Is this the end of the Democratic and Republican Parties as we know them?

CBS News legend Bob Schieffer has covered the Republican and Democratic Conventions since 1968, but he told KIRO Radio’s Dori Monson that he’s never seen anything like this year’s RNC. And he thinks it might signal an end to the parties as we know them.

Dori Monson: Have you ever seen a convention like this?

Bob Schieffer: It’s the question I’ve been most asked for the last year: Have you ever seen anything like this campaign? The short answer is “no,” because I’m not sure we’ve had one quite like this. And mind you, this is my 24^th convention. My first one, the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago, we watched the Democratic Party literally tear itself apart on the streets of Chicago. We thought that might be about to happen here, but I don’t think we’re going to see something comparable to that. Thank goodness, all the action has been inside the convention hall and not outside. But I think we are seeing a Party that is in the midst of an identity crisis, trying to find out what it is. We know it’s not the old Republican Party that you and I have grown up with. But what is it? Is it going to be a party that is better, worse? Or, as some establishment Republicans wonder, is it going to be destroyed altogether? And I’ll be very honest, I don’t think we know the answers to those questions yet.

Monson: What’s so strange is that Trump seems to thrive on the chaos — on the speech plagiarism and Ted Cruz being booed. Like it’s not a distraction, but for him and his supporters, it’s all a plus.

Schieffer: The Trump campaign was not surprised by the speech that Ted Cruz made. They saw the speech before he delivered it. I saw the speech – it was handed out in the press gallery. They knew three days before that he was not going to endorse Trump. They made a calculated decision to let it happen. And I think, in doing that, they let him walk into an ambush. And you saw what happened … I have never ever seen someone walk out to a standing ovation and then get booed off the stage. I’m telling you, that’s a oner — that’s one in a row. I’ve never seen that before.

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Monson: Is this the future of politics now? Where the reality show mentality of chaos prevails and discord is what sells?

Schieffer: Well, we don’t know. But that’s one of the things we’re going to find out during this coming campaign. The reason the Trump people allowed this to happen is they don’t think it makes any difference. They think the only thing that matters is that they think if they can drive Hillary Clinton’s  negatives higher than Donald Trump’s negatives, they will win. They may be right about that, they may be wrong, but that is their strategy. And if that happens, the Republican Party as we know it, I think, is going by-the-by. Political parties don’t last forever. The Wig Party, the Federalist Party — we’ve seen parties come and go. We may see two parties come out of what used to be the Republican Party. But something is changing.

Monson: Are the Republicans that much different from the Democrats, who don’t seem to have a lot of passion for Hillary? Like the Republicans, they just hate the opponent.

Schieffer: Yes, they have exactly the same strategy. They think if they can drive his negatives higher than hers, then they win. The parties are the weakest as they’ve ever been, quite frankly. Fewer Americans identify themselves as either Republican or Democrat than at any time in our history. The group in our middle, that are unaffiliated, is larger than it’s ever been. The parties are very weak now. They used to have this power because they were the ones that raised the money. Now the candidates raise their own money. So you have to wonder: is the whole party system that we know coming apart to be replaced by something different?

Taken from Thursday’s edition of the Dori Monson Show on KIRO Radio. Edited for clarity.