Political parties in the United States
In the aftermath of the U.S. Civil War, the Democratic party was an agrarian, pro-states-rights, anti-civil rights, pro-easy money, anti-tariff, anti-bank coalition of Jim Crow Solid South and Western small farmers.
During the same period, the dominant Republican party was composed of large and small business owners, skilled craftsmen, clerks, professionals, and freed African Americans,[16] based especially in the industrial northeast.
[22] The beginnings of the American two-party system emerged from George Washington's immediate circle of advisers, which included Alexander Hamilton and James Madison.
Followers of Hamilton's ideology took up the name "Federalist"; they favored a strong central government that would support the interests of commerce and industry and close ties to Britain.
Followers of the ideology of Madison and Thomas Jefferson, initially referred to as "Anti-Federalists", became known as Republicans, which for clarity's sake is today called the "Democratic-Republicans"; they preferred a decentralized agrarian republic in which the federal government had limited power.
The Era of Good Feelings under President James Monroe (1816–1824) marked the end of the First Party System and was a brief period in which partisanship was minimal.
The early Democratic Party stood for individual rights and state rights, supported the primacy of the Presidency (executive branch) over the other branches of government, and opposed banks (namely the Bank of the United States), high tariffs, and modernizing programs that they felt would build up industry at the expense of farmers.
Presidents Andrew Jackson, Martin Van Buren, and James K. Polk were all Democrats who defeated Whig candidates, but by narrow margins.
[20] The Whigs, on the other hand, advocated the supremacy of Congress over the executive branch, as well as policies of modernization and economic protectionism.
It adopted many of the economic policies of the Whigs, such as national banks, railroads, high tariffs, homesteads, and aid to land grant colleges.
[30] The Republican coalition consisted of businessmen, shop owners, skilled craftsmen, clerks, and professionals who were attracted to the party's modernization policies[16] and newly enfranchised African Americans (freedmen).
As the (sometimes) populist party of small farmers, it opposed the interests of big business, such as protective tariffs that raised prices on imported goods needed by rural people.
[15][32] Civil War and Reconstruction issues polarized the parties until the Compromise of 1877, which saw the withdrawal of the last federal troops from the Southern United States.
The Republican Party still dominated and the interest groups and voting blocs were unchanged, but the central domestic issues changed to government regulation of railroads and large corporations ("trusts"), the protective tariff, the role of labor unions, child labor, the need for a new banking system, corruption in party politics, primary elections, direct election of senators, racial segregation, efficiency in government, women's suffrage, and control of immigration.
Roosevelt "forged a broad coalition—including small farmers, Northern city dwellers with 'urban political machines', organized labor, European immigrants, Catholics, Jews, African Americans, liberals, intellectuals, and reformers", as well as traditionally Democratic segregationist white Southerners.
The "religious right" emerged as a wing of the Republican Party, made up of Catholics and Evangelical Protestants who, until this point, were usually strongly opposed, but now united in opposition to abortion and same-sex marriage.
[citation needed] Around 1968, a breakup of the old Democratic Party New Deal coalition began and American politics became more polarized along ideology.
Even Jimmy Carter, who ultimately served as a transitional President in the wake of the Nixon scandals, was considered by many at the time to possibly be a closet boll weevil Democrat.
[citation needed] In time, not only did conservative Democrats and liberal Republicans retire, switch parties, or lose elections, so did centrists (such as Rudy Giuliani, George Pataki, Richard Riordan, and Arnold Schwarzenegger).
Whereas college-educated voters had historically skewed heavily towards the Republican party,[41] high educational attainment was increasingly a marker of Democratic support.
[42][43] In 1980, conservative Republican Ronald Reagan defeated incumbent Democratic President Jimmy Carter[44] on a platform of smaller government and sunny optimism that free trade and tax cuts would stimulate economic growth, which would then "trickle down" to the middle and lower classes (who might not benefit initially from these policies).
While there is no consensus that a Seventh Party System has begun, many have noted unique features of a political era starting with the 2016 presidential campaign of Donald Trump.
is most clearly now the party of local capitalism—the small-business gentry, the family firms", while "much of corporate America has swung culturally into liberalism’s camp.
The party's creators feared the Freemasons, believing they were a powerful secret society that was attempting to rule the country in defiance of republican principles.
The economic philosophy of Franklin D. Roosevelt, which has strongly influenced modern American liberalism, has shaped much of the party's agenda since 1932.
The Republican Party tends to be strongest in the Southern United States,[67] outside large metropolitan areas, or in less-centralized, lower-density parts of them.
Greens emphasize environmentalism, non-hierarchical participatory democracy, social justice, respect for diversity, peace, and nonviolence.
[87] The Progressives are notable for reliably electing candidates to office and in some areas, such as the Burlington City Council, have previously held a majority in recent years.
Drutman argues that government without two parties would enable and support "the shifting alliances and bargaining that are essential in democracy" which have largely been lost in a two-party system due to political gridlock.
[4] As of August 2024, five independents serve in the U.S. Congress: Senators Angus King, Bernie Sanders, Bob Menendez, Joe Manchin, and Kyrsten Sinema.
