Context Podcast Digital Collection

Doug Exton: This program is funded through a more Perfect Union initiative of the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Dr. Markie McBrayer: Hi, everyone. this is, doctor Markie McBrayer, and I'm going to be presenting a lecture today on party systems in the United States, specifically presenting for the Idaho Humanities Council. So who am I just to again convince you that I am qualified to speak on this? I am an assistant professor of political science at the University of Idaho, and I teach on American politics and policy.

So this ranges from things like American politics and policy to, things at the upper level, like public opinion and, American presidents and so forth. Today we are going to be talking about party systems and realignments. And don't worry, I'll, I'll delve into what those kinds of phrases mean. and we're going to do a tour of the six party systems and their associated realignments today.

so party systems and realignment. So the United States is considered a two party system. So around the world there are different kinds of party systems. Some are multi-party, right, meaning more than two or others are actually one party dominated. But in the United States, because of our electoral rules, we have a two party system. And if you haven't checked out, there's also a lecture on third parties and Duverger's law, which sort of explain why we only have two parties in the United States.

So feel free to check that out as well. So in the United States, there are about six party systems, which are essentially areas where there is stability in the two parties that we see. And each party system is separated by a kind of realignment of sorts. So what is a realignment? A realignment is a change in the size of the party.

Right. So maybe one becomes more popular than the other. Maybe they become even something like that, change in the composition of the party. So maybe one party that used to have one kind of demographic, that demographic shifts to the other party, right? That kind of thing. and then finally, things like the issues that divide the parties.

So, policy platforms, so you can think today, the Democratic Party is for a larger social welfare state, whereas Republicans are for a smaller social welfare state, that kind of thing. and these have changed over time. So the size of the parties, the compositions of parties and the issues that divide the parties change over time.

And that's where we get these delineations of six party systems. And we're going to talk about each of them today. And we're going to talk about each of these party systems today, because the Democratic Party of 1835 is not the Democratic Party of today. And the Republican Party of 1876 is very different than the Republican Party today. In this lecture here, walking us through party systems will help us better put into context where the parties have been, and how they have changed over time.

Okay. How these party systems have changed over time. So I want to start off with a quote from Madison in Federalist ten where he says, so strong is this propensity of mankind to fall into mutual animosities, that where no substantial occasion presents itself, the most frivolous and fanciful distinctions have been sufficient to kindle their unfriendly passions and excite their most violent conflicts.

So in Federalist ten, Madison talks quite extensively about factions and how we should be worried about them. Right? And factions in many ways are a A type or the way he's talking about it. It could be considered, a party of sorts. And we should be wary. He's arguing we should be wary of political parties and much of the discussion about the founders and what they thought of political parties paints it as, the founders didn't want or perhaps didn't anticipate these factions or parties at the founding.

Recent scholarly work, like the work of Robert Ross, though, shows that there's likely a more nuanced picture there than, oh, the founders did not want political parties that's probably, or did not anticipate parties. That's not entirely true. So there is literature that suggests, like, they had more nuanced feelings. but for the most part, there is this idea that they were a little hesitant about parties.

Right? And they might not have, considered how they would appear after the founding came. Nevertheless, parties still form, parties still form soon after the founding. And so this is what we're going to walk through today is what they look like from the founding on. Now, in the first party system, we have two, it lasts from about 1789 to 1828 ish.

Okay. And the two parties there are the Federalists versus the Democratic Republicans. And I'll sort of highlight what the two major parties are of the era, because they do change over time. Okay. So Thomas Jefferson is the Democratic-Republican, Alexander Hamilton is the Federalist. to be clear, Federalist are different than the group that advocated for the ratification of the Constitution.

but this sort of slowly forms at the end of the 18th century. And, by the time we get into the 1800s, the Democratic Republicans are the more popular of the parties. Okay, the Federalist Party ultimately collapses, in the 18 tens. The. So the Federalist Party is pretty much noncompetitive by the 18 tens. And Democratic-Republicans have, like essentially one party domination from the 18 tens through 1828.

Of course, things start to change in the 1820s. Things start to change in the 1820s, particularly with the election of, Andrew Jackson. Okay, so despite a lack of conflict at the end of that first system, that first party system, there are factions developing, right? So even though there is one party domination, during this time, we know that there are still conflicts starting to occur.

Okay. Now, this is an era. This runs from 1829 to about 1856. And this is the Whigs versus the Democrats. And this really emerges after Andrew Jackson's election in 1828. This party is called, the Democratic Republicans. Right. If you recall from the first party system, the Democratic Republicans changes its name to become the Democrats and the Democrat, the Democratic Party centered on Indian removal.

they opposed, the National Bank. They defend, slavery, particularly for Western states. and the Democratic Party under Andrew Jackson also advocates for this sort of spoils and patroness patronage system. that is especially used for, for party building. the Democrats also during this era, helped popularize some of the features we recognize in American parties today.

like central planning committee is and and state parties as well. By contrast, the Whigs are generally sort of anti Jackson and more for things like national development and are less keen on some of the democratic developments in the parties. so things like popular mobilization and party organizations, the Whigs still ultimately adopt, but they are less excited about doing them than the Democrats are ultimately, by the end of this party system.

So towards the 1850s, slavery is becoming a, a very strong division point. and that ultimately brings about the end of this party system. Okay. So, specifically Northern Whigs and anti-slavery Democrats ultimately merged to form the Republican Party for the next era, for the Third Party System. But Whigs, as a political party, essentially die off and are no longer a national party at the end of this period.

Okay, this brings us to our third party system, which is the the parties that we know today, Republicans and Democrats. And this lasts from about 1857 to 1896. And this period is really where the Republicans and Democrats start as the two major political parties, the divisions are primarily centered around Republicans being against slavery and, being pro-business.

Democrats, by contrast, tend to be white Southerners angered by the end of slavery. And they also appeal to immigrants in the northeast. The parties are fairly evenly competitive at this point, but towards the end of this period, populist. So a third party, they begin to form in the south and west. And there are divisions in the 1890s that populists really represent best.

And how how the country really handles industrialization. Okay. So the first part, the fourth party system, which goes from about 1897 to 1932 and again, is Republican, is against Democrats. I should be clear, though, like the Republican and Democratic Party of 1910, 1915, 1930 are different than the Republican and Democratic Party. the third party system, okay.

But the fourth party system, the platforms have changed. So those policy platforms have changed from the third party system. The voters have changed. And, it is just not the same party system as as before, really. This is an era from 1897 to 1932 of Republican dominance, with the exception of Wilson in the 19 tens. But again, you should go check out the third party video lecture, which discusses why Wilson is dominant at that time.

And so this sort of helps change the party system into the fifth party system. This last from about 1933 to 1968. Some people argue that we are still some political scientists argue that we are still in a fifth party system. But for the most part, many political scientists, come down on the side of there being, one more stage after this.

In any case, though, it's still the same two parties, right? Republicans versus Democrats. but the Republican economic policy, as mentioned before, was ultimately really unpopular in the 1920s and 1930s. So it causes a great deal of people, to join the Democratic Party who have more, popular economic policies at that time. So the New Deal, so the Democrats New Deal policies under, Franklin Delano Roosevelt brings more groups into their party.

So things like, unions and intellectuals and southern farmers and immigrants, and we also see increasing, African-American support. Keep in mind that during the late 19th century, the Republican Party tended to have more, support from African-Americans. But as the Democratic Party pursues New Deal policies intended to, help the poor, you end up the Democratic Party ends up pulling more, black and African-American voters into their party through the support of social welfare programs.

But this era is characterized as being dominated by Democrats right from 1933 to 1968, can only think of, like, you see FDR, you see Truman, you see Kennedy. you see LBJ. really, the primary exceptions are for, Eisenhower. Right. But for the most part, you see Democratic dominance during this era. But by the 1960s, new cleavages begin to emerge across the party, especially in relation to race and gender.

The Voting Rights Act and Civil Rights Act make it clear that the Democratic Party is supportive of racial and ethnic minorities, and as those policies challenged Jim Crow laws and the segregation laws, really pervasive in the South. And given that the Democratic Party was dominant in the South South, it means there are many elected officials and voters who are more prone to switching into the Republican Party.

And this is known as the southern realignment. And this southern realignment is occurring simultaneously with something called partisan sorting. This means where liberals are sorting into the Democratic Party and conservatives are sorting into the Republican Party. And you might be thinking, well, like, well, yes, of course, the Democratic Party has always been liberal and the Republican Party has always been conservative.

No, that is not true, right. In previous party systems, particularly the fifth party system, you had conservatives in both parties and liberals in both parties. An example of this would be Dixiecrats, right. These are Southern Democrats who are quite conservative in the South. Okay. These are conservative Democrats in the South. But as we get from the 1960s into the 1970s and the 1980s, particularly in the 1980s, you start to see higher concentrations of conservatives in the Republican Party and liberals in the Democratic Party.

Now you see much more significant divisions between the two parties, which are divisions based off of class and culture and race and ideas about the size of the government. Now, some of these other areas that we talked about tend to be defined by one party being dominant. So the Republican Party is dominant in the early 20th century, whereas the Democratic Party is more dominant mid century.

This era is not defined by that. You oftentimes see it sort of switch back and forth. So in the 1980s, we see Republicans being quite popular. In the 1990s, we see Clinton being elected. We shift back to a Republican president for two terms with George W Bush. Then you see a shift to Obama, a Democratic president, and then a shift to Trump and then a shift to Obama moving back and forth.

So there's not necessarily one party that is dominant. But okay, so in this era, we instead see two very competitive parties. Now many students and you are likely wondering yourself, well, are we going through a realignment right now? Right. Are we setting ourselves up for the next party system? And political scientists are examining this, too. Okay, so are we moving into a seventh party system now?

Just sort of a refresher. A realignment is changes in the size of the party. The composite of the party, and issues that divide the party. Now, I wouldn't necessarily say that we've seen changes in the sizes of either the Democrat or the Republican Party, or necessarily the composition of the parties. So we haven't seen one group really get pulled over to, a one specific demographic group get pulled over and really high concentrations to the other, party.

But, there are some issues that were once settled, like, regarding like ownership and party platforms. that we're starting to see change. And so, for instance, within the Republican Party, there used to be pretty broad support of things like free trade. but that has been called into question somewhat, in the face of, of Trump.

But I like that might be a small point. I think these are things to consider, though, and pay attention to, moving forward in any case. Right. Are we experiencing a realignment, the things that you would want to think about or the size of the party? Change is not changing. Is the composition of the party changing? And are the issues these issues that divide the parties are those changing.

And then we might consider something like a realignment occurring. Okay. now you might be wondering like, oh, this is actually really interesting to me. could I read anything more on this? So a few things would be the partisan sought by, Matthew Levandowski. And these are all academic texts that would sort of, like, walk you through some of these things.

Why parties by John Aldridge and then finally, dynamics of the party system by James Sundquist. And that takes you through a few of the prominent party systems that we just talked about today in more detail. So what we talked about for this lecture generally is, party systems in the United States, specifically that we are a two party system, and the realignments associated, with the party systems that we have.

We also specifically looked at the six party systems that characterized the United States and their realignments. And so how we go from these six periods of stability into the next period, right, how we realign from one period to the next. So I hope this gives you a better sense of the political parties over time and how they have changed.