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You will be able to describe the role that parties play in making government policy after you've read this chapter.

Explain the tension between the general electorate and the party base.

Explain the ways in which citizens and governments are connected.

Explain how the American party system works.

In American politics, give examples of how parties serve citizens.

What's at stake.

Early elections to determine who the party's presidential nominee would be were held in the Democratic Party. Everyone expected Hillary Clinton to win the race.

She was a moderate left Democrat who had been toughened to practicality by years of service to her party as first lady, senator from New York, and secretary of state. Clinton was an establishment in her party. She helped shape its modern identity, but she was well connected, liked, and the clear party favorite.

Both the Democratic and Republican Party establishments were challenged by outsiders in the 2016 presidential election, with businessman Donald Trump disrupting a group of Republicans.

Clinton didn't predict the challenge from her left. The independent senator from Vermont declared his intention to run in the Democratic primary on April 30, 2015. There are huge advantages to running in a major party's primary instead of an independent. It doesn't make you loyal to the goals of the party or the establishment.

Clinton won the nomination, but the challenge was serious. He did well with young voters, the white working class, and voters who did not identify with a party. His best states were those where the candidate selection mechanism was the caucus--a discussionbased process that rewards intensity of support and willingness to spend time to choose the candidate--or the open primary--an election in which non-party members are allowed to participate. Clinton was pulled to the left on a number of policy issues, such as college tuition, trade, and Wall Street reform, as a result of the attacks on her by the left.

Clinton's battle was scarred by the reputation he had for being inauthentic and unreliable on important issues that some of his supporters never forgive.

A number of people defected to third-party candidates because they didn't transfer their support to her. Democrats who felt the party had ignored them in favor of prop up banks and corporations and supporting social programs to aid minorities appealed to the white working class. Many of them were angry and resentful, ripe for the picking by an anti-establishment candidate, and when Sanders left the stage there was another in the wings.

The same thing happened to the Republicans as it did to the Democrats. A crowded field of primary hopefuls seeking the nomination was already deeply divided, like their party, between establishment economic conservatives and social conservatives. As the establishment candidates took aim at each other, another outsider, a former Democrat turned original birther, stepped in and stole the show.

The field didn't have a chance. Donald Trump's entertainment value was so high that he was able to get hours of free media time as the cable stations covered his rallies, hoping that he would say something outrageous to convince voters that he was running against the "political correctness" that kept them from expressing their true feelings. Aiming straight for the disaffected voters who felt abandoned by the party that had promised them much, Trump promised to "Make America great again" and decimated the field. He called Bush, the establishment favorite, front-runner, and heir to the Bush family dynasty, "low energy," and Bush's quiet and restrained demeanor seemed to prove him right.

"Little Marco" diminished Marco, "Lyin' Ted Cruz" took care of the Texan, as one by one Trump mocked them, and knocked them out of the race.

There was a policy debate to be had in the Republican Party, an important one between the establishment and the Freedom Caucus, but it never got a hearing. The primary was reduced to a show of name calling and one-upmanship as each candidate tried to outdo themselves on the issues Trump brought front and center. Trump's rallies drew large crowds, drawn to hear him talk about how he would deport illegal immigrants, ban Muslims from entering the country, and bring back jobs he claimed were stolen by the Chinese, all while signaling disrespect for social norms of respectful language and politically correct behavior. Social media became an echo chamber, repeating the sentiment or giving them attention. They were amplified by social media.

Trump's anti-establishment stance appealed to those who felt that Washington had gotten too corrupt and had been removed from their concerns. He was supported by both bigots and the same white working class. By the end of the primary season, Trump was the Republican Party's nominee, and he went on to win the Electoral College in a close race.

After we look more closely at the role parties play in American politics, we will return to that question.

A political party is a group of citizens who want to make policies happen by controlling government. Candidates for office can be recruited, nominated, and elected. That's a business that can be very divisive. One party has to lose. Americans have always had differing opinions about parties. Public service and civic action can be fueled by partisan passions. When rival parties refuse to budge from their positions in order to achieve a compromise in the public interest, we are cynical.

He hoped to have limited their effects by creating a large republic with many and varied interests. In his farewell address as president in 1796, George Washington warned against the baneful effects of the spirit of party.

There were parties in Madison's day. Most political observers and scholars believe that political parties are essential to the functioning of democracy in general and American democracy in particular. The Constitution has not been damaged by parties. The way the Constitution works is enhanced by the extraconstitutional framework of rules and institutions provided by them. The rules produced by the political parties determine who wins and who loses in American politics. In this chapter you will learn more about the history and characteristics of the American party system.

Political parties are not mentioned in the Constitution because Madison hoped they wouldn't thrive. Many of the rules that determine the establishment and role of the parties have been created by party members.

American politics are silent on the place of political parties, political watchers have appreciated the role that political parties play in our system of government. A key difference between parties and interest groups is the definition of parties as organizations that seek, under a common banner, to promote their ideas and policies by gaining control of government through the nomination and election of candidates for office. Both parties and interest groups want to influence government policies, but only parties gain this influence by sponsoring candidates in competitive elections. Winning elections is a means to the end of controlling the government.

Voters can hold their elected officials accountable for what they do in office through a linkage between voters and parties.

The separation of powers and federalism causes some of the government to be fragmented. The founders wanted to prevent the government from becoming too powerful. They were successful in dividing up power so that they could provide some connection between state and national government, but it would be very difficult for the American government to achieve anything. Only when the parties control several levels of government can they lend this coherence.

The ideas and policies of those elected to serve in government are opposed by parties. Some citizens and critics may decry the taking of political sides, that sometimes seems to be motivated by possibilities for party gain as much as by principle or public interest. The best political ideas and policies emerge from the relationship between partisanship and the court system.

The central committees at the national, state, and local levels are represented by the party organization. The Democratic National Committee is at the top of the organization, while the Republican National Committee is at the bottom. Underneath these national committees are statelevel party committees, and below them are county-level party committees, or for campaigns, recruit and nominate candidates, organize and facilitate campaigns, register voters, mobilize voters to the polls, conduct party conventions and caucuses, and draft party platforms. This may seem like a lot, but it's only a fraction of what party organizations do.

There are candidates for national, state, and local office. The effective head of his or her party, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, the majority and minority leaders in the House and the Senate, the party whips in Congress, and state governors are all central actors in the party-ingovernment.

The party-in-the-electorate is a representation of ordinary citizens who identify with one of the political parties. If respondents think of themselves as Democrats, Republicans, or independents, they will be included in the public opinion surveys. The percentage of voters who identify as independent has increased from less than 30 percent through the mid-1960s to around 40 percent since the mid-1970s. The Democratic Party had an advantage in the 1950s. The Democrats have held a small lead in party affiliation since 2016 and the parties were about even by 2002.

The authors' calculations were used in the national adult surveys. Data can be accessed through the Roper Center.

Most voters who identify with one of the political parties "inherit" their party IDs from their parents generally support the party's basic ideology and policy principles. Each party's stance on the use of government to solve various economic and social problems is usually related to these policy principles.

Most states allow voters to register their party preferences for the purpose of voting in party primaries.

These voters don't have to do anything special to vote in the primaries or contribute money to the political party.

Although voters don't have a formal role in the party organization, they are still used as a base of support during elections. Both of the major-party candidates win the votes of many people who identify with their respective parties. Since neither party has a majority of national voters, capturing one is not enough to win a national election. In this chapter, we will see that candidates are pulled between the ideological preferences of their base and the more moderate preferences of independents.

One of the democratic roles of parties is to provide a link between the voters and elected officials, or to use the terms we just introduced, between the party-in-the-electorate and the party-in-government.

There are many ways in which parties can link voters and officials, but for the link to truly enhance democracy-- that is, the control of leaders by citizens-- certain conditions have to be met.

Each party should present a coherent set of programs that are consistent with its ideology and clearly different from the other party.

The candidates for each party should support their party's program if elected.

Voters should make their choices based on which party's program most closely reflects their own ideas, and they should hold the parties responsible for promises not kept by voting their members out of office.

Each party should have control over its elected officials to make sure that they vote for its programs and that they are accountable to the voters.

There is little doubt that she will take up the Speaker's gavel again in 2019.

When voters are given clear alternatives and parties are held responsible for keeping their promises, democracy is strengthened. It takes a lot more time and attention for voters to hold officials accountable.

Many government actions are the product of many officials, according to several political scientists.

The responsible party model works well in parliamentary systems such as Great Britain. Strong, disciplined, and determined parties are appropriate for a parliamentary system where the majority party controls both the legislative and the executive branches, and can control the government without minority obstruction. Political scientists have used the model to critique the American parties, which were seen as unfocused and undisciplined during the middle decades of the twentieth century. As the parties have become more divided, there is a growing gap between their behavior and the demands of our constitutional system of checks and balances. This means that the parties often share power and must cooperate to get things done, yet having such parties in our system of shared powers is a recipe for gridlock and frustration, which is pretty much what most Americans see today in their national government. The responsible party model is valuable because it underscores the importance of voters holding the parties accountable for governing, and it provides a useful yardstick for understanding fundamental changes in the U.S. two-party system.

Review Who, What, How Political parties seek to control government and promote their ideologies. They create rules that allow them to control the nomination, campaign, and election processes and try to control the actions of their members elected to office. Politicians have something at stake as well. Winning requires the support of nonparty members as well, but parties provide a mechanism that helps them get nominated for office, win elections, and run government.

Americans have a large stake in what political parties do. There is a link between citizens and the government, as well as an articulate opposition to government policy.

Parties play a role in government policy.

Voters should be able to choose between different visions of how government should operate in the responsible party model.

Parties make representative democracy work by offering voters a choice. The policy differences between the two major parties in America, the Democrats and the Republicans, are smaller than in other democracies around the world, particularly those with many parties spread across the ideological spectrum. In this section, we look at what the two major parties stand for and how they differ from one another.

Cynical voters may think that members of the two parties are the same, but the parties are very different in their policies and memberships.

The way in which government should be used to solve problems is different for each major party. Ideologies are broad sets of ideas about politics that help to organize our views of the political world, the information that bombards us, and the positions we take on various issues. It is important for parties to let us know which views are acceptable from their perspective and which are not. In liberalism and conservatism, ideologies that divide the country sharply over issues such as the role of government in the economy, in society, and in citizens' private lives were seen. Conservatives look to the government to provide social and moral order, but they want the economy to remain unfettered in the distribution of material resources. Liberals encourage government action to solve economic and social problems but want government to stay out of their personal, religious, and moral lives.

It was calculated by authors.

Since the New Deal of the 1930s, the Democratic Party has been aligned with a liberal ideology and the Republican Party with a conservative perspective. The South is the most conservative region in the country because of resentment of the Republican Party for its role in the Civil War. Conservative southern Democrats began to vote for the Republican Party in the 1960s, as well as formerly Democratic politicians. The South became mostly Republican by the 1990s. The swing made the Democratic Party more liberal, but only about one-third of the party's members were consistent. Hyperpartisanship was discussed in standstill recently. There is no overlap in the House of Representatives between the parties because all Republicans are more conservative than the most conservative Democrat. The differences among the public are still noteworthy.

Although the conservative label is more popular, the likelihood of identifying yourself as a conservative is much higher among Republicans. It isn't the case that all Democrats and all Republicans think the same.

Different coalitions of voters reinforce party ideologies. The Democrats' post-New Deal liberal ideology reflects the preferences of its coalition of working- and lower-class voters, including union members, minorities, women, the elderly, and more educated urban dwellers.

The Republicans' conservative ideology reflects the preferences of upper- to middle-class whites, those who are in evangelical and Protestant groups. The coalitions are subject to change as the parties' stances on issues change and as the opposing party offers new alternatives. Whites without a college education were once the bedrock of the Democratic Party. However, the Republicans' more conservative appeals on racial and social issues have won over enough of this group that they are as likely to support Republicans in a given election.

When the parties run slates of candidates for office, those candidates run on a list of policy positions the party endorsed and pledges its elected officials to act as policy. The national party's campaign promises are usually made in a presidential election year. The platforms have to reflect substantial differences that are consistent with the ideologies of the parties. The responsible party model requires that the parties offer distinct platforms, that voters know about them and vote on the basis of them, and that the parties ensure that their elected officials follow through in implementing them.

The authors' calculations are weighted to match the Census data.

The two major parties' stated positions on some key issues from their 2016 differences between the Democratic and Republican platforms are typical, and they are what make it possible for the electorate to bring about meaningful policy changes. Changes in the policy directions pursued by the national government can be made when a new majority party is elected to Congress. Party differences are needed for popular control of government policy.

Political parties in our system have a dilemma--how to keep the core ideological base satisfied while appealing to enough more moderate voters that they can win elections in diverse constituencies. In a small district, this is not likely to be a problem. Conservative Republicans and liberal Democrats can be nominated and elected. As constituencies get larger, parties have a choice.

They can be moderate and win elections, or they can be pure and lose.

There are internal forces that pull the parties away from each other, to the opposite ends of the ideological spectrum, but external electoral forces can push them together. Understanding electoral politics in America is dependent on these forces. We look at these relationships more closely in this section.

You have to do some homework if that is the case. A party platform is a document that outlines the party's political positions and agenda for the coming years. You can think of the party platform as a political dating profile, filled with information that can help you make sound decisions about whether you want to pursue a relationship with one party or another.

Before you get involved with a party, we encourage you to read the platform of your preferred party and consider alternatives. The full text of each party's platform can be found on the parties' national committee web sites, as well as a few highlights from the two major-party platforms.

The Democratic and Republicans Parties are likely to want to impress their base, while upstarts like the Greens and the Libertarians might be more interested in attracting new members. Consider how these goals might affect the party platform.

The national convention comes at the end of the presidential primary season.

You can quickly and easily find key words that matter to you in digital information. Health care, abortion, firearms, terrorism, taxes, and the Supreme Court are all terms that are high on your political priority list.

By voting in party primaries, you can help shape the party of the future, along with its agenda. Think about how you can best use that power. Supporting a party doesn't mean you endorse the party line on every issue, but it is a useful way of identifying a clear set of priorities for political action.

You may decide that membership in a party is not important to you, and that you want to be an independent voter. Remember, come November, you will be choosing among candidates who are affiliated with parties.

Knowing what each party stands for can help you make better decisions in the voting booth, especially in state and local elections where you may not have access to the kind of information made available about national candidates.

The Democratic Party and the Republican Party believe in the same thing.

To bring down college costs and give students access.

Any regulation that increases college costs must be applied to colleges and universities.

We will make worth against the negative community college.

The care system should put people before profits.

Republicans consider the income and wealth establishment of a pro-growth inequality and believe the tax code is a moral imperative.

Large corporations have to pay their fair share of taxes.

Democrats will fight back.

Major forces within the parties keep them distinct: the needs to appease party activists, to raise money, and to keep the candidates true to their own beliefs as well as to those of their base. Although presidents try to portray their proposals as serving the interests of the general public, the specific policy solutions are almost always consistent with their party's ideological perspective and policy agenda.

The main players in political parties are often called the "party faithful," or people who are especially committed to the values and policies of the party, and who devote more of their resources, in both time and money, to the party's cause. The activists support the party more than just voting. They donate their money, volunteer their time, and are involved in party politics. The party activists are not an official organ of the party, but they are still a vital part of the party. Compared to the average voter, party activists tend to be more extreme in their beliefs and care more about the party's issues.

Party activists play a key role in keeping the parties ideologically distinct because one of the primary goals of their participation and support is to ensure that the party advocates for their issue positions.

The Democratic Party dealt with this problem by giving more weight to moderates like Bill Clinton and Al Gore and by relabeling themselves as "progressives" with fewer and fewer candidates. What's at stake. There was a new populism that found its voice in supporting the candidacy of Donald Trump, which was revealed in the 2016 primaries.

The need to please party activists gives candidates a powerful incentive to remain true to the party's causes. Less politicians are willing to be moderate and work with the other side, and those who are out of step with their party's most extreme members may find it hard to represent both their party and their people in certain regions of the country. The trend against bipartisanship in the Senate.

Ideological purists don't always win the day. If a candidate is going to win an election, he or she must appeal to more voters than the opposing candidate. In the American two-party system, most voters tend to be in the middle of the ideological spectrum, holding a moderate position between the two ideological extremes. Most of the votes are won by the party that appeals to the moderate and independent voters. The Republicans moved from their initial opposition to join the majority because of the pressures related to winning a majority of votes. The Democrats did not embrace a single-payer plan until recently, when they wanted to expand health care coverage. The forces that work toward moderation are not as strong as they should be in an age of extreme polarization. This is different from hyperpartisanship because it goes beyond commitment to the party's ideological or policy positions; it becomes part of one's personal identity.

The parties can deal with the tension between activists and moderates in other ways than by changing their party positions. One strategy is to emphasize partisan issues that are popular with moderates in ways that are palatable to more voters. In the 2004 election, George W. Bush focused on the dangers inherent in the war on terror, but in 2008 and 2012 the need to appease the party base kept John McCain and Romney to the right of center. In 2008 Barack Obama appealed to moderates with his insistence that politics need not be ideological and divisive, but in 2012 after four years of partisan gridlock in Washington, he ran instead on helping the middle class, and his campaign focused on turning out the Democratic base. By 2016 we were outside of party politics. Hillary Clinton tried to find a unifying theme with her "Stronger Together" message, but she had to spend a lot of her time reacting to things said and done by Donald Trump.

Trump didn't try to run to the middle or to distance himself from the base that gave him his primary victory. Negative partisanship kept both parties in their lanes, but so many other variables were at work in that election that it is hard to fit it into the usual party narratives.

The rules of electoral politics create incentives for the parties to take moderate positions that appeal to the majority of voters, but party activists, primary voters, and big-money donors who tend to be more ideological and issue oriented, pull party policy agendas back toward their extremes. Policy solutions that are consistent with the party's ideology are promoted by parties and their candidates. The liberal interests of the coalition of groups that represent their most ardent supporters are reflected in the policy agenda of the Democratic candidates. Republican candidates advocate a policy agenda that reflects the conservative interests of the coalition of groups that are their most ardent supporters. Both parties in most elections offer voters a choice, not an echo, but they also contribute to the growing partisanship of American politics. Moderates and independents who are less active than the party base may be the real loser in this situation.

Explain the tension between the general electorate and the party base.

Parties were just an organized version of a potentially dangerous political association for James Madison. The ink on the Constitution was barely dry before the founding fathers were organizing themselves into groups to promote their political views. Alexander Hamilton and John Adams formed the Federalists, a group of legislators who supported their views, after disagreements among early American politicians.

James Madison and Thomas Jefferson joined forces with the Democrats. Over the course of the next decade, these organizations expanded beyond their legislative purposes to include recruiting candidates to run as members of their party for both Congress and the presidency.

The history of political parties in the United States is dominated by ambitious politicians who have shaped their parties in order to get elected to office and run the government once there. The country's first mass-based party was created by Martin Van Buren and Andrew Jackson in the 19th century. The main goal of this mass organization was to take advantage of the expansion of voting rights to all white men, even those Democrats enacted a number of party and government reforms designed to enhance the control of party leaders, known as candidates, the officeholders, and the campaigns. The party bosses would pick the candidates for the general election during the nomination process. The party caucus was the most common way of selecting candidates. The boss would approve of any candidate who pledged his loyalty to the boss and supported policies that the boss favored.

Winning candidates were expected to reward only party supporters with government contracts. The range of people with a stake in the electoral success of the party was expanded by this largesse. The combination of candidates and people who had been given government jobs and contracts meant that the party had an army of supporters.

Because party bosses controlled the nomination process, any candidate who did not fulfill his pledges to the party was rewarded with public office, jobs, and government contracts.

Party bosses and their machines were very strong in urban areas. The democratic consequence of integrating new immigrants into the urban centers at the turn of the twentieth century is what the urban machines were designed to do.

In most U.S. elections prior to the 1900s, the average participation rate was over 80 percent.

Boss Tweed of New York City ruled the ballot box.

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The weakness of these party machines was their strength. In many cases, parties would do almost anything to win, including buying the votes of people, bringing in new immigrants, and resurrecting dead people from their graves. The whole system of patronage, based on doling out government jobs, contracts, and favors, came under attack by reformers in the early 1900s.

Although we have not had a revolutionary war in America since the 1700s, we have changed our political course several times. Dramatic changes in policy direction can be effected through the ballot box rather than through revolution, which is one of the advantages of a democratic form of government.

The two-party system in the United States has been marked by periods of relative stability lasting twenty-five to forty years, with one party tending to maintain a majority of congressional seats and controlling the presidency. The coalitions of groups supporting each of the parties change to a new alignment as a result of the shift in party dominance. The policy agenda of each party's new coalition is reflected in the changes in government policies that result from realignments.

Major critical events like the Civil War and the Great Depression caused realignments. Sometimes decisive realignments are not apparent, but rather the old period of stability gradually breaks down without a critical precipitating, slowly re-forming into a new and different party era. The United States has gone through six party eras.

We have had a series of elections over the last few years that have included the massive migration of white southerners to the Republican Party and the less massive but still notable trend for Catholics to be less solidly Democratic than they were at the formation of the New Deal. Barack Obama's nomination as the Democratic candidate for the presidency in 2008 solidified the trend of African Americans shifting from favoring the Democratic Party to overwhelming Democratic identification. The South used to be the most reliable region for the Republican Party in presidential elections, but that has changed.

In recent elections, Democrats have been more likely to win in New England and the mid-Atlantic states, where the Republicans were stronger in the 1940s.

The current party era is characterized by major changes that have made women, African Americans, Latinos, Asian Americans, and other minorities switch from the Democratic Party to the Republican Party, and a system in which neither party has a clear majority.

The executive and legislative branches at the national and state levels are in the hands of different parties because of these phenomena.

Political parties were designed to serve their own interests. Laws that gave the vote to all white males led to the creation of a mass-based political machine. The machines continued to allow leaders total control over the party, but with the possible consequence of politicizing new generations of American immigrants and strengthening American democracy.

Reformers wanted more power for the voters and less for the party bosses. The machines were broken with civil service reform. The American party system has allowed citizens to change their government frequently without resorting to violence or bloodshed.

In general, parties play an important role in American democracy by providing a link between citizens and government, as well as a vocal opposition. The two main activities of parties are electioneering and governing. The party organizations handle electioneering and the party-ingovernment handles governing. We look at the two essential party functions in this section.

Getting candidates elected is one of the activities involved in electioneering. One of the primary reasons for the existence of party organizations is to help candidates.

The election activities of each party begin months before the general election when they begin recruiting strong candidates. There is usually no shortage of ambitious politicians eager to run for high-profile offices like state governor and U.S. senator, but the local parties have to work hard to fill less visible and desirable elective offices like those in the state legislature and county government. It is difficult to get candidates to run against an incumbent because they are hard to beat.

It's not new to American politics to have tough campaigns.

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Parties focus on races they think they can win and devote their resources to those elections. Although they generally try to run candidates in most races, they will target those contests where the seat is open, where the incumbent is plagued by scandal, or where the party has a good chance of winning. The Democratic Party tries to recruit quality candidates--perhaps known community leaders--and to direct campaign contributions and aid to the targeted contests.

The party chooses a candidate for each office during the nomination phase. The nomination phase can unite the party behind its candidates, or it can lead to division within the party that supports different candidates and different policy agendas. One of the most important tasks for the party is the nomination phase.

Party primaries are the most popular way to choose candidates for congressional, statewide, state legislative, and local offices. The general election is usually three to four months prior to the primary election. The nominees for the offices on the ballot are selected by party members. There are different types of primaries. Only voters who have registered as members of a given party are allowed to vote in that party's primary. In an open primary, voters simply request one party's ballot on the day of the primary or choose which party's primary they wish to participate in after they enter the polling booth.

Voters don't choose the actual candidates they want to run for president in presidential primaries, rather they choose delegates. Party activists who support a candidate and run for the chance to go to the party's national nominating convention the summer before the election are usually delegates. Chapter 14 talks about the mechanics of presidential election nominating conventions.

The function of the party convention is to bring together the party faithful to set the policy priorities of the party, as well as to provide a sense of solidarity and community for the activists. Party activists find it revitalizing to come together with like minded people to affirm the principles and policies they hold in common after working long and hard all year.

The convention proceedings have changed dramatically due to the primary process and the practice of televising them. Before reforms in the late 1960s ensured that candidates would be chosen by elected delegates rather than party bosses, national conventions were filled with political bargaining and intrigue. By 1972, when many states had adopted the primary system, delegates were committed to presidential candidates before the convention began, meaning there was little question about who would get the nomination.

In 1980 there were floor battles at the convention when Ted Kennedy challenged Jimmy Carter for the Democratic nomination. The prospect of such a divisive move can cause party members to be in a state of panic, as it did in the summer of 2016 when Democrats were worried that the battle for the nomination would go all the way to the convention. The primary victor is rubber-stamped by today's presidential nominating conventions.

Even though there are occasional skirmishes between the ideological wings of both parties, for the most part they have turned into choreographed events designed to show that the party is unified behind its presidential candidate and to launch the official campaigns. Conventions have become so routine and predictable that since 2000 the television networks have devoted little to them, although the cable stations have picked up the slack.

The major convention speeches in 2008 were more exciting, with Obama's and McCain's acceptance speeches attracting more than 38 million viewers each. The Democratic National Convention featured political and show-business stars in a more typical format. Even though his supporters disrupted him, he endorsed Clinton. It will be remembered most for a speech by a Gold Star father whose son died defending his country. Donald Trump was challenged by the father, Khizr Khan, to read the Constitution and set off a fight with the family over Trump's proposal to ban Muslims from entering the country.

One of the main roles of a political party is to develop a policy agenda, which represents policies that a party's candidates agree to promote when campaigning and to pursue when governing. The development of such an agenda involves a lot of politics and gamesmanship as eachfaction of the party tries to get its views written into the party platform. The winner of control over the party platform will have the final say on how the campaign proceeds. When he lost the Democratic primary, the Democratic National Committee allowed him to fill some slots on the platform committee and the resulting document reflected compromise between his policy preferences and those of Hillary Clinton.

The role of the party in the election phase is to get its nominated candidates elected.

Candidates can run their own campaigns with their own staffs, instead of having to rely on a party for voter education. Candidates can present themselves on their own terms if they create ads that can go viral, raise money on the Internet, and use social media. Even though candidates are less dependent on the parties for the nuts and bolts of their campaigns, voters themselves are guided more by their party affiliations, which limits candidates from getting too far out of step from the party line.

The parties are major fundraising organizations and money is central to such a capital-intensive campaign. Parties became major banks for candidates in the 1990s because of a loophole in the campaign finance laws that allowed parties, but not candidates, to collect contributions of unlimited size from donors.

Candidates weren't allowed to participate in the decisions about how the money was spent or to direct the content of the issue ads, but there was a lot of correspondence between the parties' issue ads.

The BCRA limited soft money raising in 2002. The Court's decision allows individuals and organizations to give unlimited amounts of money to so-called Super PACs, which are independent of the candidates' and even the parties' campaign efforts. It means that those with deep pockets and a willingness to spend have the ability to exert enormous influence in the electoral arena.

The parties supplement their issue ads by sending party leaders into the district to raise money for the candidate. The candidate will have greater media visibility as a result of this move. It is a positive campaign presence for congressional candidates when a president has high popularity ratings. If their approval ratings fall, their congressional campaign appearances are more limited to raising money for their party's congressional candidates in closed gatherings of the party faithful. The party that doesn't control the presidency usually fills this void with congressional leaders and presidential hopefuls.

When a party's candidates have been elected to office, attention turns to governance. Party governance gives voters a means to make officeholders accountable for both failed and successful governing policies, and it can provide an extraconstitutional framework that can lend some coherence to the fragmentation produced by separation of powers and federalism.

When a party controls the government at the national level and in the states, it means that the party decides who gets to run the government in which they have a majority. The Republicans were in control of the top leadership positions in the executive branch of the government after Donald Trump won the presidency. The legislative branch was controlled by the Republican Party. The majority leader in the Senate and the Speaker of the House were selected by the Republicans, and they generally got their way. Legislative leadership controls the legislative calendar and the rules governing legislative debate and amendments.

The job of party governance in Congress has been made more challenging by the use of the filibuster by the minority party in the Senate to stop everything from simple nominations to fill executive agency offices and staff the federal courts to legislation with clear majority. In a system in which power is checked at almost every turn, it is more difficult to govern. The job of governing becomes more difficult with divided government.

The ultimate goal of a political party is not only to choose who occupies the leadership positions in government but also to execute its policy agenda--the party's solutions to the nation's problems. Whether the problem is a lack of affordable health care, insufficient national security, high taxes, distressed communities, unemployment, illegal immigration, or a failing economy, each party represents an alternative vision for how to approach and solve problems.

David Frum is a waiter. The author of eight books and editor of the Frum Forum, a web site dedicated to the modernization and renewal of the Republican party and the conservative movement, has opted for a second career in restaurant service.

The political world is divided into two types of people, according to Frum.

A waiter is someone who has a vision of where his country is going and waits for the country to arrive. It's not a good thing to be a waiter, even if Reagan was one.

Waiters believe that the world will eventually come around to adopting their view, as long as they adopt the values of the constituency they want to lead. Being a waiter allows Frum to be both an ardent member of the Republican Party and one of its toughest critics.

The end of western civilization was felt in the late 1970s. The Reagan people did a good job of keeping us mobilized and motivated after the Reagan years, and all of us young Reaganites felt that. He became an editorial writer at the Wall Street Journal after graduating from law school. He got his first taste of running counter to party orthodoxy when he looked at the criticism of U.S. economic trends that it had benefited the wealthiest Americans but had left the least wealthy falling farther behind. Dead Right was his first book and was about the successes and limits of the Reagan Revolution.

He was offered a job as a White House speechwriter, where he was credited with the famous "axis of evil" phrase that justified Bush's foreign policy. His willingness to criticize the administration of which he had once been a part made him a target in Republican circles. It made Frum's role as a waiter permanent. Frum says he has not given up on the movement, unlike some disaffected Republicans who call themselves conservative but who have left the Republican Party behind.

If you try to run it like a parliamentary system, you will wreck it. The government has a lot of power. The job of the other side is to make you look bad, but they can't interfere with the work of the government. There isn't a veto, there isn't a filibuster, and the government governs. When the other side tries to bring them down, they usually succeed, and at that point you have rapid changes of power.

The American system seems to work best with a high degree of consensus, as the ability to sabotage is very great in the congressional system. It's not that partisanship is bad in Britain. The government in Britain would be too strong if it weren't for intense partisanship.

Don't put yourself in a closed information system. Information is so abundant that it takes a lot of effort to stay out of contact with it. According to political science, people are working harder to avoid getting in contact with information.

The party chairs are important in recruiting candidates, raising money, and managing internal party politics.

There are significant differences between the platforms and policy agendas of the two major parties. The question is whether the parties implement their policies. Parties do fairly well. The first hundred days of the New Deal were an example of a party fulfilling its campaign promises. Franklin Roosevelt and the congressional Democrats were elected on a platform that called for an activist national government. Congress passed legislation to regulate the economy and banking industry under Roosevelt's leadership. The Social Security Act was passed in 1935 after the Democrats retained control of Congress. The signature issues of recent presidents have been passed. Important examples include Bush's tax cuts and the No Child Left Behind Act. The direction of national policy was changed.

When the president's party loses control of Congress, presidential success typically plummets, as we saw in Chapter 8, because of the greater competitiveness of the parties in the current era. This was the case for Presidents Bush, Clinton, and Obama after the elections that resulted in a divided government.

The ability of a party to accomplish its stated agenda is very important for voter accountability.

As the party in power promotes its policy agenda and ideas for how government should solve problems, it gives voters an opportunity to hold the party responsible for its successes or failures. The persistence of the Depression convinced voters that the GOP policies had failed and they replaced them with the Democrats. After seeing Democrats implement the New Deal in 1933 and 1934, the voters cast their ballots to keep Roosevelt and his party in power, thus rewarding the party for its efforts to deal with the Great Depression. It is more difficult for voters to know which party is accountable when there is a divided government.

It is hard to imagine any actors in American politics not having a stake in the activities of electioneering and governing. The stakes are high for political parties. They want control of the government. They try to achieve these goals by using the rules they have created, as well as the electoral rules imposed by the state and federal governments.

To get elected to office and to build a reputation, candidates engage in candidate-centered campaigns with the assistance of the party organization and the party-in-the-electorate. The election of other members of their party is encouraged by them.

To ensure that the causes they believe in are served, party activists want to gain and keep control of the party's agenda. They hold elected officials accountable.

When government seems to grind to a halt, citizens get impatient, but they also value their limited government. The policy efficiency and coherence that parties can create can break the gridlock, but this comes at the potential cost of a more powerful government. The election of a divided government is almost inevitable.

Explain the ways in which citizens are connected to the government.

There are different party systems around the world. The government structure in some countries only has one major party. The power of this single party is usually maintained through institutional controls that forbid the development of opposition parties, or through corruption and informal means of physical control. Any meaningful party competition is prevented by these systems. Democracy is impossible without choices at the ballot box. Some countries have so many parties that no single party can control the government. The parties may try to form a coalition when that happens. Parties can represent a variety of interests. Parties can either make elected leaders toe the party line or give them loose instructions that they can obey. There is no single model of party government.

The American party system is distinctive, but it doesn't fit a single model. Third-party movements have come and gone throughout our history, but it is mostly a two-party system. The American system tended to be more moderate than other multiple-party countries.

The parties are at least as far apart as they have ever been in our history. The party system has a high level of party discipline. The characteristics are explored in this section.

The United States has a two-party system. The Democrats and the Republicans have been the only parties that have a chance of winning most of the offices in the United States. The governing process is dominated by officeholders representing these two parties.

The United States, along with countries like Great Britain and New Zealand, is a different type of democratic party system than those in Sweden, France, Israel, and Italy. The United States has rarely experienced serious political splits due to divisive issues such as language, religion, or social conflict. The Democratic and Republican Parties have been around for a long time, which shows the lack of deep and enduring cleavages among the American people. Both parties have weathered several wars, including the Civil War and two world wars, as well as numerous economic recessions and depressions. Proponents from one era may still support a political party. The most important reason the United States maintains a two-party system is that the rules of the system are designed by members of the two parties themselves. The proportion of votes that each party gets in an election is used to distribute seats in the legislature. If a party gets 20 percent of the vote, it will get 20 percent of the seats in the legislature. Small parties can still participate in government even if they don't get a majority of the votes because of proportional representation systems. The United States uses a single-member-district electoral system. The candidate who gets the most votes in the district wins the seat and the loser gets nothing. The winner-take-all system creates strong incentives for voters to cast their ballots for one of the two established parties because voters know they are effectively throwing away their votes when they vote for a third-party candidate.

Donald Trump's surprising victory in the Republican primary race led to the rise of "Never Trumpers," Republicans opposed to their party's nominee and his bold, norm-breaking style. Perhaps most prominent of these was Evan McMullin, who launched an independent bid for the presidency and Mullin claimed 21 percent of the vote in his home state of Utah, but he was not able to break through nationwide.

The two-party system is reinforced by other legal barriers.

Legislators from both parties have created election laws that regulate each major party's activities, but they also protect the parties from competition from other parties. State election laws make it difficult for third parties to gain ballot access and ensure the place of both major parties on the ballot. Potential independent or third-party candidates need to gather a lot of signatures in order to get their names on the ballot. A common state law requires a third party to have at least 25% of the votes in the previous election in order to conduct a primary.

Federal election laws make it difficult for third parties. If the presidential candidates agree to limit their spending to a certain amount, the federal government will provide dollar-for-dollar matching money for their campaigns. Third-party candidates cannot claim federal campaign funds until after the election is over, and even then their funds are limited by the percentage of past and current votes they received. They need to have gained at least 5 percent of the national vote in order to be eligible for federal funds. Even though regulations are in place to ensure that the broadcast media give candidates equal access to the airwaves, Congress has insisted on a special exception that allows participation in televised debates to be limited to candidates from the two major parties, and the Debate Commission requires candidates to reach 15 percent in the polls before

Libertarian Gary Johnson, Green Party candidateJill Stein, and independent Evan McMullin were unable to participate in the election.

The Democrats and the Republicans have dominated the party system, but that doesn't mean they have taken over. Many third-party movements have tried to change the make-up of American politics. These parties have arisen to represent specific issues that the parties failed to address, or to promote ideas that were not part of the ideological spectrum covered by the existing parties. Third parties have sprung up from the grassroots or have broken off from an existing party. As long as the Republican Party adopts most of the issues the Tea Partiers care about, they are not likely to separate and form a new party. Teddy Roosevelt, George Wallace, and Ross Perot are just a few of the strong leaders who have headed up third parties.

The impact of third parties on presidential election outcomes can be dramatic.

When the electorate is narrowly divided, the presence of third-party candidates is fraught with peril for Democrats and Republicans. Maybe he did, but that oversimplifies a complex event. One analyst said that Pat Buchanan's Reform Party candidacy cost Bush as well as Gore. If Buchanan hadn't been in the race, Bush could have won Iowa, New Mexico, Oregon, and Wisconsin, and won the Electoral College without the help of Florida. Third-party challenges are more than just a lose-lose proposition for the major parties. In an effort to prevent third parties from taking crucial support away from them, many major-party candidates try to appropriate their issues, thereby broadening their base of support. Third parties fill a significant role in the American party system.

The United States has traditionally had a limited menu of viable parties: the moderately liberal Democratic Party versus the moderately conservative Republican Party. The Bill of Rights, the Constitution, and a capitalist free-enterprise system are features of American politics that both parties agree on. The 1950s characterization of the parties as "Tweedledum and Tweedledee" has been replaced by an ideological gulf between the parties on a host of central issues. The Democratic Party believes that the welfare of the middle class and the poor should be promoted by government policy and that the state should play a bigger role. The result is a country with a lot of consensus on the basics of government but with a lot of disagreement on the role of government in the economy and our lives.

Local and state party organizations make their own decisions. They have affiliations with the national party organization, but no obligations to obey its dictates other than by selecting delegates to the national convention. Power tends to move from the bottom up rather than from the top down when it comes to decision making. Local concerns and politics dominate the lower levels of the party. Local parties and candidates may look very different from the state or national parties.

Political scientists say this is a fragmented party organization.

There are several major divisions spread across the national, state, and local levels of American parties. The Republican National Committee and the Democratic National Committee are the most visible. Between their national presidential nominating conventions, they are responsible for taking care of the national parties' business. They give a lot of support to presidential candidates. The congressional campaign committees for each party in the House and Senate are responsible for trying to keep or gain control of the party.

State and local party organizations are at the subnational level. The state organizations have become more professionally organized and staffed since the 1970s, providing increased levels of support, often with funds from the national committees. The state legislative leaders have what are called "leadership PACs," which they use to gather funds from activists and interest groups and funnel those into competitive contests in their efforts to gain partisan majority in the state legislatures. Local party organizations are usually weak and only exist on a parttime basis. The local organizations have a structure because the national organization doesn't have financial or ideological control of the state and local organizations. It is possible for new groups within the parties to take over local and state organizations as bases for influencing the direction of the parties more generally. Consider the efforts of the Christian Right in the Republican Party. The movement established itself as a powerful force in the Republican Party with the help of local volunteers and church networks. The Tea Party movement with its Freedom Caucus in Congress is attempting to follow a similar strategy, although national media attention helps it focus its efforts at nonlocal levels as well.

When an embarrassing candidate is able to pull off a primary victory, the consequences of decentralization can be seen by national officials. David Duke, a former Ku Klux Klan member who ran for governor of Louisiana in 1991 and for the state's senator in 2016 is one of many examples. Donald Trump ran in a crowded field and pulled off the nomination and presidency against the interests and desires of the party establishment. They weren't able to stop him without centralized control. In these cases, the embarrassing candidate just loses and is forgotten.

Federalism and political reforms like the direct primary are the main reasons for the change of control of American parties. The president and vice president are elected in state elections that are to some extent governed by state laws. State parties constitute much of the electoral base and thus members of the state legislatures and Congress are attached to them. Their ability to run depends on the local context of the elections, and the national parties only have indirect influence on these.

Local parties are not necessarily different from national ones. Consider the effect of party activists. Power may be less fragmented as the base strengthens its hold on the entire party, because their influence means that the base may control the leadership, rather than the other way around. The more conservative base of the Republican Party has had greater control at the local level, but national Republican policy has been influenced by the need to get along with Democrats in Congress and to appeal to the moderate voter in national elections. When the party took control of Congress in 1994, they were able to impose their more ideological perspective at the upper levels of the party.

American party organizations have been notable for their lack of a top-down power structure, and the officials elected to government from the two parties have not felt compelled to take their orders from the top. The advocates of the responsible party model of government were frustrated by the looseness within the parties.

The ability of party leaders to keep members voting together in a cohesive way was more typical of European parliamentary parties. There was a lack of party unity among legislators in the United States. Significant changes have occurred in the parties' base coalitions, especially in the movement of southern conservatives from the Democratic to the Republican Party. This shift has resulted in a party system in which we have greater ideological agreement within the parties and greater ideological distance between them.

Increased partisanship in Congress has been created by the changes in the electoral environment of Congress. The greater ideological agreement within the parties coupled with an increased ideological gulf between the parties is one factor.

In 2006 Nancy Pelosi became the first woman Speaker of the House and led the Democrats with a firm and expert hand. She was one of the most powerful speakers in modern history. The ability of Pelosi to lead the House Democrats and to pass President Obama's program was made possible by the increased ideological homogeneity within the Democratic Party. His freshman class was largely supported by the Tea Party movement, and their energy and unbending commitment to conservative principles made it difficult for him to reach compromises with his Democratic colleagues or the Obama administration, frequently causing him to back off of positions he had taken.

The United States' two-party system is a direct result of the kind of electoral system that the founders designed and the rules that the lawmakers in the two parties have put into place to make it difficult for third parties to thrive. When dissatisfied voters seek representation of ideas and issues that the two major parties do not address, the drive for third parties continues.

The American parties are moderate. Activists want parties to act on their principles. Voting in primaries has allowed them to pull the parties in different directions. The general voting public can't always find a moderate alternative to vote for.

Explain how the American party system works.

For all their importance to the success of democracy, political parties have always been unpopular with the public.

According to scholars, one reason for this unpopularity is that voters are turned off by partisan squabbling and each party's own ideological agenda instead of a concern for the safety of American democracy.

At the beginning of the book, we defined politics as the struggle over who gets what and how they get it in society, a process that involves cooperation, bargaining, compromise, and trade-offs. We said at the beginning that Americans see politics as a dirty business, but that it is our saving grace since it allows us to resolve conflict without violence. Americans don't see politics as saving grace. We don't know what it's like to have to take our disagreements to the streets and the battlefields to resolve them because we have enjoyed relative domestic tranquility for so long.

When Americans look at government, they don't focus on policy outcomes but on the political process.

Most of us are able to comprehend the ways in which the policies are created, the give and take, the influence of organized interests, and the rules of the game. Most citizens focus their attention and evaluation on how politics can be complicated. The media doesn't help us out here by treating politics like a sporting event, rather than explaining the substance of policy debate to American citizens. Parties are overshadowed by a host of other political forces that we allow into our lives and are also vulnerable to being manipulated by those outside forces, as the Russian attack on our electoral system made clear.

Political scientists John and Elizabeth Theiss-Morse argue that the problem lies with a lack of citizen education, not about the facts of American government but about the process. They claim that citizens' biggest failure is that they lack an appreciation for the ugliness of democracy.

The first thing citizens should do is to realize that partisanship is not a failure of politics, it is the heart of politics.

We said at the beginning of the chapter that there were three ways in which the parties enhanced democracy. The linkage between citizen and government and the coherence among the branches of government have been given a lot of attention. The third way parties serve democracy is to provide for a vocal opposition that scrutinizes and criticizes the other side in order to keep the process honest. This is similar to the media's watchdog function, but it is more institutionalized, a self monitoring process that keeps both parties on their toes. It is true that this selfmonitoring can lead to some of the uglier aspects of American democracy, but it is also true that it is the guardian of political freedom.

Political choice and democratic accountability can't survive if partisan squabbling is not allowed.

When expectations are not met, it can lead to disillusionment.

One of the places in American politics where citizens have easy access is the parties. The rest of us allow the more extreme ideologues to control American politics by leaving the reins in their hands.

If you're not happy with the way the government is functioning, try voting for a straight party ticket. You can hold the party accountable for government's performance even if you vary the party from election to election.

Give examples of how citizens are served in American politics.

Let's revisit: What's at stake.

We looked at how two outside candidates had an impact on the election results. Donald Trump decimated his primary field and ended up winning the presidency, as a result of the help he received from the Vermont senator. Both candidates spoke to something in the electorate that the establishment candidates missed. When outside candidates take on the establishment, what is at stake?

The answer is a lot for the parties. The reforms of the party system made the parties more transparent and democratic, but also made them more vulnerable to the influence of outsiders. Even though open primaries can help recruit new members, parties are cautious about them and the Democrats have continued to allow the establishment to put its thumb on the scale.

Since the Bill Clinton years, there has been a division between those who sought more radical economic transformation to overturn the existing power structure and those who were focused on more incremental change to expand rights.

Democrats have forgotten their roots as supporters of the working class and have become a detached party of intellectual and entertainment elites according to those who take the former view. Moderate Democrats say that the way to get things done is by working closer to the middle and trying to find compromise solutions that bring Americans together. There is a disagreement about whether economic transformation would bring with it racial and gender equality or whether those problems are systemic and need to be addressed. Clinton focused more on race and diversity and may have further alienating the white working class who felt ignored by the party.

The divisions in the Democratic Party, which have been quiet for several decades, are likely to be more intense now that the Clinton supporters are blaming him for the loss of the election. It's difficult to respond to white working-class constituencies who feel some degree of racial grievance and communities of color who have supported the party.

The stakes of the Trump election are mixed for the Republican Party. Republicans of all stripes are thrilled to be in charge of two branches of government, with the possibility of cementing their control over the third. Few Republicans wanted Trump to be their nominee. They don't want the baggage he brings with him.

They know that a long-term break with Hispanics is bad for the party. They can only hope that Trump doesn't challenge them on the policies they want to pass because their agenda is not his. Trump doesn't think he owes the party anything, so he probably feels little obligation to play nice if his will conflicts with theirs. The party is likely to be the loser if conflict ensues because Trump's electoral behavior doesn't indicate that playing nice is one of his strengths.

The party's internal divisions have been difficult to resolve because of the distraction from the Trump election. Republican Party houses both procedural economic conservatives and more substantive social conservatives, and their preferred policies are not the same.

Some of the social conservatives are the white working class that voted for Trump, and some of the people who supported him, since Hillary Clinton lost some white working-class support to Trump. If the GOP hangs on to state legislatures in 2020 and continues to gerrymander its way to a congressional majority, they may not in the future.

The Republican Party has lost the popular vote in six of the last seven presidential elections. The presidencies in two of those elections were given to them by the Electoral College. If their goal is to build an enduring majority, they need to follow the advice of their 2012 "autopsy" report to be more inclusive, something a Trump presidency so far does not seem to have in the cards.

The stakes vary by party. It can open up more choices for voters. For a system that depends on two strong parties to work, it carries risks that weaken the parties internally or undermine their agendas altogether. Our history shows that the parties have survived worse threats.

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Political scientists are not in agreement on what Donald Trump's presidency means because he has provided them with puzzles to solve. There are three possible impacts that Trump could have on our party system.

Donald Trump has stirred a lot of concern about the health of the U.S. political system. His administration may eventually prove to be a one-off episode in the history of the United States, a result of populist backlash and the Electoral College. It is possible that Trump's ascent is a sign of a major shift in the way politics is conducted. "There's something happening here," said Buffalo Springfield.

I'm sure there are deeper issues at play but I'm not sure how they will play out in the long run. Donald Trump is not the biggest surprise to me. He came to us many years ago. I was surprised that the Republican Party would accept policies that were contrary to conservative principles of fiscal restraint, free trade, and Cold War opposition to Russia.

That they have done that raises a lot of questions.

It could go in three different directions.

The usual story of American politics in transition is that party coalitions are shifting as they have in the past, but the American political party system will retain its same duopolistic form and function. Over time, the education, racial, and gender divide becomes more pronounced with women and college grads moving towards the Democrats while Republicans solidify their appeal to rural and exurban whites.

Donald Trump got political credit for spotting the opportunity to garner the support of those who feel left behind by automation, free trade and competition from immigrant labor. To turn this into a permanent realignment, the Republicans will need to figure out how to deliver some tangible returns to the downwardly mobile segment of Trump's base constituency.

There is no break from two-party politics in this scenario. The existing party structures are where the coalitional movement takes place.

Efforts to create a third party will most likely be extinguished by the single member simple plurality electoral system and other rules that favor the current duopoly. The only hope for a third party to gain a foothold is if the white nationalist base becomes dominant in some part of the country, such as the interior mountain or plains states. The odds are against any party that bases its appeal on a dwindling population.

Changes in the way we communicate and organize politically could lead to a more serious departure from politics for our party system. President Trump's populism may represent a fundamental shift in the way we conduct politics.

In the past it required capturing, owning or suppressing the traditional media for a populist leader to whip up fervor in the base to consolidate political power and pursue a particular policy agenda. The internet and social media have replaced the traditional media. It's not efficient to capture the entire media space. It's more convenient to target messages through social media. You can use big data and the internet to communicate directly with the voters you need support from. Voters can be easily identified and mobilized. Emerging political entrepreneurs could cause governing coalitions to arise and fade quickly. The duopoly would be replaced by a more fluid and responsive politics.

It is consistent with certain modern trends, which may seem implausible at first glance. Referendums and initiatives are on the rise in mature democracies. The people of the UK voted to leave the European Union. The Five Star Party in Italy was formed by means of an internet platform. It is possible that traditional institutionalized parties will be replaced by direct democracy hybrid.

Unlike the first scenario, this second one involves a radical transformation of the party system as a whole. There are many reasons to think that this scenario could fail to develop. It was necessary to coordinate voters and office holders in order to win elections. Time will tell if the Five Star party can govern. The idea that the people have time, energy, motivation and knowledge to govern effectively has been proven to be illusory.

I think that U.S. politics is headed down a third path where we retain the duopoly form and the essential intermediating function of political parties, but the party moves into the largely unregulated internet space. The areas of least legal resistance are where political activity gravitates. Campaign finance reform is an example of that principle. After Watergate, we imposed stricter restrictions on campaign donations, which led to the rise of political action committees. Big money was found to be safer in nonprofit 501c4s. We tried to offset private campaign money with public subsidies, but the restrictions proved too burdensome, and presidential candidates now avoid the public finance system entirely.

The Democratic and Republican parties are favored in many ways by state and federal laws. The political parties are morphing into networks of party affiliated groups that spend "independently" on behalf of candidates. Party discipline is enforced by outside groups and social media figures.

Aggregating interests into a collective consensus is what the latter requires. Log-rolling is the easiest way to aggregate, but it is not always possible and can lead to inconsistent policies.

Bargaining to compromise is better if there are strong pressures to participate and make concessions.

The swamp of inside players and elected officials is the focus of populism. The reality of governance can be found with outside groups. It might be more difficult to navigate the civil society morass than it is to work in the DC swamp.

Permission was granted from the author.

The United States and its leaders have an impact on global affairs.

One of three scenarios is likely to happen: the Republicans have narrowed their base to a dwindling population and the two party system limps along; Trump forms a populist movement that transforms politics and the two party system becomes dead.

Political parties make a major contribution to American government by linking citizens and government, overcoming some of the fragmentation of government that separation of powers and federalism can produce, and creating an articulate opposition.

American political parties give the average voter a choice in terms of ideology, membership, and policy positions. The differences may not be obvious because electoral forces push the parties together. Party activists who are committed to the values and policies of a particular party play a key role in drawing the parties apart and keeping them ideologically distinct.

There are periods of political stability when one party has a majority of congressional seats. A new era is when a party takes control of government. More voters are identifying themselves as independents as a result of party politics being realigned.

Getting candidates elected and governing are the two primary activities of parties.

The primary was closed.

America's two-party system is relatively moderate. Many third-party movements have arisen at different times to challenge the two dominant parties because of the rules designed to make it hard for third parties to break in.

The disagreements that characterizes politics in the United States are a central part of a functioning democracy.

The majority of the electorate identified as Democrats from 19 52 to the 19 seventies. The percentage of the electorate that identified as Independents and Democrats was the same from the 19th century to the 16th century. The percentage that identified as either Democrat or Independent declined slightly from the 19 eighties to the 16th, but both groups still outnumbered Republicans.

There is a representation of who belongs to each political party.

The graph shows the external and internal forces that pull the parties toward extremism or moderation. Candidates are pulled toward extremists in the first model. Democratic primary voters, party elites, and contributors are liberal. Republican primary voters, party elites, and contributors are conservative. Most voters in the general population are moderate in their preferences.

A timeline of American political parties.

The issue of federal versus states' rights was the central political issue of the first party era. The Democratic-Republicans supported states' rights and were led by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, while the Federalists supported a stronger national government and were led by John Adams and Alexander Hamilton.

Jackson prevailed in the bitter election of 18 28, solidifying the coalition of states' rights supporters (lower classes and southern states) over those advocating more. The Whigs were formed from the ashes of Adams's failed candidacy and competed with the Democrats until the fifties.

The Republicans took control of the House of Representatives in 18 58 and the party's presidential candidate, Abraham Lincoln, won the presidency in 60. After the Civil War, Republicans in the north and west were against Democrats in the south. The Republicans held the edge in presidential elections.

In the presidential election of 18 96, William Jennings Bryan, a Nebraska Democrat, tried to unite the Democratic Party with the People's Party, but he failed to get enough farmers and industrial labor voters to vote for him. The Republican Party was strengthened by the split of votes between the People's Party and the Democrats. Regional bases of Republicans and Democrats increased as economic issues subsided.

The New Deal was supported by a group of voters that included southern Democrats, Catholic immigrants, blue-collar workers, and farmers.

Business owners and industrialists were supported by the Republicans in the Northeast and Plains states.

There is a lot of debate about whether we have entered a new partisan era or not, but the changes that have occurred so far are large and long-term. African Americans and other minorities have joined the Democratic Party and southern whites have joined the Republican Party due to the realigning process. The current era is characterized by a narrowly divided nation and intense party competition.

The dominating parties have always been equally liberal and conservative. Both dominating parties moved to a more moderate position after the 19th century. Both parties have become more conservative and liberal since the 19 eighties.