The article discusses party identity and a left-vs-right-vs-centrist framework, which is all of course relevant, but IMO it doesn't fully address the fact that what voters seem to be searching for, more than ever, is results -- as in a government that works for them.
If there is a correlation between what's going on in British and American politics right now, it is that voters have spent the much of the last 20 years being bamboozled by social media-driven culture wars, and as a result all that has happened is that big tech has embedded itself into political institutions, and inequality has skyrocketed. Previous generations could achieve lifelong employment with the same company and receive a pension at the end of it -- and, in the UK at least, were supported by a strong social safety net -- whereas nowadays people are stuck with the gig economy and declining public services, in a world increasingly run by non-government actors like Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos, individuals whose wealth is approaching the trillion dollar mark.
It seems to me that these political swings and backlashes and counter-backlashes are a symptom of electorates looking for someone -- anyone -- who can do a better job than the previous bunch, and then being disappointed when they feel like the new government they just elected doesn't live up to their hopes and expectations. And as inequality increases, so people become more desperate, and the desire to find a government capable of real reform increases, hence the flipping and flopping back and forth between parties.
The problem of course being that in this world of data-driven targeting and social media-driven propaganda by big tech companies, who know exactly how to manipulate their audiences, the results are always going to swing in favor of big tech itself, no matter which party is in charge of government...
= new reply since forum marked as read