were multilingual and usually college graduates, frequently with nursing training.

Yet, beginning in the 1970s, Pan Am disregarded the trends in air travel in light of economic downturns. They believed that there were and always would be #1 and disregarded the growing market of their small but innovative competitors. Once the scales tipped against them, they never went back, and Pan Am went bankrupt in 1991.

Could the lessons learned from beer, groceries, and air travel apply to political parties? For well over one hundred years, there have been two principal political parties in the United States. Yet, the numbers of those identifying as “independents” have been steadily growing and growing.

The presidential election in 2020 was perhaps the first truly ‘anti-election’ in American history. Though there were certainly those who strongly supported Joseph Biden and Donald Trump for the presidency, a strikingly large number were more voting against a candidate than they were voting for a candidate. This might explain why Joe Biden won 81,283,098 votes, the largest in American history, yet can barely get a crowd larger than a high school auditorium to hear him speak today. Many of these ‘Biden’ voters simply did not want Donald Trump to be elected again. And the same was true on the other side as there were many Republicans who did not approve of Donald Trump’s mannerisms or language but voted for him anyway because they didn’t like the alternative.

The two-party political system is on the same shaky ground as Schlitz Beer, A&P stores, Pan Am Airlines, and many other market leaders who went by the wayside. But what would replace them? I believe that in the next few years, we could very well see both parties divide.

On the Democratic Party side, there could emerge the party of the Radicals (pretty much the party line right now), and the Rationals, who will argue for the traditional Democratic values focusing on equality rather than equity, more aligned with assistance for the poor than simply rectifying the ‘sins of the past.’ On the Republican Party side, there could be the Populists (essentially the pure Trump supporters) and the Practicals, who would appeal to conservative values in the economy and social action centered around freedom and family.

Even these four would still have fringe groups within themselves, but these tents would fit the political landscape much better than what is seen right now. This would resemble the Parliamentary system in Europe, which seems to us quite unwieldy, but results in many more compromises and unity.

We have a rich heritage in the United States, but political parties were an addition and not part of the original process. We still must hear the words of Benjamin Franklin when asked by a lady in 1787 as he was coming out of the Constitutional Congress, “Well, Doctor, what have we got; a republic or a monarchy?” “A republic,” replied the Doctor, “if you can keep it.”