Like some on the left, my Twitter feed has turned into a shit-flinging fest of pro- and anti-Clinton and Sanders tweets. One thing that’s come across the transom a couple of times is the claims that Sanders would lose as badly as George McGovern did in 1972. I don’t think that’s the case–and I think there’s a compelling argument to be made that Clinton would, at best, be a one-term president, just in time for Democrats to get slaughtered again in 2020, when Congressional redistricting is decided.

But that’s not what this post is about.

What I’ve been wondering all along is if this is a major realignment election–1972 wasn’t that. But Al Smith’s loss in 1928 was. While Smith was clobbered as badly as McGovern was, Smith played an underappreciated role in FDR’s 1932 victory.

In 1928, opposition to Prohibition was becoming full-throttled among both white immigrants and blacks. While the bans of Prohibition were obviously an issue, Prohibition was also short-hand for a variety of complaints, ranging from rising income inequality, economic hardship for lower-middle class workers, biased policing, and disgust with a Republican industrialist elite that had run its course.

History might not repeat, but it does rhyme.

Al Smith capitalized on these sentiments and was able to get forty percent of black voters to support Democrats in 1928 (basically from near zero previously) in part due to the anger over how Prohibition was disproportionately targeting blacks. In urban areas that historically were Republican, ‘white ethnics’ turned out for Al Smith. While Smith still lost–and big–as the country in 1928 was still a Republican country with local and regional Democratic enclaves, these shifts were capitalized on by FDR in 1932.

I’m not arguing that Democrats should lose in 2016 (if you think I am you’re missing the point). But the unlikely success of both Trump and Sanders suggests there is a lot of anger at a woefully underperforming elite (which has left and right wings in the two parties). There might be an opportunity here for a historic realignment.

Something to consider.