Realignments and Divided Government I II Realignments Divided Government Realignments changing in the parties system This part of the class makes a lot more sense if you remember what we know about parties and what we know about elections We have a strong two party system The parties form today are not the parties that we actually started with Still the democrat and republican parties we have now do not look the same from the 1930s With these big changes it is helpful to think of these as earth quakes Parties sit on top Groups underneath here are the things that change As these groups shift that s when you get change in the system Party systems critical realigning elections are where you see the actual shift New party system is formed after this Critical realigning elections Elections where you see realignments Occur every 30 to 40 years With one of these big elections that you see one of these big seismic shift that drastically changes what the parties stand for Critical realignments 1828 Election of Andrew Jackson Birth of the Democratic Party starts where he puts in the spoils system by putting in place the spoils system he alters the relationships between the supporters and the party 1860 Election of Lincoln Birth of the Republican Party This is where external mobilization creates the party 1896 Election of McKinley With this election you see where the Republican Party becomes the party of Wall Street This is in line with industrialization 1932 Election of FDR Landslide here American people were firmly behind the president and congress by supporting g the new deal and this is an increase in the federal government power from the local level Debate begins after 32 There has not been a critical realigning after 32 There are a lot of changes in society in the 60s but there is not a realignment Then the 80 election of Reagan There is a problem After a critical realigning the party that wins must last for 30 40 years In 1980 you don t see it what you need to realign after the election one party must be dominant at the national level it must control dominancy in the presidency and preferably both house After the 1980 elections there is no more dominance in later elections There has been a realignment just much more subtle and slow and not in an election What do you need for that big shift You need a big national issue that cross cuts the parties On an issue if the issue cuts across the party you will have some members in the party that support the issue and some that don t support the issue so the party will not agree So there will be groups from one party that agree with other parts of the other party 1860 election the issue was slavery this was a cross cutting issue 1932 cross cutting was the power of the government Should the government have power to put the new deal into the states with these big issues the parties try to strattle it they try to appease everybody and it doesn t work 1932 with election of FDR There was the new deal coalition of five groups succeeded in getting the democrats into power of huge wins in 32 and 36 Five groups in the new deal coalition labor union members then urban ethnics Third southerners Fourth northern blacks Fifth middle class liberals the southerners and northern African Americans are at some point going to have an issue that they somewhat disagree on originally southerners were in favor of big national government and democrats the group holds together through two elections It is clear that there are cracks by the time of the 1960s you get real problems southerners in Kennedy s party do now want Kennedy to be reelected They do not want desegregation Democrat is pushing hard on racial and southern democrats don t want to go 1948 strong therman creates the Dixie crats He took the most extreme of the southern democrats when it came to the racial issues and created the Dixie crats 68 George Wallace leaves the Democratic Party makes the American independent party which is a pro segregation party By now it is not a secret that the Democratic Party can t seem to hold together their five groups republican Party of 1982still looks the same Republican Party argues to keep government out of the economy Republican Party isn t campaigning on social issues It is and economic party Goldwater and Nixon they make a play for the unhappy southern democrats the conservative southern democrats that are unhappy with the civil rights Nixon has a southern strategy that works that was an attempt to attract them to the Republican Party Southern republicans become more conservative Parties have switched Republican is now complex they were most cohesive and now is complex Have a southern conservative wing and its traditional economic wing Last point with realignments The divided system that we have Over the last 75 years We have had divided government When we have a president of one party and either one or both houses of government are another party We have always had the possibility in our system Because of splitting our tickets so now we end up splitting our institutions The unintended consequence of this is grid lock bickering and holding the government hostage so now the parties have huge incentives to finger point so there is less of an incentive to compromise Divided government leads us to grid lock and bickering Divided government is a possibility in the constitution Interest groups Fill some of the voids that parties have left open Interest group is an organized body of individuals that have a common interest and they attempt to change public policy There is a political element There is no limit on size They can be interested in one issue or multiple issues It is very broad for reason Madison Factions sounds like interest groups Pretty much the same thing Madison did think the factions could be a problem Did think that they would form naturally and he thought about ways to stop them from forming Thought about giving us the same interest Thought about getting rid of liberty You can t stop these things because they will just form We have the ability to just form groups Madison did tell us that a large republic that is diverse can keep them in check It is less likely that a few of these factions are going to turn into majority factions and take over the government Interest groups are not great but they will not be terrible
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