[identity profile] kgbman.livejournal.com 2009-09-16 10:21 pm (UTC)(link)
In retrospect, I should have made a distinction between the party and the principles that anchor them. The Democratic and Republican parties could both go extinct tomorrow, but that wouldn't mean liberalism and conservatism as we know them would go away. The Whig Party is extinct, but Whig ideas carried over into the Republican Party. The same with Jefferson's Democratic-Republicans and Jackson's Democrats.