The U.S. political parties changed over time as the country progressed and modernized. Today the party’s are two big tents, but those tents looked different in each party system.
The articles below explain the many complex changes from 1776 to today.
Some claim there was a “one-party system” for a brief moment in the Era of Good Feelings under Monroe and the Democratic-Republicans, but that isn’t fully true. There was still federalist opposition in those years.
Despite the Red-State Blue-State split of the two-party system (between city and rural regions), America is rather purple politically speaking (meaning all regions have a mix of voters from both parties).
Right-wing Populism, like the Tea Party, and Left-wing Populism, like Bernie Sanders, are the two basic forms of populism. Both are anti-elite but otherwise very different.
The KKK and slavery both have their roots in the Democratic party. However, the southern bloc conservatives (“the solid south”) have increasingly favored the Republican party over time. Thus, today the faction who once supported the KKK and slavery now mostly supports the Republican Party.
William Jennings Bryan can be considered the father of modern American left-wing and right-wing populism, including progressivism, the religious right, workers’ movements like the free-silver movement, the income tax, direct elections of Senators, and more.
Third Parties can win elections, but they rarely do. This is because the United States of America has a two-party system in practice.
Despite two parties dominating politics due to a majority being needed to win elections, the United States doesn’t officially have a two-party system. Parties aren’t even mentioned in the Constitution.
Abraham Lincoln was the first Republican President. Lincoln, a former Whig (and then “moderate” “anti-slavery” Republican), favored social justice and federal power over states’ rights regarding slavery.
The US political parties, now called Democrats and Republicans, switched platform planks, ideologies, and members many times in American history.
The factions of the third party system are indicative of the actual factions in American history that comprise the “big tent” political parties of any era.
I fact-check Dinesh D’Souza’s movie Hillary’s America: The Secret History of the Democratic Party.
The New Deal Coalition and Conservative Coalition are two coalitions that are emblematic of both the 20th century party switches and the modern parties.
We explain the “vast-right wing conspiracy” (or right-wing strategy) that Hillary talked about in the 90s (and the left-wing equivalent).
The modern Tea Party is a progressively conservative nativist protectionist populist movement that represent a response to globalism and progressive social liberalism.
We explain three different types of Republicans found in America during Civil War Reconstruction: moderate, conservative, and radical Republicans.
Notable political factions, politicians, and platform planks switched between the major U.S. political parties throughout U.S. history leading to a number of complex changes. Here are some different ways to look at “the party switches” and different “party systems” the changes resulted in.
We discuss racial code words and “dog-whistle politics,” terms that describe the code words politicians use to imply politically incorrect ideas to their base.
The Federalists and Anti-Federalists were the first political factions of the U.S.. They arose out of a debate over the ratification of the 1787 Constitution and went on to form the basis of our current two-party system.
We explain and annotate a letter Abraham Lincoln sent to Joshua Speed which shows how Lincoln opposed the Know-Nothings and Slavery.
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