Let’s Not Forget About Party Realignments

I know it’s difficult to wrap your head around if you don’t have history flashcards forever burned into your memory, but the American split of conservative Republicans and liberal Democrats is really fairly new. Yes, Abraham Lincoln was a Republican, but the vast and expansive implications of subsequent party alignments is not reflected in our political language. Just because a baby is named Adam Smith does not mean he will have an innate understanding of economic theory, and similarly, having a modern-day Republican party does not mean that all members come from the North and oppose slavery.

Political party names are just names. Party platforms are reevaluated every four years prior to the political conventions, because constituents and party members change. A political party is not and should not be a deep-seated identity, but rather is a group of people who support the same policies. There must be fluidity in political parties if we as citizens want to continue to grow and improve our country. That’s why the two-party system has been intact for so long — the parties change depending on the needs of their members, rather than being set in stone so that people flock to third party options.

The US Political Party System has been realigned many times over our short history as a country. Until the 1860 election that brought Lincoln to office, it had been the Whigs and the Democrats against each other. But shortly before the election, the Whigs fractured (much like we’re experiencing today) and its members left to various third-party platforms. Eventually the system stabilized in 1958 to become our familiar Democrat/Republican split. But here, it wasn’t just that the Whigs fractured and came back together as Republicans, but rather the Whigs fractured, some Whigs joined with the Democrats who, upon the fracturing, had to reevaluate their platforms, and some Whigs joined with Democrats unhappy with the new platform to create the Republican party. It’s like if there were two teams, one who wore red and one who wore yellow. Suddenly the yellow team decided to be purple, causing the red team to reevaluate and become orange. Some of the yellow team joins with the new orange team, some of the red team joins with the purple team, and new parties are born. Hopefully that analogy didn’t make this all more confusing.

So then in 1860, Lincoln is elected and in 1865 (in brief) the Civil War Ends, Emancipation Proclaimation is put forth, and Constitutional Amendments are added. This is all done by the party then called Republican. In 1896 the Populist Movement gained force and caused people to reassess their party allegiances. This election was the start of business-funded elections and vast campaigning in highly contested regions.

But the big realignment came with the FDR election of 1932. The Great Depression changed everyone’s political priorities. It is Roosevelt’s New Deal policies that define the modern priorities of the Democratic Party. Labor Unions, Welfare, African-American rights and more became central to the Democratic Party. This was in direct reaction to the market crash of 1929 and the Republican presidency of Herbert Hoover. FDR changed the voting blocs that we see today, so that those who support these public policies are considered Democrats, whereas those supporting State Policies are considered Republican.

There are no innate planks that you agree to when you register as a Republican or a Democrat. The parties fluctuate and adapt as history and people change.

So, to wrap this all up, party realignment is real. Party realignment means that if you want to call Democrats liars because at the convention there was the claim that is was Democrats who ended slavery when technically Lincoln called himself a Republican, you need to be aware of history. History is not made up of labels, but of ideas and people, stringing along through time. It is about who you agree with, what ideas you support, and what vision you have for the future.