How the 1976 election ushered in the American partisan divide

To understand the 2024 presidential race, you need go back to 1976 — at least that’s the case Ben Bradford makes in Landslide, a new podcast from WFAE, NPR, and Nuanced Tales.

Landslide looks back at how the insurgent presidential campaigns of Ronald Reagen and Jimmy Carter shaped the political world we know today.

The prevalent partisan gulf between the Democratic and Republican parties crystallized during the 1976 election, according to Bradford.

"The political parties may have the same names that they've had for hundreds of years, but they functionally may as well be different entities than they were just 50 years ago," Bradford said.

The story in Landslide intersects with the highly influential mid-century Washington state Congressman, Henry "Scoop" Jackson, who ran against Carter for the Democratic nomination in 1976.

"When we talk about what the parties looked like, I think that there is no better emblem of that than Scoop Jackson," Bradford said.

Jackson was a New Deal Democrat. When he was running for president in 1976, he was "saying that he wants to pump money into the economy. He wants government to take this assertive role," Bradford said.

"Contrast that with Carter, who is saying we need to decentralize, we need to deregulate," he added.

Carter went on to win the presidency while Jackson's brand of Democratic politics faded away. Carter paved the way for future insurgent Democratic presidents, including another southern governor: Bill Clinton.

Since Carter's election, Bradford said, nearly every president has been a political outsider except for George H.W. Bush and Joe Biden, both of whom served as vice presidents for outsider candidates.

"The question that I have is what happens if we are constantly electing people who tell us how much our government is not working? And we sort of never move away from that," he said.

Listen to Soundside’s full conversation with Ben Bradford by clicking the play icon at the top of this story; listen to Landslide here.