samcster94
Banned
The Postbellum era, if you play your cards right, is another obvious candidate.I think there are two separate questions here. The first is why the US has a tendency to two-partyism, and things like first-past-the-post and the presidential system may help to explain that. But there is a separate question--why have the two major parties been the same parties since the Civil War era? The tendency to two parties doesn't mean they must always be the same parties. In the US, there were first the Jeffersonian Republicans versus the Federalists; then there was the Jackson Party versus the Adams Party, with the Jacksonians increasingly calling themselves Democrats and the Adams supporters calling themselves National Republicans; then there were the Democrats versus the Whigs; then in the 1850's when it was clear the Whigs were dying, there was a transition period when it wasn't clear whether the main opposition party to the Democrats would be the Republicans or the Americans (Know Nothings). But after the Republicans won out over the Americans, there have been no further changes in the identity of the major parties. And why that is so, is the question I am asking. [1] It may be that the institutional obstacles to new parties are not the answer--at least not all of it--but then we have to ask what is. (I think part of it had to do with the legacy of the Civil War solidifying people's self-identification as Democrats or Republicans. Thus, in 1884 some reform-minded Republicans still reluctantly supported Blaine because they saw the Democrats as the party of "treason" during the Civil War; in the 1890's many radical southern Democrats refused to join the Populists, because only the Democrats were seen as a "white man's party." This historical attachment also kept conservative southerners nominal Democrats in the 1930's and 1940's, even though they were closer to the Republicans on economic issues. And the very fact that unlike the Federalists, National Republicans, Whigs, and Know Nothings, the Republicans endured for decade after decade may have made people take Democrats-vs.-Republicans as the natural order of things, and thus ensured their further survival.)
[1] And note that the changes I have mentioned were not just changes in party names. The National Republicans were not the Federalists under another name; both JQ Adams and Clay had been Jeffersonian Republicans, and some ex-Federalists like Louis McLane joined the Jacksonians. The Whigs were not just the National Republicans under another name; they included Antimasons and even southern Nullifiers. The Republicans weren't just the northern Whigs under another name, either; especially in states where the Whigs had been weak, like Michigan, they attracted many ex-Democrats, while many conservative ex-Whigs joined the Democrats.