Editor’s Note: William Murchison is off this week. The following column is by Michael Barone. It’s been a tough year for political elites, here and around the world, what with the passage of Brexit in June in Britain, the repudiation…

HOW DID AMERICA’S TWO POLITICAL PARTIES get to be the way they are today? It’s a long story, for although we think of the United States as a young country, the Democratic Party, dating back to 1832, is the oldest…