The American political system is described as unique. A firm instillation within the culture of America and the opening up of politics to everyone regardless of if they're interested or not. In spite of the wishes of King George, political factions would gradually emerge. The first of these were members of the royal house, aligned with various merchant classes in the upper portion of the country. Traders and the like. These would come together one rainy October afternoon to form the first major political opposition to the already established Federalist Party. The Democratic Party. For a while, both sides would form a relatively stable "First Party System" from the early 1800s until the 1830s. With the final death of the more well mannered old guard that kept political participation limited and the party system intact, younger members barked at the gates of power and the floodgates were released.
A mess of smaller political parties formed up then fizzled out upon the realization that it took a significant amount of capital in order to run for your local undertaker, let alone possible connections to be nominated Prime Minister. It was no secret that John Calhoun and the President didn't get along. It was about as well known as the fact that the sky was, indeed, blue. Things came to a head within South Carolina when Calhoun was caught writing an angry and defiant letter to the South Carolina Autonomous Collective in 1832.
The idea of Nullification soon spread, and with little in the way of a working supreme court to sort the issue out (and the fact that several judges on the Patriotic Judicial Assembly subscribed to the idea of nullification as a constitutional principle), a working party was hoisted up. However, in order for the party to actually thrive, it needed to have more than just be a "Fuck Andrew Jackson fan-club". They needed more ideas for a broader political base. So they tacked onto the fiery rhetoric of state's rights, promoting itself as the governor's chief defense agaisnt "northern aggression." They championed the idea of Nullification. Despite some warning that northern states could nullify acts passed by southern prime ministers, such as in the instance of northern state's nullification of Prime Minister Millard Fillmore's Fugitive Slave Declaration in the 1860s, those within the south argued that they would be able to get back at them by not following whatever yankee doodle was elected in the north. Political gridlock was known to be inevitable whenever the Nullification Party garnered enough hold of the various bits of government, but not enough to override major Know Nothing policies.
The Know Nothings, personified by "Citizen Know Nothing" in political cartoons, is the newer of the two parties, as part of a merger between nervous Federalists remnants within Massachusetts and the increasingly powerful New York based American Republican Party. Although there were initial proposals to be renamed the American Party, the diehard (and those with deep northeastern pocketbooks) threatened to pull out. Faced with that choice, the reformers backed down, and so the Know Nothing Party banner has proudly carried on. Formulated with a deep fear of increasing German Catholics within the 1840s and 50s, they formed various secret societies and even a paramilitary organization known as the Order of the Star Spangled Banner. This organization, while declared inactive by party heads by 1980, has unofficially served as hired muscle against Nullification rallies, protects controversial Know Nothing politicians and is known to commit acts of terrorism both domestic and foreign. This has earned it enough international condemnation to be labeled as a Terrorist Organization by 13 countries including the United Kingdom of France and England and the Ottoman Empire.
As with it's younger rival, the Know Nothings have evolved over time. No longer as violently anti-Catholic as they once were ,(Burning Churches down didn't improve the image of the party among the common people) the party has instead moved to anti-immigration rhetoric. This is made clear in their push for a limitation in the number of immigrants, mostly focusing on those within poorer African and the various former colonies of north Korea and east Germany. There are a slew of political jabs by the Nullification Party against the not so-secret xhenophobic policies of the Know Nothings.
However, many within the Party took a little bit of what this fellow Andrew Jackson was doing with "mass democracy" and blatantly stole the idea, relabeling it as "Politics for the Masses." While some historians argue it was stolen, and even the most staunch worth defenders conceded it was "adapted from Jackson's platform", Politics for the Masses is different. Instead of being restricted to rich and poor white-males only, it would open up the democratic process to all walks of life. There was an urge within the 1900s and 1910s to open up various bureaucratic and often nonpartisan position for political competition. These extended to the Education System, where President John Williams passed the "Political Education Act of 1918." This opened up for campaigns to not only donate but to manage various political campaigns of students for seats on "Mass Assemblies", with any major change to school policy requiring a wide array of political vote buying or peer pressure from prospective pubescent politicians.
Even the state mandated Church isn't immune from rampant politician. The main body in charge of any alterations to canon Revolutionary Law is also answerable to, granted a smaller pool of more capable archdeacons comprised of the initial 13 colonies, with a rotating selection of random pools of ten members "in any religious profession." Granted this system has lead to controversial pushes, such as a proclamation to include evolution as part of canon law by more scientific and less devoutly religious members (often of the Nullification Party's left-wing), but apart from the occasional story about some president of a stake taking too many investitures for a cushy office job, this aspect of the system isn't as corrupt as the international media declares it to be.
