American politics has been so unusual this year that it is hard to know where to begin.

The leading Democrat has more baggage than Delta Airlines and is in the midst of a scandal that would long since have ended the campaign of any Republican. In a word-association test, her name brings up “untrustworthy” more than any other. But so far she seems to be suffering no serious consequences, thanks to the circled wagons of the mainstream media and an opponent who refuses to bring the matter up.  This opponent is a 74-year-old socialist with near zero political accomplishments in his career and ideas that would have seemed quaintly antediluvian forty years ago. He draws tremendous crowds of young people.

This would seem to be a golden opportunity for the Republicans, especially after a two-term Democrat in the White House. But the leading Republican candidate behaves far more often like a jerk than a gentleman, has no discernible qualifications for the job he seeks, and exhibits a bombastic mendacity that would embarrass the Wizard of Oz. One-third of the Republican base seems to love it. Meanwhile, the best-financed and organized Republican candidate, with impeccable credentials and a genial manner, spent $9000 a vote before abandoning the race with a dismal fifth-place finish in South Carolina. The other leading candidates in the once crowded field attack each other instead of the eminently attackable leader. Two others pursue paths to the White House only they can perceive rather than throwing their support to someone who could win.

The chattering classes are largely reduced to looking at each other and saying, “What are the people smoking?”

One part of the problem, of course, is a deeply corrupt media that acts like it’s a player in the political game rather than an observer, and referee, of it.

Another part is that the machinery of nomination and election is hopelessly out of date and needs to be rethought from the ground up. The days when parties were necessary political vehicles are long gone, but their control over the electoral apparatus remains, to a large extent. That’s why independent candidates, such as Michael Bloomberg and Donald Trump, now run within parties to win election, rather than without.

And a third part of the problem is that both the nomenclature and paradigms of American politics are also hopelessly out of date. The Democrats are supposed to be the “progressive” (i.e. reforming) party in American politics and the Republicans the “conservative,” leave-things-alone party.  Equally, the base of the Democrats is supposed to be the average working stiff who only wants an honest day’s pay for an honest day’s work, while the Republicans cater to the fat cats of Wall Street and the country club.

But organized labor is not 35 percent of the work force as it was in the 1950’s; it’s less than ten percent. And the WASPocracy, so often the butt of mid-century New Yorker cartoons, is long gone. But we still view American politics as though that world still lived.

The middle third of the 20th century, the days of FDR and LBJ, was an era of enormous reform (by no means all of it successful to be sure) in this country and it was dominated by Democrats. Republican slogans were, more or less, “Bring Back Calvin Coolidge!” and “Yes, But . . .” As a result, the Republicans controlled both houses of Congress for only four years in the 62-year period from 1933 to 1995.

But since the 1970’s, it has been the Republicans who have put forth one reform idea after another (tax reform, regulatory reform, tort reform, education reform, labor reform, etc.) and the Democrats who have been fighting these reforms at every level. Instead, they call for more of the FDR/ LBJ liberalism that has been breaking down for decades now. Deep blue states, such as California, New York, and Illinois, are in terrible shape fiscally and economically. Red states like Texas, where reforms have been implemented, are thriving.

Today, the bases of the two parties are very different than they were in the mid-20th century. To oversimplify a bit (and, remember, politics is not a game for the philosophically pure), today the Democrats are the party of government. The Republicans the party of the marketplace. The Democrats are not the party of progress, but of retrogression. The Republicans are the party of reform. Democrats want to concentrate power among a best-and-brightest elite. They despise “flyover country.” They don’t believe in power to the people; they believe in power to fiduciaries for the people because a hundred years ago that was the road to power.

The Republicans want to spread power, both through free markets and through devolving power to the states and local governments. The Democrats are the party of Washington, the Republicans the party of middle America.

As a result, the Democratic base is today largely people dependent on a government check — whether that’s a welfare recipient, government employee, or academic researcher — and people who benefit from the regulatory state, such as tort lawyers, labor leaders, and large corporations who can afford the high cost of regulation that their nimbler, but smaller, competitors cannot. It also includes the very rich who can afford to indulge themselves with feel-good ideas such as environmentalism. Obama carried those earning over $250,000 in both 2008 and 2012.

The Republican base is everyone else: small businessmen, such as plumbers, contractors, doctors, and farmers; small-business owners; and, in general, those who want to rise in the world through their own efforts and see this country as the best vehicle ever devised for doing so. This makes the Republicans, ipso facto, the party of innovation.

Thus, the Democrats are the party of the status quo, the party of what-is-only-more-so, the Republicans the party of change and what-might-be.

But as long as the politicians and the pundits keep looking at American politics through mid-20th-century glasses, they won’t have a clue as to what’s really going on.