4 parties in America

in 1948 four parties (Democratic, Republican, Dixiecrat, Progressive) ran for President.

is there any way for the Dixiecrat and Progressive party to go on past 1948?
is there any way for them elect congressional delegations?
 

Jasen777

Donor
Those where really just short term party discipline breakups. It's really hard to get more than 2 serious candidates for President on a constant basis.

Third parties used to elect congressmen but you just don't see it anymore. Maybe if there was wider fusion between the Populists and the Democrats - some states would elect populists but it'd be understood that they would caucus with the Democrats.
 
Somehow manage to scrap the current 'winner-take-all' system of the American Electoral College and regional-based third parties might have a chance to become viable on a national-scale. However, that would be rather difficult to pull off by 1948 (the winner-take-all system firmly entrenched for the past 160 years) and would require a earthshaking POD.

Third parties used to elect congressmen but you just don't see it anymore.

If I'm not mistaken, I believe there is one Congressman within the House of Representatives who is officially affiliated with the Socialist Party (from Vermont, I think). Aside from him, though, and a handful of Independents, it's only Red and Blue (the independents hardly making a difference as they either caucus with the Democrats or Republicans).
 
It always seems to me, as a non-American, that there are four parties in the US, two within the Democrats and two within the Republicans. Compared to parties elsewhere, the US parties are very broad, which is a consequence of the system I guess.
 
It always seems to me, as a non-American, that there are four parties in the US, two within the Democrats and two within the Republicans. Compared to parties elsewhere, the US parties are very broad, which is a consequence of the system I guess.

It's actually quite complex.

Broadly speaking (and using the US terms) there are various streams of conservatives, moderates, a formerly factionalized but now mostly unified liberal grouping, and the progressive/reformers.

(Aka the pseudo-conservative classical liberals, the regular classical liberals, the social democratic classical liberals, and the reformers.)



The modern Republican Party can be broken down into:

Libertarians. To be sure they are a small force, and somewhat swinging to the Democrats over social issues, but they used to & usually vote Republican. Libertarians basically believe in a very small government, and being left alone. They are most common along the Rocky Mountain states and are one reason Democrats have seen recent success in that region.

Neo-conservatives. Ex-Democrats, they are basically neo-Wilsonians, believing that the spread of democracy by American might will result in a better world. The Iraq war has basically trashed their influence.

Business conservatives. At times they've run the Republican Party (post-Civil War until Teddy Roosevelt, after Teddy to the Great Depression) and are basically concerned with economic values—a pro-business Wall Street oriented thing. (Generally speaking these are the Republican moderates today—they don't care or are with the Democrats on social issues, and they're not wildly concerned by tax cuts although they do want them.)

Neoliberals. Related to the business conservatives, but without the corporate welfare and with a libertarian-ish emphasis on a smaller state. Basically the free market is the awesome for everything.

Main Street conservatives. These are the small town midwest folks concerned with balanced budgets, some concern for social issues (they're against abortion, but not rapidly so for example), a strong America, and so forth.

Social conservatives. Mostly in the South they have until recently been focused heavily on social issues (i.e. anti-abortion, anti-gay, etc…) but people like Governor Huckabee are trying to move them to consider the broader issues their faith should compel them to look at—the poor, for instance.

Progressives. What few who remain in the party are basically old Teddy Roosevelt voters who believe that the government needs reform, corporations have too much power, and the little people need help. They don't really take a liberal or conservative position, but generally rebel against failure. With Roosevelt that was too much corporate power, with Ross Perot they felt it was a bipartisan failure of both parties to address economic issues.

Liberals. Related to both the progressives and the business conservatives, these were basically the Eastern Wall Street establishment plus concern for the poor. All gone now, basically, since Rockefeller lost.


The Democratic Party is:

Progressives. As above. They supported Ross Perot in 1992, and Barack Obama is of this grouping which explains his support (progressive states—basically the Canadian border states—+ Southern states with large black populations). Please note some Democratic liberals—i.e. the activist online community—misuse "progressive" when they mean "liberal" (and when they really mean "social democrat") when in fact progressives & liberals are two very different factions in American politics.

Southern Democrats. When used in this sense it more or less means conservative (& usually poor) white southerners who didn't vote for the Republicans because they were Republicans. Again, mostly gone. See social conservatives, Main Street conservatives.

Liberals. Social democrats, common on the West and East coasts. (Note that once upon a time there used to be several different groupings. As the conservative factions splintered farther apart with success, so the liberal factions have grouped together with defeat.). Generally allied with the progressives since a "reform" position right now is inherently a liberal position, given the conservative tilt of governance.

Moderates. As with Republican moderates (what few are left, at this point) they basically come to a halfway point between whatever the dominant conservative and liberal battle of the day is.

Conservatives. Sort of the right-wing of DLC style New Democrats. Centrist, adopts some Republican positions, big corporate supporters. Post-1994 Bill Clinton Democrats, say.




That's the quickie version. But the long version is pretty cool, how new factions pop up, how some fade, and how they wind in-between the parties.
 
Very Interesting!!

Electric Monk did a great job of describingthe two-party system!!

Anyway I have an undeveloped timeline where America has four parties but the POD is much earlier then your's!!

Anyway they were:
Federalists: Economic Conservatives, Social Conservatives
Socialists: Economic Liberals, Social Liberals
Populists: Economic Liberals, Social Conservatives
Libertarians: Economic Conservatives, Social Liberals

Note. I use the present-day OTL sense of the words Liberal and Conservative

But my timeline is still undeveloped, So......:p J/K
 
Yes, and it took a lot of work to get people to see it as "progressive" and not "socialist". What SP2 is noting is that the word socialist has bad connotations in American politics for some reason.

oh got it. well i think it may have something to do with the socialist riots in 1890's and 1900's then the red scare of 1919. and the fact a socialist-anarchist killed the president
 
Actually you're correct, my apologies. Bernie Sanders identifies himself as a democratic socialist, but is not actually a member of the Socialist Party USA.

Wait... the US has a socialist party? :eek:

;)

The problem is the system of election you have, as already noted: winner-takes-all. We have the same kind of setup. It's the only reason we (UK)'ve had any majority governments, in the last 50 years at least... if you manage to change the US electoral system to some form of proportional representation, then smaller parties are certainly in with a chance. Hell, the Lib Dems have even managed it with our FPTP system, they've got about 10% of the seats in Parliament ... on about 20% of the vote. That's still a much better proportion than they used to get, though. Again, that's winner-takes-all systems for you.
 
It's actually quite complex.

Broadly speaking (and using the US terms) there are various streams of conservatives, moderates, a formerly factionalized but now mostly unified liberal grouping, and the progressive/reformers.

(Aka the pseudo-conservative classical liberals, the regular classical liberals, the social democratic classical liberals, and the reformers.)



The modern Republican Party can be broken down into:

Libertarians. To be sure they are a small force, and somewhat swinging to the Democrats over social issues, but they used to & usually vote Republican. Libertarians basically believe in a very small government, and being left alone. They are most common along the Rocky Mountain states and are one reason Democrats have seen recent success in that region.

Neo-conservatives. Ex-Democrats, they are basically neo-Wilsonians, believing that the spread of democracy by American might will result in a better world. The Iraq war has basically trashed their influence.

Business conservatives. At times they've run the Republican Party (post-Civil War until Teddy Roosevelt, after Teddy to the Great Depression) and are basically concerned with economic values—a pro-business Wall Street oriented thing. (Generally speaking these are the Republican moderates today—they don't care or are with the Democrats on social issues, and they're not wildly concerned by tax cuts although they do want them.)

Neoliberals. Related to the business conservatives, but without the corporate welfare and with a libertarian-ish emphasis on a smaller state. Basically the free market is the awesome for everything.

Main Street conservatives. These are the small town midwest folks concerned with balanced budgets, some concern for social issues (they're against abortion, but not rapidly so for example), a strong America, and so forth.

Social conservatives. Mostly in the South they have until recently been focused heavily on social issues (i.e. anti-abortion, anti-gay, etc…) but people like Governor Huckabee are trying to move them to consider the broader issues their faith should compel them to look at—the poor, for instance.

Progressives. What few who remain in the party are basically old Teddy Roosevelt voters who believe that the government needs reform, corporations have too much power, and the little people need help. They don't really take a liberal or conservative position, but generally rebel against failure. With Roosevelt that was too much corporate power, with Ross Perot they felt it was a bipartisan failure of both parties to address economic issues.

Liberals. Related to both the progressives and the business conservatives, these were basically the Eastern Wall Street establishment plus concern for the poor. All gone now, basically, since Rockefeller lost.


The Democratic Party is:

Progressives. As above. They supported Ross Perot in 1992, and Barack Obama is of this grouping which explains his support (progressive states—basically the Canadian border states—+ Southern states with large black populations). Please note some Democratic liberals—i.e. the activist online community—misuse "progressive" when they mean "liberal" (and when they really mean "social democrat") when in fact progressives & liberals are two very different factions in American politics.

Southern Democrats. When used in this sense it more or less means conservative (& usually poor) white southerners who didn't vote for the Republicans because they were Republicans. Again, mostly gone. See social conservatives, Main Street conservatives.

Liberals. Social democrats, common on the West and East coasts. (Note that once upon a time there used to be several different groupings. As the conservative factions splintered farther apart with success, so the liberal factions have grouped together with defeat.). Generally allied with the progressives since a "reform" position right now is inherently a liberal position, given the conservative tilt of governance.

Moderates. As with Republican moderates (what few are left, at this point) they basically come to a halfway point between whatever the dominant conservative and liberal battle of the day is.

Conservatives. Sort of the right-wing of DLC style New Democrats. Centrist, adopts some Republican positions, big corporate supporters. Post-1994 Bill Clinton Democrats, say.




That's the quickie version. But the long version is pretty cool, how new factions pop up, how some fade, and how they wind in-between the parties.


Very interesting and informative post. A question I would like to ask you (and any one else who might know) is why the USA developed such a unique system of political parties. What I mean here is why the American parties never (at least until very recently) showed major ideological inclinations one way or the other.

I realise that the lack of tight party discipline is due to the Congressional as opposed to Westminster system, but this doesn't rule out more ideological parties. Also the lack of a social democratic/socialist party would have stopped the solid party centralisation that occured elsewhere. However late 19th century Britain (before the emergence of the Labour Party) had the Liberals and Conservatives as pretty much ideologically coherent groupings.

I did read somewhere that the lack of a career public (civil) service and the development of the 'spoils system' in the 19th and early 20th centuries in the US, brought about a situation which encourages 'coalitions of self-interest' attached to whatever the dominant party in an area was, rather than ideological groupings. To what extent was this the case?
 
Very interesting and informative post. A question I would like to ask you (and any one else who might know) is why the USA developed such a unique system of political parties. What I mean here is why the American parties never (at least until very recently) showed major ideological inclinations one way or the other.

I realise that the lack of tight party discipline is due to the Congressional as opposed to Westminster system, but this doesn't rule out more ideological parties. Also the lack of a social democratic/socialist party would have stopped the solid party centralisation that occured elsewhere. However late 19th century Britain (before the emergence of the Labour Party) had the Liberals and Conservatives as pretty much ideologically coherent groupings.

I did read somewhere that the lack of a career public (civil) service and the development of the 'spoils system' in the 19th and early 20th centuries in the US, brought about a situation which encourages 'coalitions of self-interest' attached to whatever the dominant party in an area was, rather than ideological groupings. To what extent was this the case?

I, personally, like the fragment theory. See this thread about, amusingly, developing a socialist party in the USA.

It's not that US political parties aren't ideological, it's that they're all classical liberals of various sorts (with some crossbreeding with social democracy courtesy of FDR's New Deal as opposed to the watered down socialism that social democracy comes from in other countries). Add some racism, some social conservatism (arguably the distinct echo of their Loyalist Southern roots), and so forth.

So even as they've sorted themselves out into left-right groupings since FDR's death (and it took until 1968 or so, with 1976 the last gasp of the old party system) they both remain committed to individual rights, the free market, and so forth. It's just they disagree on the degree of things. Even the most "liberal" US Senator (and no, that's not Obama) would only go as far left as, say, government run healthcare. But government run healthcare is the norm in the Western world, and even conservative parties accept it.

The US is just inherently classical liberal since they rebelled against all the conservative principles, they kicked the Loyalists (mostly conservatives) out to Canada, and since classical liberalism was in the ascendancy at the time that's what they adopted—this means they simply approach things differently from Europe (which kept Burkean and developed Disraeli conservatism, who had Gladstone to refine classical liberalism, and who developed socialist parties from radicals and conservatives) and the later breaking off colonies (Canada, for example).
 
The problem is the system of election you have, as already noted: winner-takes-all.

actually, it's the Presidential elections alone that drive the 2-party system, with the requirements for X number of electoral votes. This makes it imperative for a Presidential candidate to have a 'big tent', and thus, everyone gets sorted into one of two camps. This carries over into Congressional and state elections, because if you are a member of the 'big tent', you can count on a lot of support for your election bid.

Of course, the 2-party system isn't actually a bad one... it's worked fine for us for a long time. It has it's faults and it's strengths... like every other political system known to man. Personally, I think it's fine as is... I don't want US politics to be subject to the shenanigans of a horde of 'one-issue' parties, or coalition building, etc...
 
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