political parties — Bunk History

Portrait of Martin Van Buren.

The Father of the Party System

Because Martin Van Buren was an unsuccessful president, his more significant contributions to the nation’s political life have also been obscured.

by James M. Bradley via OUPblog on October 18, 2024

People holding antiwar signs at the 1968 Democratic National Convention.

A Brief History of the Democratic Party

The Democratic Party, and the US political system as a whole, is a very strange beast.

by Doug Henwood, Adam Hilton via Jacobin on August 6, 2024

Thomas Nast’s 1874 elephant illustration.

What History Tells Us Might Happen to the Republican Party

The signs that precede the crumbling of American political parties and the creation of new ones.

by Lindsay M. Chervinsky via The Bulwark on July 31, 2024

Republican elephant and Democratic donkey with crossed arms turned away from each other.

Party People

Many recoil at the thought of stronger political parties. But revitalized parties could be exactly what our ailing democracy needs.

by John Sides via Democracy Journal on June 13, 2024

A ballot from Ireland’s 2020 general election.

Avoiding the PR Mistakes of the Past

The proportional representation (PR) vs. single transferable vote (STV) battle in local elections.

by Jack Santucci via Democracy Journal on September 12, 2023

A political cartoon representing New Deal programs as children dancing around President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Timothy Shenk’s ‘Realigners’

Since the 18th century, American politics has functioned via coalitions between competing factions. Can alliances survive today’s partisan climate?

by Barton Swaim via The Wall Street Journal on October 7, 2022

Timeline of the history of American political parties to 1880, depicting intertwined streams of Democrats, Whigs, and Republicans.

What is Political Realignment?

An annotated collection of resources from the Bunk archive that help explain the shifting sands of American politics.

by Kathryn Ostrofsky on September 8, 2022

The GOP elephant depicted as falling apart

What Is Happening to the Republicans?

In becoming the party of Trump, the G.O.P. confronts the kind of existential crisis that has destroyed American parties in the past.

by Jelani Cobb via The New Yorker on March 8, 2021

Barry Goldwater speaking at a 1964 rally, placing his finger over his lips.

The Western Origins of the “Southern Strategy”

The untold story of the ideological realignment that upended the nation.

by Bruce Bartlett via The New Republic on June 29, 2020

America Is Now the Divided Republic the Framers Feared

John Adams worried that “a division of the republic into two great parties … is to be dreaded as the great political evil.”

by Lee Drutman via The Atlantic on January 2, 2020

Portrait of young Bundists seated and standing

My Great-Grandfather the Bundist

Family paintings led me to a revolutionary society my mother’s grandfather was a member of and whose story was interwoven with Eastern European Jews.

by Molly Crabapple via New York Review of Books on October 6, 2018

Independence Day Celebration in Centre Square by John Lewis Krimmel (1787–1821).

The Brief Period, 200 Years Ago, When American Politics Was Full of “Good Feelings”

James Monroe’s 1817 goodwill tour kicked off a decade of party-less government – but he couldn’t stop the nation from dividing again.

by Erick Trickey via Smithsonian on July 17, 2017

Mitch McConnell

Partisanship is an American Tradition — And Good for Democracy

Bipartisanship is the exception, not the rule.

by Aaron Astor via Made By History on July 12, 2017

Ahead of a Major Supreme Court Case on Gerrymandering, Here Are the Term's Origins

The word is two centuries old.

by Olivia B. Waxman via TIME on June 19, 2017

A political cartoon showing two figures leading donkeys in opposite directions. The donkeys are depicted with the faces of Zachary Taylor and Henry Clay.

Prospects for Partisan Realignment: Lessons from the Demise of the Whigs

What America’s last major party crack-up in the 1850s tells us about the 2010s.

by Philip Wallach via Brookings on March 6, 2017

Political cartoon of U.S. President Martin Van Buren sitting on a fence as men on each side try to pull him toward them.

The Spirit of Party and Faction

On factional strife in the Early Republic, and why parties themselves were universally despised.

via BackStory on June 13, 2014

Political cartoon of politicians fist fighting.

The Culture Question: How Hot-Button Issues Divide Us

Culture wars have a long and divisive history in American politics, with gender, race and religion continuing to inflame public opinion.

via Retro Report on September 20, 2024

Bruce Springsteen on July 19, 1988 at his concert in East Berlin on the cycle track Weissensee.

Can the 1980s Explain 2024?

The yuppies embodied the winning side of America’s deepening economic divide. Bruce Springsteen spoke for those left behind.

by Nicholas Lemann via Washington Monthly on August 25, 2024

A protest during a sit-down strike in Detroit.

Red Weather Vanes

Maurice Isserman’s history of American communism documents both its achievements and its fatal obeisance to Soviet doctrines.

by Harold Meyerson via The American Prospect on August 8, 2024

How Conservatives Changed the Whole Point of American Political Parties

The rise of the right remade the GOP—and fundamentally changed how parties operated in American politics.

by Daniel Schlozman, Sam Rosenfeld via Made By History on June 10, 2024

A JDL ad from the New York Times.

False Prophet

Meir Kahane's Legacy in Israel and America.

by John Ganz via Unpopular Front on May 10, 2024

1880 chart of American political history

Historians and the Strange, Fluid World of 19th-Century Politics

Why our understanding of the era has been hindered by the party system model.

by Rachel Shelden, Erik B. Alexander via Process: A Blog for American History on May 7, 2024

Volunteers at Big Creek Missions in Leslie County, Kentucky

Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood

I’ve been going back to eastern Kentucky for over a decade. Since 2016, something there has changed.

by Bradley Devlin via The American Conservative on April 22, 2024

Richard Slotkin.

“A Theory of America”: Mythmaking with Richard Slotkin

"I was always working on a theory of America."

by Kathleen Belew, Richard S. Slotkin via Public Books on April 19, 2024

A family affair: Roosevelt was just 31 in 1913, when President Woodrow Wilson appointed him assistant secretary of the U.S. Navy — a post previously held by his cousin Teddy.

The Making of FDR

Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s struggle against polio transformed him into the man who led the country through the Great Depression and World War II.

by Jonathan Darman via The Saturday Evening Post on April 5, 2024

Then President Donald Trump, right, and Joe Biden, then the Democratic presidential nominee, during the U.S. presidential debate at Belmont University in Nashville, Tenn., on Oct. 22, 2020.

The Biden-Trump Rematch May Mark the End of an Era

Over the course of U.S. history, presidential rematches have signaled momentous political upheavals.

by Bruce J. Schulman via Made By History on April 4, 2024

Lessons from the 1976 Republican Convention: Why Ronald Reagan Lost the Nomination

In 1976, Ronald Reagan found owning the soul of a party isn’t the same as taking home its nomination.

via Retro Report on March 15, 2024

A sign left behind by Trump supporters at a rally outside the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California, September 27, 2023.

American Fascism

On how Europe’s interwar period informs the present.

by Rick Perlstein via The American Prospect on January 24, 2024

Photo of a young Donald Trump greeting Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura in Minneapolis on Jan. 7, 2000

Jesse ‘The Body’ Ventura’s Shocking Election 25 Years Ago Previewed Trump’s

The former pro wrestler says his surprise election as Minnesota governor paved the way for Donald Trump. Now he looks back “shamefully” on their past ties.

by Frederic J. Frommer via Retropolis on November 3, 2023

Bill Clinton in the background, another man in the foreground.

What the 1990s Did to America

The Law and Economics movement was one front in the decades-long advance of a revived free-market ideology that became the new American consensus.

by Henry M. J. Tonks via Public Books on May 17, 2023

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