Yes, We're in the Seventh Party System

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And as promised, here is the script from my video:

What era are you in right now?
My name is Mr. Beat, and I’m in my FREAKING OUT ABOUT THE FUTURE era. 
Anyway, what about the eras of American politics? Huh? What about them? Answer me, Cumberbatch!

While political scientists and historians have divided up American political history into different TYPES of eras, arguably the most popular way they have done this is by what’s called “The Party System.” The Party System refers to the different eras in American political history in which both the political beliefs and voters of the two major political parties remained fairly consistent. 

The Party System gets its name due to the fact that Americans always like to party. (stare blankly at camera)

Just kidding. The Party System gets its name due to the fact that it has political parties, or basically big teams that organize to elect people to public office that generally share the same political views. When the United States first started, political parties didn’t exist. In fact, the beloved first president, George Washington, warned against them. However, George must have got really sad when political parties formed anyway. 

But you don’t need to cry, George. There are only TWO political parties. Well, two MAJOR ones. There are at least dozens of smaller political parties which we call “third parties.” The two major ones you’ve probably heard of ‘cause you’re smart and stuff. The Republican Party and the Democratic Party.

Clone (from above): But wait… 
Look up
why are there only two MAJOR ones that tend to control everything? Punk!

That’s because, at the federal level anyway, the United States has plurality voting, or voting in which a citizen only gets to vote for ONE candidate, and the candidate who gets the most votes, aka a plurality, wins the election. EVEN IF THEY DON’T GET THE MAJORITY OF VOTES. This “winner-takes-all” electoral system has historically discouraged third parties…and thus, the United States mostly just has a two-party system, and BECAUSE  the country has had a persistent two-party system since political parties first became a THING….the country has gone through SEVERAL party systems. In the early years of the republic, there were totally different political parties. Over the past 171 years…give or take…we’ve had the same two major political parties, the aforementioned Republican and Democratic parties. But the Republican Party of today is VERY DIFFERENT than the Republican Party of 171 years ago, and the Democratic Party of today is VERY DIFFERENT than the Democratic Party of 171 years ago. I mean, you should have seen this channel 171 years ago. Back then, I was only posting videos of unboxing squishies. Times have changed.

Anyway, party systems exist because political parties are constantly shifting their priorities in order to keep winning elections. In doing so, political parties evolve and even end up completely changing their minds about political issues. At one point, the Republican Party was the party of reform, then it slowly became more conservative over time. At one time, if you were a member of the Ku Klux Klan, you were probably a proud member of Democratic Party. Now? If you’re a member of the Ku Klux Klan, uhhh….yeah…you are almost certainly not a member of the Democratic Party. At various points in American history, the two major political parties actually weren’t that different at all when it came to most issues and policies.

In this video, let’s break down the Six Party Systems of American political history.
Clone: Wait…
Look up
Clone: I thought there were now SEVEN Party Systems in American political history. 
Six….seven 

-The First Party System (1792-1824)-
The First Party System emerged soon after the Constitution got ratified. 
On one side, you had the Federalist Party, led by folks like Alexander Hamilton and John Adams, who favored a strong federal government, a national bank, and more trade with Britain. The Federalists were generally associated with the elites and those who lived in cities. On the other side, you had the Democratic-Republican Party, not to be confused with the Democratic Party or the uh…Republican Party of today…led by folks like Thomas Jefferson and James Madison. They favored a weaker federal government (which usually meant more states’ rights), more trade and better relations with France, and yes...were generally AGAINST a national bank.

Well, the Federalists started to dramatically lose power during the War of 1812, and by 1820 the Democratic Republicans were so dominant that President James Monroe ran for re-election virtually unopposed. However, after the economy went to the crapper and after the passing of the Missouri Compromise, which increased tensions over the expansion of slavery out west, the Democratic Republican Party would begin to splinter, leading to the end of the First Party System.

-The Second Party System (1824-1854)-
The Second Party System is often associated with the sharp rise of democracy and populism in the United States and it all started because of one man. For example, for the first time, ALL white men could vote around the country instead of just rich, property-owning white men. And yep, the Second Party System is when we saw the creation of the Democratic Party, which completely revolved around Andrew Jackson, who kinda got screwed over in the presidential election of 1824. He won the PLURALITY of votes, but still lost the election. Well, Andrew Jackson absolutely FREAKED OUT a bunch of other American politicians. They’d end up forming their own political party literally known as the Anti-Jackson Party but aka the National Republican Party. They’re just really unoriginal with names, ok? After the country’s first third party, the Anti-Masonic Party, became a thing, it and pretty much all other Anti-Jackson groups united to form the Whig Party. 
So again. Yeah. Congrats, Andrew Jackson. You created the Second Party System.
On the Democratic Party side, led by folks like not just Jackson but also Martin Van Buren, they tended to be for expanding democracy (obviously), VERY against a national bank, against high tariffs, against elitism, FOR a weaker federal government (more states’ rights), and FOR the territorial expansion of the United States, even if it meant stealing land and killing people to get it. On the Whig Party side, led by folks like Henry Clay and John Quincy Adams, they basically were for everything Andrew Jackson was against. They wanted a national bank, a stronger federal government, higher tariffs, and were even implicitly cool with elitism. Speaking of a stronger federal government, the Whigs tended to support large infrastructure projects that could ONLY be financed by the federal government. Oh, and the Whigs generally were against the territorial expansion of the United States, especially during the Mexican–American War.

Never as tight of a coalition as the Democratic Party was anyway, the Whigs began to splinter by the early 1850s, and the main thing they disagreed about? The expansion of slavery out west. In fact, new third parties emerged like the Liberty Party and Free Soil Party completely focused on the slavery issue. After the Kansas–Nebraska Act got rid of the Missouri Compromise in 1854, thus making a LOT of abolitionist northerners mad, the Whig Party completely collapsed and a new third party, the Republican Party, would form. 

-The Third Party System (1854-1896)-
The Third Party System highly revolved around the American Civil War.
The issue of slavery, which obviously was THE main underlying cause of the Civil War, caused the Third Party System to happen to begin with, but the war continued to have huge political influence even decades after it ended. Despite this being a distinct political era marked by rising American nationalism, a push toward modernization, and the Gilded Age, a period known for extreme wealth inequality and corruption, the Democratic Party survived, mostly because it adapted to the changing times. Still, it was the aforementioned REPUBLICAN party that DOMINATED during the Third Party System. The first Republican president, Abraham Lincoln, who is often also considered the GREATEST American president was EXTREMELY influential, and pretty much every Republican politician following him during this era was tryin’ to be the next Lincoln. I mean, they even all had beards. Led by Lincoln and later folks like Ulysses Grant, the Republican Party generally was for equal rights for African Americans…well, African American MEN…, FOR a stronger federal government, FOR higher tariffs, and for Reconstruction policies, or when the federal government had a much heavier role over state governments as southern states got reorganized and re-entered the Union following the Civil War.

This time, the Democratic Party didn’t have as tight of a coalition. You had folks in the party for the gold standard but others passionately against it, for example. Led by folks like Stephen Douglass and then later Grover Cleveland, they generally were against equal rights for African Americans, FOR a weaker federal government (more states’ rights), against higher tariffs, and against Reconstruction policies. 
And due to the Civil War, the two major political parties during this time were often split geographically- Democratic Party voters were overwhelmingly in the South and Republican Party voters were overwhelmingly in the North. 

By the 1890s, a new third party called the People’s Party and a broader populist movement had taken the country by storm, and new issues became more important to voters, such as ending monopolies, restricting the consumption of alcohol, worker rights, and consumer protection laws. While both the Democratic and Republican parties would survive this time, they only did so because they dramatically changed their platforms. Plus, the country had been going through its longest and most severe economic depression yet.

-The Fourth Party System (1896-1932)-
Most of the Fourth Party System was dominated by The Progressive Era, that period of widespread reform and activism between roughly  1890 and 1920.

Sure, the economy had recovered by the late 1890s, but Americans had not forgotten the damage giant corporations had done to the country. Suddenly both the Republican Party AND Democratic Party had become reform-minded, supporting things like taxing the super wealthy, breaking up monopolies, ending corruption in politics, expanding worker rights, and expanding democracy, which included giving women the right to vote and letting citizens directly elect their U.S. Senators.

Still, the two major political parties had their differences. 
On the Democratic Party side, led by folks like Woodrow Wilson and William Jennings Bryan, they tended to be against imperialism and more for free trade and deregulation, while the Republican Party, led by folks like William McKinley and Theodore Roosevelt, tended to be pro-imperialism, for MORE protectionism, and for MORE laws regulating businesses. Due to Republicans being more proactive on progressive legislation, they were the dominant political party during the Fourth Party System. I mean, Woodrow Wilson mostly got elected due to a split within the Republican Party between Theodore Roosevelt and William Howard Taft.

Speaking of split, World War One and its aftermath momentarily saw the Republican Party unify, but flash forward to 1929 and now the country was going through The Great Depression, the worst global economic crisis in history. Because the Republican Party was the party in power and was at least partially to blame for making the depression worse, suddenly the Democratic Party became very popular.

-The Fifth Party System (1932-1980)-
The Fifth Party System is also often called the New Deal Party System due to its close association with Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal programs. 
The New Deal was a series of reforms put into place by Roosevelt in response to the Great Depression. They not only had the goal of ending the Depression and aiding Americans hurt by it, but also creating laws and programs to make sure something like the Depression would never happen again. And sure, the New Deal didn’t end the Great Depression, but these reforms were so popular that Roosevelt became extremely popular. To this date he’s the only one to ever get elected president four times. And after Roosevelt died, future presidents and politicians…both in Roosevelt’s Democratic Party but also in the opposing Republican Party, mostly worked hard to preserve and even expand the New Deal. For example, the Democrat president Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society programs were basically just an extension of the New Deal.

So yeah, on the Democratic Party side, led by folks like Roosevelt and Johnson, they generally supported expanding the federal government in the name of protecting social welfare, expanding civil rights, expanding worker rights, and social liberalism. The Republican Party, on the other hand, led by folks like Dwight Eisenhower and Richard Nixon, wanted to keep the federal government a BIT smaller when protecting social welfare, thought STATES should generally expand civil rights, generally supported business interests over worker rights, and social conservatism.

But similar to the Fourth Party System, both of the major political parties had very similar economic and foreign policies during the Fifth Party System, especially with regards to strong opposition to the Soviet Union and its Communist government and command economy. After all, this era overlapped quite a bit with the Cold War.

The Fifth Party System began to collapse for two reasons. First, events like the Vietnam War and the Watergate Scandal caused a LOT of Americans to lose trust in the federal government. And second, the rise of Ronald Reagan and similar limited government Republicans convinced tens of millions of Americans that https://youtu.be/G8jV_1G9Yj4?si=2ypTdbxvzS-a2J6I&t=242 
Oh, and did I mention the country was also going through another economic crisis? Stagflation. 

-The Sixth Party System (1980-2016)-
The Sixth Party System was dominated by two things: neoliberalism and neoconservativism. Neo and Neo. (looking over) Oh yeah, that Neo was popular during this time as well.
Neoliberalism is a political movement that prioritizes personal liberty and free market competition. Neoconversativism is a political movement that promotes aggressively spreading American values…typically CONSERVATIVE values... around the world, even if that means military intervention. During the Sixth Party System, both the Republican Party and Democratic Party spent decades mostly on the same page when it came to both economic and foreign policy, whether people who lived through this time are willing to admit it or not. And yet, just like with the Third Party System, the two major political parties during this time were often split geographically, but this time Democratic Party voters were overwhelmingly in the North and Republican Party voters were overwhelmingly in the South. 

On the Republican Party side, led by folks like Ronald Reagan and Dick Cheney…yeah I’m not kidding….Dick Cheney….they generally supported more aggressive foreign policy, lowering taxes as much as possible, and social conservatism. On the Democratic Party side, led by folks like Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, they generally supported a less aggressive foreign policy, higher taxes on the wealthy to pay for more social programs, and social progressivism. Indeed, the Sixth Party System is when we saw lots of progress on social issues…from same-sex marriage to the legalization of cannabis to the growing acceptance of the transgender community. However, it’s also when we saw growing polarization, polarization more dramatic than anything the country had ever seen going back all the way to right before the Civil War.

Woah woah woah now, I’m not saying the United States is about to enter another civil war. But we are going through some major changes right now.

More than anything, the collapse of the Sixth Party System seems to be a backlash to the extreme wealth inequality and increase in government corruption we’ve seen since The Great Recession, as well as a backlash to VERY unpopular foreign interventions like the Iraq War and War in Afghanistan. Over the last few years, we’ve seen both the Democratic Party AND Republican start to rebel against free trade and even capitalism itself.

-The Seventh Party System (2016-present)-
Yes, my clone was right
Thank you!
In my opinion, we are now in the Seventh Party System, and I think it’s mostly because of one man. (pause) Ok, maybe two.

And that man was Donald Trump. Him becoming president has changed the Republican Party, man. It’s now more populist, nationalist, and protectionist. I mean, a great example of this is the fact that the United States currently has its highest effective tariff rate since the early 1930s.

It has increasingly rejected internationalism, or the cooperation and collaboration among different nations. It has increasingly rejected both neoconservatism and neoliberalism while embracing postliberalism, a political movement that promotes the idea that both liberalism and individualism are hurting society more than helping it.

But it’s probably not just Trump. The Democratic Party is changing, too.

Folks like Bernie Sanders, who nearly got the Democratic Party’s nomination for the presidency in both 2016 and 2020, have also been influential in helping the party embrace populism and move further to the left on economic issues. During the Seventh Party System, the Republican Party has had more success reaching rural voters and the Democratic Party has had more success reaching college-educated suburban voters. 

Now, I should say that there are political scientists out there who disagree with me. But they’re full of crap. (What the heck?!?)  I’m kidding. That was mean. They make good points.

The fact that political polarization still persists, that yeah…sure…the PRESIDENCY may have changed but CONGRESS hasn’t changed so much since the Sixth Party System, or it’s just too darn early to analyze this since some of this stuff happening recently might just be temporary blips….these are all reasons why other political scientists argue we’re still in the Sixth Party System.
Then again, there are even OTHER political scientists out there who argue we’re still in the Fifth Party System. So who the heck knows. All this stuff is made up anyway. (stare at camera)

But what do YOU think? Do you agree with me that the United States is currently in the Seventh Party System? Or do you NOT agree with me? How dare you. But wait, why? Why the heck would you not agree with me you dillweed. Sorry. That was harsh. Look, just try to explain yourself in the comments and perhaps we have a constructive dialogue. We can work this out. Alright then. Go on. Start typing away. Thanks for staying curious.
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Sources/further reading:
The American Party Systems: Stages of Political Development by William Nisbet Chalmers
https://archive.org/details/americanpartysys00will
The Concise Princeton Encyclopedia of American Political History by Michael Kazin, Rebecca Edwards, and Adam Rothman
Purchase here: https://amzn.to/3YQZ4Sp 
Parties and Elections in America: The Electoral Process by Mark D. Brewer and L. Sandy Maisel
Purchase here: https://amzn.to/3NoWctm 
The Second American Party System: Party Formation in the Jacksonian Era by Richard McCormick
Purchase here: https://amzn.to/4pgNmLu 
The Semi-Sovereign People: A Realist’s View of Democracy in America by Elmer Eric Schattschneider https://archive.org/details/semisovereignpeo00scha 
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/25/upshot/trump-era-republicans-democrats.html
Parties, Interest Groups, and Political Campaigns by Matthew J. Burbank, Ronald J. Hrebenar, and Robert C. Benedict https://archive.org/details/partiesinterestg0000burb 
Schlesinger, Arthur Jr. (1999). The Cycles of American History. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_eras_of_the_United_States

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