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Second Party Realignment

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The second party realignment Sundquist focuses on is that of the 1890s. By the end of the Reconstruction period, the workingmen of the country became increasingly more interested in the economic issues that affected their livelihood, but the current party system was not arranged to be a representative of class interests (107). As economic issues caused growing tensions among the Democrats, a major realignment of party loyalties began to take its place. Using hypothetical scenario 3 of Sundquist’s conceptual model, a realignment occurred with the existing parties through the absorption of a third party. The workingmen organized the Populist party (formerly known as the Farmer’s Alliance) with the following demands: free silver, currency expansion …show more content…

The Great Depression precipitated a political and social revolution that polarized both, the nation and the two political parties. The stock market crash shocked the country and there was no economic program to limit the transpiring economic hardships. While the Democratic party called for governmental intervention as President Hoover and the Republican party maintained their position of resistance (198). The congressional leadership of the Democratic party managed to create a relief program and headed towards progressive leadership with Franklin D. Roosevelt as its front runner for the presidential nomination, ultimately winning the presidency by a landslide. Following hypothetical scenario 2, this realignment occurred through the two existing parties (214). Once in office, Roosevelt maintained his pace of reform with his New Deal program while congressional Democrats continued to create solutions to problems plaguing the country in order to keep the voters from returning to the opposing party. The collection of election and voting behavior data, and party registration and preference polls referenced by Sundquist indicates that the millions of voters who shifted partisan support, as well as newly mobilized voters, were concentrated in the industrial cities of the North, primarily from the working class – Republican and Democrat (215-217). It was nearly a one-way movement in the cities. Sundquist argues, “The key variable in the 1930s was not leadership but the overwhelming intrinsic power of the Great Depression as a realigning issue” (210). The Democratic strength had stabilized as the New Deal Democratic party became even more issue-oriented, liberal, working-class-based, and inclusive of new ethnic

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