Fifth Party System
The Fifth Party System, also known as the New Deal Party System, is the era of American national politics that began with the election of Franklin D. Roosevelt to President of the United States in 1932. Roosevelt's implementation of his popular New Deal expanded the size and power of the federal government to an extent unprecedented in American history, and marked the beginning of political dominance by the Democratic Party that would remain largely unbroken until 1952. This period also began the ideological swapping of Democrats and Republicans into their modern versions, largely due to most Black voters switching from the Republican Party to the Democratic Party, while most conservative, White, usually southern Democrats shifted to the Republican Party as Democrats began increasingly prioritizing civil rights; this process accelerated into the 1960s.[1] The Fifth Party System followed the Fourth Party System, also known as the Progressive Era, and was itself followed by the Sixth Party System.
History[edit]
The onset of the Great Depression undermined the confidence of business in Republican promises of prosperity. The four consecutive elections of Franklin D. Roosevelt delivered the Democrats virtually uncontested dominance. By the time of their sweeping victory in 1936, the Party had become dominated by the New Deal Coalition, remaining unchallenged until Dwight D. Eisenhower led Republicans to victory in 1952.[2]
Despite the power of the New Dealers, the conservative coalition, comprising northern Republicans and southern Democrats, generally controlled Congress from 1938 to 1964.[3] Nevertheless, the New Deal Coalition quickly grew to include a range of politicians unusual at the time for its diversity. Although still broadly consisting of the White Anglo-Saxon Protestants who dominated the conservative coalition as well, New Dealers also grew to include new ethno-religious constituencies, such as Catholics and Jews, in addition to liberal White southerners, trade unionists, urban machinists, progressive intellectuals, populist farm groups, and even some ex-Republicans from the Northeast. These groups all became primary voting blocs of the Democratic Party that are still dominant in the modern era.[4]
The Republican Party underwent a dramatic ideological change of its own during this period, consisting of a conservative wing led by Senator Robert A. Taft and then Barry Goldwater, and a liberal wing led by Thomas Dewey, Nelson Rockefeller, Earl Warren, Jacob Javits, George W. Romney, William Scranton, Henry Cabot Lodge Jr., and Prescott Bush. The liberal wing experienced more electoral victories than the conservatives until the election of Richard Nixon in 1968, marking conservative Republicans' first major victory, as Eisenhower had been more aligned with the Party's liberal wing.[5][6] However, Nixon's implication in the Watergate scandal ruined him and badly damaged public perception of the Republican Party nationwide until 1980, when Ronald Reagan was elected president and successfully revitalized the party, as well as effectively swept away the last remnants of its liberal wing, who had all switched to the Democratic Party by this time. For this reason, Reagan's election is widely regarded as marking the end of the Fifth Party System and the beginning of the Sixth Party System that arguably continues today.[7]