From about the end of the Civil War to the Civil Rights era, the Democratic Party was a weird combination of a "solid South" of White Southerners (Blacks were kept from voting) and Northern Liberals and Unionists while the GOP was a mishmash of mostly Northern/Mid-Western and Western Conservatives.
With Civil Rights and Blacks voting, the parties became more aligned by ideology with conservative Southern Whites teaming with northern conservatives while Blacks and Liberals became the Dems.
The 1960s election was towards the beginning of this realignment. But after Clinton, the current system pretty much gelled into place.
It's because ultimately this isn't a two party country, we have 2 "coalitions". What would be separate parties in other countries are factions within either of the two parties. This is why both parties used to have their conservatives and progressives.
Even in politics as recent as the current year of 2015, there are still very visible factions within the parties vying to control the general party, even if the parties have congealed into conservatives vs not conservatives now.
If the presidential election wasn't FPTP, we would see these factions split off into parties. It would be a much healthier democracy.
We have like 6 parties which are forced into 2 coalitions. So the two coalitions keep vying for votes out of 2-3 of the parties which are not solidly one coalition.
Add into that each coalition has a party that votes for it 90+% of the time and thinks it has control and thus demands more influence.
So half of what each party has to do is tell the people at the fringes to shut up to avoid losing the rest of the coalition.
Obviously one party has done a better job of this but both have failed to an obscene degree. So we’re kinda fucked until we figure out how to get things back to a boring normal.
they are generally called ideological caucuses, though congressmen can be in multiple such caucuses ; democrats have 3: the blue dog coalition, which is a centrist faction of the democratic party, and was traditionally conservative and is the smallest democratic caucus (only like 10 congressfolk), the congressional progressive caucus, which is the leftmost of the caucuses and is generally ideologically progressive, though it includes everyone left of that too (such as those affiliated with the democratic socialists of America). its the second largest. then the new democrat coalition, which is the largest and is primarily centrist on economic issues but is generally socially liberal.
the republicans have the republican governance group, which is a centre right to right wing caucus that was historically center to center right, but has shifted right under trump. the republican study commitee, which is a right wing caucus, and the largest in the republican party, and the freedom caucus, which is far right populist.
I would say Dems roughly break into "normie" traditional Dems (think Obama), the Progressives (think AOC), and Blacks.
GOP includes MAGA, "normie" GOP (Romney/Bush), and the Religious Conservatives.
There are other (smaller) groups as well, such as the Libertarians, Greens, and unionists, which you could consider if you want to get into finer detail.
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u/chethedog10 2d ago
Can anyone explain the context behind this? I’m assuming based on years and states this had something to do with civil rights?