Thursday, August 10, 2023

Political Eras / Party Systems of the United States

Definition: 

- Wikipedia: Political eras of the United States:

Political eras of the United States refer to a model of American politics used in history and political science to periodize the political party system existing in the United States.

- - First Party System

The First Party System was the political party system in the United States between roughly 1792 and 1824. It featured two national parties competing for control of the presidency, Congress, and the states: the Federalist Party, created largely by Alexander Hamilton, and the rival Jeffersonian Democratic-Republican Party, formed by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, usually called at the time the Republican Party (which is distinct from the modern Republican Party).

federal assumption of state debt
a tariff to pay off those debts
a national bank to facilitate financing
encouragement of banking and manufacturing
a standing army and navy
foreign policy: France or Britain.

- - Second Party System


The Second Party System was the political party system operating in the United States from about 1828 to 1852, after the First Party System ended. The system was characterized by rapidly rising levels of voter interest, beginning in 1828, as demonstrated by Election Day turnouts, rallies, partisan newspapers, and high degrees of personal loyalty to parties.
centralization of the national government
the central bank
abolition of slavery
enfranchisement
ratification of Texas
war with Mexico
- - Third Party System

The Third Party System was a period in the history of political parties in the United States from the 1850s until the 1890s, which featured profound developments in issues of American nationalism, modernization, and race. This period, the later part of which is often termed the Gilded Age, is defined by its contrast with the eras of the Second Party System and the Fourth Party System.

It was dominated by the new Republican Party, which claimed success in saving the Union, abolishing slavery and enfranchising the freedmen, while adopting many Whig-style modernization programs such as national banks, railroads, high tariffs, homesteads, social spending (such as on greater Civil War veteran pension funding), and aid to land grant colleges.
industrialization
national banks
railroads
tariffs
western expansion
homesteading
veterans pensions
land grant colleges

- - Fourth Party System

The Fourth Party System was the political party system in the United States from about 1896 to 1932 that was dominated by the Republican Party, except the 1912 split in which Democrats captured the White House and held it for eight years.

American history texts usually call the period the Progressive Era. The concept was introduced under the name "System of 1896" by E. E. Schattschneider in 1960, and the numbering scheme was added by political scientists in the mid-1960s.

The period featured a transformation from the issues of the Third Party System, which had focused on the American Civil War, Reconstruction, race, and monetary issues.
progressivism
race
monetary issues
isolationism
WW1
immigration

- - Fifth Party System

The Fifth Party System, also known as the New Deal Party System, is the era of American national politics that began with the election of Franklin D. Roosevelt to President of the United States in 1932. Roosevelt's implementation of his popular New Deal expanded the size and power of the federal government to an extent unprecedented in American history, and marked the beginning of political dominance by the Democratic Party that would remain largely unbroken until 1952. This period also began the ideological swapping of Democrats and Republicans into their modern versions, largely due to most Black voters switching from the Republican Party to the Democratic Party, while most conservative, White, usually southern Democrats shifted to the Republican Party as Democrats began increasingly prioritizing civil rights;

New Deal
roll of government in the economy
social security
labor laws
segregation
Cold War
Women's Rights
- - Sixth Party System

The Sixth Party System is the era in United States politics following the Fifth Party System. As with any periodization, opinions differ on when the Sixth Party System may have begun, with suggested dates ranging from the late 1960s to the Republican Revolution of 1994. Nonetheless, there is agreement among scholars that the Sixth Party System features strong division between the Democratic and Republican parties, which are rooted in socio-economic, class, cultural, religious, educational and racial issues, and debates over the proper role of government.

- - Seventh Party System (?)

Since the election of Donald Trump in 2016, the Republican Party's more moderate, neoconservative faction has been increasingly ostracized by a growing far-right, paleoconservative faction, most commonly known as Trumpists. Peter J. Katzenstein, Professor of International Studies at Cornell University, believes that Trumpism rests on three pillars, namely nationalism, religion, and race. According to Jeff Goodwin, Trumpism is characterized by five key elements: social conservatism, capitalism, economic nationalism, nativism, and White nationalism.