Political parties in the United States

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This article presents the historical development and role of political parties in United States politics, and outlines more extensively the significant modern political parties. Throughout most of its history, American politics have been dominated by a two-party system. However, the United States Constitution has always been silent on the issue of political parties; at the time it was signed in 1787, there were no parties in the nation. Indeed, no nation in the world had voter-based political parties. The need to win popular support in a republic led to the American invention of voter-based political parties in the 1790s. Americans were especially innovative in devising new campaign techniques that linked public opinion with public policy through the party.

## Historical parties

### **United Progressive Party**

The United Progressive Party, colloquially known as the New Progressives, is a political party in the United States. It is positioned on the Left of the American political spectrum. The party is usually differentiated from the Old Progressives in that they considered to represent the Left as a whole. Despite its name, it traces its origins to the Democratic Party, and is considered to be that party's direct descendent.

In 2155, the American Progress and Union Parties, as well as several minor parties in the newly admitted states and Commonwealths, merged, forming the United Progressive Party. The unified New Progressive Party generally favors expanding the role of the Quantum Economic Model, a strong central government, centralizing the powers of federal government, while keeping those powers limited to what the Planetary governments cannot immediately handle.

### **Liberacion Party**

The Liberacion Party, also known as the Liberation Party, was formed during the 2144 Presidential Election and steadily grew into prominence by the 2146 midterm elections. It was formed as a merger of many minor parties in Latin America that had largely opposed American occupation and annexation of their countries, including the now largely unpopular Dignidad Party. It supported self-determination and preservation of foreign culture within the recently occupied and protectorate territories. It later became a symbol for those who had also opposed the rising American hegemony in countries outside of the United States during the era of the Ninth Party System.

By the Tenth party system, the party became less radicalized as the party took on a more 'American-friendly' policy to attract voters. It still opposes American hegemony advocates for politcal autonomy, in which separate groups of people should be able to govern themselves independently or autonomously. They now generally prefer global co-operation not in form of a single united world government but rather large groups of people having equal sovereignty and reputation to voluntarily form a world organization instead, similar to the UN.

They oppose the establishment of Associated or Free States in planets of extraterrestrial species and preferred the alien species to be assisted to “ascend” to space of full sovereignty rather than being absorbed into the American system.

## Former Parties

### **Republican Party**

The Republican party was a major American political party from roughly the elections of 1860 to 2021. Formed as the primary liberal party in America, the Republicans had completely shifted to a center-right party by the 1970s, following the progressive schism in the party after the 1912 Presidential election and the coalescence of the Reagan Coalition in 1980. The party became progressively more conservative during the culture wars that defined the turn of the 21st Century. By the election of Barack Obama in 2008, the party saw its ranks drop to the lowest percentage of the population in 30 years as moderates, frustrated with the disastrous Presidency of George W. Bush, either became Independents or Democrats.

The rise of the Tea Party, at the time an ultra-right wing faction of the Republican Party, saw the Republicans adopt extremist and uncompromising policy positions that stalled the legislative agenda of President Obama, and resulted in some of the most gerrymandered districts in American history. While this gave the Republicans eight years of unquestioned control over the House, it resulted in increasingly radical Tea Party primary challengers defeating incumbent Republicans. After the loss of the Presidency to Obama in 2012, the Republican National Committee drafted a new policy agenda to modernize the party and make inroads into non-white voters (who at this point in history were beginning to make up a majority of the electorate in parts of the country.) Key to this agenda was a more progressive immigration policy, and working with the President on greater free trade access.

These two moves created a political crisis within the party as the ethno-nationalist Tea Party wing fiercely opposed any attempts at free trade and a pathway to citizenship. The election of Donald Trump in 2016, on a ticket focused on preventing immigration, offered a brief reprieve for the Republican party, and for a short time Republicans utterly dominated American politics to a degree they never had since the 1980s. However, the party was virtually divided on its priorities, as well as clashes in ideology between those sticking to conservative Republican politics, and those willing to enact Trump's agenda and shift to his doctrine. Taking advantage of this, as well as Trump's increasing unpopularity, the Democrats regained control of Congress in 2018 and Trump was defeated in 2020 by Democrat Joe Biden.

The Republicans would make one final stand in the 2024 election, but would lose in a landslide. With no strong candidates left for the next election, the Republican party ceased to be a major force in American politics. Its moderate wing would go on to form the Conservative Party with former centrist Democrats, while the far-right wing would fold into the Libertarian Party.

#### **The Tea Party**

The Tea Party was a one of the most influential third parties in American history, at first established as an far-right faction of the Republicans in response to the election of President Barack Obama. Claiming to have believed in the original beliefs of the founding fathers of America, the Tea Party was largely a collection of the most radical members of the Neo-Conservative movement of the late 90s and 00s, however it had originally been a largely libertarian organization prior to 2009. The organization maintained the claim of libertarian policies, but in reality were just another ultra-right wing group dedicated to Bush-era policies. It later split off after the collapse of the Republican party, but had later joined the Libertarian party early into the Eighth Party System.

### **Democratic Party**

Created in 1828 by Andrew Jackson and Martin Van Buren, the Democratic Party was (at first) a pro-states' rights party, and it was socially conservative. Centering itself around the interests of the common man, "Jacksonian Democracy" had aimed to reduce class barriers to voting, ultimately expanding suffrage to all white male adults. This was the party's dominant philosophy at the time of the its founding. Around the 1890s, a left-wing populist movement emerged in the agrarian South and the West, as the rise of industrial capitalism and corporate monopolies were displacing subsistence farmers across the nation. The populist movement was absorbed by the Democratic Party, and the party as a whole started drifting leftward. The party's populist faction would then merge with progressive and socialist factions across the political spectrum, culminating in the election of Franklin D. Roosevelt to the Presidency in 1932. This marked the beginning of the Fifth Party System, in which Keynesian economics, the interests of organized labor, and (eventually) the advancement of civil rights would dominate U.S. politics until the Reagan revolution in 1980. After this point, the Democrats would retool their party's ideology to try and find compromise between Reagan's social conservatism and the New Deal's economic philosophy. The compromise produced a fairly socially progressive Democratic Party that was opposed to the economic interventionism of the mid-20th century. These Democrats were called "New Democrats," as they preferred the political strategy of "triangulation." Their ascendancy was marked by the election of Bill Clinton in 1992.

At the start of Donald Trump's presidency in 2017, the Democratic Party was at its weakest point in 90 years, having lost over 900 seats throughout the course of a decade. The party's triangulation efforts had failed to yield results which benefited the public. Slowly, the Democratic Party would rebuild itself, taking advantage of mass opposition to Trump's agenda and crafting a new message to gain voters. They would regain control of the House of Representatives in 2018, and would take back the Presidency and the Senate two years later. After Joe Biden took the Presidency, the Democrats would gradually fragment between the New Democrats (those still following the Clinton-era strategy of triangulation) and the progressives (those favoring a revival of the New Deal-era economic approach.) The party's inability to prevent (or respond to) the economic and environmental crises of the 2020s cemented the public's disdain for the Democratic Party as an institution.

During the constitutional reforms of the 2020s, in which ranked-choice voting was adopted nationwide and the electoral college was abolished, the once highly regimented Democratic Party quickly fractured into three competing liberal parties. The largest and most successful one was the Progress Party, with the Liberal and Labor Parties playing smaller roles. The New Democrats, meanwhile, would go on to form the Conservative Party, alongside former "moderate Republicans" who had rejected Donald Trump. By 2036, the Democratic Party was defunct.

## **Conservative Party** =

The Conservative Party, also known as the Conservative Union (or CUP) since 2080, is one of the major contemporary political parties in the United States and its Associated states. It is positioned on the right of the American political spectrum. The Conservative Party is the chief successor to the Republican Party.

The second half of the 21st century saw election of a series of Progressive and Liberal Presidents. The early party struggled nationally since its inception in the early 21st century, but from 2077 to 2080 the party controlled a coalition in the House of Representatives and were a formidable force in local politics. The Second Depression and election of Oscar Lachman in 2080 saw a party-wide revival that pushed the conservatives to national prominence, and would remain the country's dominant party until the election of 2132, closing the Eighth Party System.

The outbreak of the Second American Civil War, which was soon followed after by the Third Mexican-American War, caused a schism to form in the party between Union Conservatives who had quietly opposed the party's alliance with the MLP, and libertarian leaning Conservatives who opposed the War and felt peaceful separation was preferable. The party would've collapsed if it were not for Steven Shen, who led the party between 2133 to 2141. Shen allied with with more conservative elements of the Union Party and once the Second Civil War grew into the Third Mexican War, Shen pushed the party to directly oppose Mexico as an aggressor against global unity, and crafted the doctrine of "New Globalism" which sought to refine old neoliberal theories on internationalism to adapt to what would eventually become the American protectorate system. These reforms to the party would make it a formidable player in Earth-Commonwealth politics.

In 2148, the party had helped successfully negotiated an alliance with the Libertarian and Liberal parties, whom were growing dissatisfied with the domination of the Union Party during this era after the fracture of former President Halvidar's coalition and with their slow declination. The Libertarian party would experience a slow and steady decline that would result in the party later disbanding in 2151 with it's members flocking to the Conservative party, who would form a Conservative-Liberal coalition by 2156, and may soon pose a challenge for the United Progressive Party in the 2160s during the rise of the Tenth Party System.

### **Liberal Party**

The Liberal Party is one of the major contemporary political parties in the United States. The Liberal Party was founded in 2029 out of the merger of the remnant Democratic party and loyalist Republicans. The state-level wing of the Liberal Party currently holds majorities in 111 states.

At their inception the Liberal Party was founded to oppose the policies of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and the Progress Party. However during the Neo-Jeffersonian Revolution of the 2080s the Liberals saw a split in their ranks as a new generation of thinkers went to found the modern Conservative Party. Following the 2080 general election the Liberals, who had previously been the country's second largest party, were reduced to fourth place behind the Dignidad Party, a position it would maintain for most of the next five decades. In the 2132 general election under the leadership of Sarima Haden, the Liberals attached themselves directly to the Progress Party ticket, aligning with the Union Party for a new coalition government.

After the Third Mexican-American War, the Halvidar coalition had largely splintered and the Liberals formed a new coalition with the Conservatives centered around neo-globalism.

### **Dignidad Para La Raza**

Commonly known as Dignidad or the Dignity Party, Dignidad Para La Raza was established in the 2070s as a union between existing Christian Democratic parties and Hispanidad groups and PACs, such as the Chicano Movement, La Raza, Plan Espiritual de Aztlán, MEChA, and the Brown Berets. During its later years prior to the Aztlan War, it became a big tent party ranging from anti-deportation movements to pro-Mexican nationalist militias. The party had been increasingly aligned with Mexico during the cold war between the United States and Mexico. The party has since been disbanded within the United States, but continued to operate inside the former rebelling South-Western States.

### **Union Party**

The Union Party was one of the major contemporary political parties in the United States and its Associated states.

Tracing its origins back to the founding of the Interplanetary Trade Commission, the Union Party was founded around 2088 in an effort to unite the colonial delegation to Earth under a single political apparatus. There have been 3 Unionist presidents, the first being Lionel Halvidar, who served from 2133 to 2141. In December 2155, the Progress Party and the Union parties voted to disband and merge into the United Progressive Party.