UNBIASED - Unbiased University: The Evolution of Political Parties the United States

Episode Date: April 9, 2026

In this episode of UNBIASED Politics, we explore the evolution of political parties in the United States and how the country’s party system developed into what we see today. The Constitution never mentioned political parties, and many of the nation’s founders were openly skeptical of them. So how did parties become one of the most powerful forces in American politics? We walk through the rise and fall of early parties, from the Federalists and Democratic-Republicans to the emergence of the modern Democratic and Republican parties. Along the way, we look at key political realignments, shifting voter coalitions, and the historical events that reshaped party identities over time. This episode provides a clear, nonpartisan look at how political parties formed, why they evolved, and how their development continues to shape elections and policy debates in the United States today. ⁠Watch⁠ this episode on YouTube. Follow Jordan on ⁠Instagram⁠ and ⁠TikTok⁠. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome back to Unbiased, your favorite source of unbiased news and legal analysis. Welcome back to Unbiased Politics and to the Unbiased University series. In today's episode, we're talking about the evolution of political parties in American politics. When we think of our political system, a lot of people assume that parties were kind of built into the structure from the beginning, Democrats on one side, Republicans on the other. But the founders actually did, not design a party system at all. In fact, many of them were actively against, or I guess I should say they actively warned against political parties. And they often call these factions instead of parties. We'll hear that word used throughout the episode. But the reason that they were against them

is because they were worried that loyalty to a party could become stronger than loyalty to the country. And what's kind of interesting there is that we're kind of seeing that play out a little bit today with the extremes on both sides. But that was their concern all the way back in the late 1700s. Despite that concern, though, almost immediately after the Constitution was ratified, political parties began to kind of take shape anyway. And that's because arguments about how the country should function were inevitable. So, you know, people had different visions about the economy.

They had different visions for the balance of power between the states and the federal government and those divisions ultimately create parties or factions. And it's, you know, the same today as it was then. But those disagreements naturally led people to organize into these groups and those groups eventually became parties and now here we are today. Now, one of the most important things to keep in mind throughout this episode is that political parties are not fixed ideological institutions, although it is kind of easy to think of them that way. In reality, they're more so coalitions. At any given moment, a political party might include certain interest groups, demographic groups, advocacy organizations, ideological movements,

labor groups, religious or cultural communities. So it's better to think of them as as coalitions. Okay. Now, the groups might support the same party, but for different reasons. So one group might prioritize economic policy. Another might care more about social issues. Another might be focused on foreign policy. But they all stay in the same party because overall they think that party better represents their interest than the alternative. And that's why it's better to think of these as as as as as coalsions rather than these fixed ideological groups. And over time, as we'll as we'll see throughout this episode, those those alliances kind of shift too. So new groups join. Others leave, the party's priorities adjust to kind of reflect the current makeup of the coalition. And

that's why parties can appear to sort of change positions over time because the coalition inside the party changed. It's not because the fixed ideology suddenly changed overnight. So throughout this episode, we'll look at how these parties have evolved and even how they've changed positions over time. Now, for those of you tuning in for the first time, this is my little rant that I like to give. I want you to think of this series, this unbiased university series, as a condensed law school education. I want you to imagine that every time you are tuning into one of these episodes, you are sitting down in a 30 to 45 minute law school class.

I'm your professor. Each class, we cover a different topic. We talk about various cases and laws that have shaped those topics. And by the end of this series, you will have obtained your imaginary degree from unbiased university. And what that means is that when this show comes back and we're talking about current events, again, you will be fully prepared. because all of these concepts that we're talking about in each of these unbiased university episodes,

the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, the Supreme Court, presidential elections, et cetera, these are all in the background of every single current event that we talk about. So it's really important that we understand all of them. With that said, we can now dive into the evolution of political parties, starting at the very beginning. Let's first give context to the time frame that we're looking at. Okay? So we declared our independence in 1776 and the Constitution was ratified in 1788. In the 1780s, the first major political divide was between the federalists and anti-federalists.

The federalists supported ratifying the Constitution. They believed that the United States needed a stronger national government than the one that was created under the Articles of Confederation. They felt that a stronger federal structure would help stabilize the economy, manage national debt, regulate interstate commerce, and just provide national security. In fact, if you've ever heard of the Federalist Papers, that was a series of 85 essays written by the Federalists to convince the states to ratify the Constitution. And those papers explained how the government would work and why it would prevent tyranny, mostly due to systems like checks and balances. Some of the most notable federalists included Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, John Adams, and John J. But then you had anti-federalists. The anti-federalists opposed ratifying the Constitution as it was written.

They felt that the Constitution gave too much power to the national government and threatened individual liberties. They felt that state governments should have more power because they were closer to the people. to the anti-federalists, the Bill of Rights was a necessity in order to protect individual freedoms. The Federalists did not feel as if the Bill of Rights was as important as the anti-federalists did. And it was actually because of the anti-federalists that we have the Bill of Rights. Some of the more notable anti-federalists included Patrick Henry, Samuel Adams, and George Mason. And again, this was in the late 1770s. or 1780s around the time the Constitution was ratified. Once the Constitution and the Bill of Rights

were ratified, the anti-federalists sort of started to disappear as a movement. And this was especially the case once the Bill of Rights was ratified because many of the anti-federalists felt that their biggest concern had been resolved. So they didn't really see a need for this separate organized opposition movement. And around this time, the political disagreement went from questioning whether we should even have the Constitution to now, how should this new government use its power? Because now we have this new federal government. How should it use its power? And soon there were disagreements over things like a national bank, the federal government taking over state debts, an economic centralization, or policies that gave more

economic authority to the federal government rather than leaving those decisions to the states. And these disagreements led Thomas Jefferson and James Madison to organize the opposition, which became known as the Democratic Republican Party. So then a lot of the people that had previously been anti-federalists began aligning with the Democratic Republicans, which like the anti-federalists, supported limited federal power and stronger state power. So by the mid-1790s, the United States effectively had its first real part. party system. You had the federalists, which stuck around even after the constitution was ratified,

and then you had this newer party called the Democratic Republicans. And the split between the two really centered around the size and role of the federal government. So on one side you had the federalists who felt the country needed this strong national government to stabilize the economy and manage the national debt and build international credibility. People like Alexander Hamill, felt that this strong central government and modern financial system were essential for the country's survival, given how young the country was. But then on the other side were the Democratic Republicans led again by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison. And they were more skeptical of centralized power. They felt the country should stay more decentralized. So, you know,

there should be stronger states and an economy that focused more on agriculture. Their fear was that too much federal power could start to resemble what they had just left behind in Great Britain. So the earliest party divisions weren't about the things that we see divisions over today, right? It wasn't about taxes or health care. They were about the foundational question of how powerful should our federal government be. But then the War of 1812 was kind of the downfall of the Federalist Party. So here's what happened. The War of 1812, often called America's Second War of Independence, was fought against Britain because of British restrictions on U.S. trade and the British Navy's practice of stopping American ships

and quite literally forcing American soldiers into British service. But federalists, especially in the New England area, felt that the war would hurt American trade, which was critical to New England's economy. They felt it would hurt merchants and shipping interests, and they felt that it would put an unnecessary amount of financial strain on the United States. And because of this, because of these concerns, federalist leaders were very critical of the war. But a lot of Americans at the time saw this opposition as unpatriotic, right, and not supporting our freedoms here in America. And this really damaged. the party's reputation. And the party kind of just faded away in the years that followed the war.

So at that point, the Democratic Republican Party was really the only major national party for a short period of time. And because there was no strong competing party, politics actually appeared to be a bit calm at the national level. In fact, historians call this time period the era of good feelings. But the thing was, people were still disagreeing about things like policy, leadership, and the direction of the country, right? It's just that those disagreements were happening inside of the same party instead of between two major parties. So over time, especially during and after the election of 1824, different factions started organizing around different leaders within the Democratic Republican Party. And by the late 1820s, early 1830s, there was one faction that evolved into the Democratic Party.

And then there was another faction, which was initially known as the National Republicans, but later reorganized and became the Whig Party. So the Democratic Republican Party kind of split off into two parties. And the two main political factions became the Democrats and the Whigs. Now, the Democratic Party that took shape in the late 1820s is often called the Jacksonian Democratic movement because it was led by Andrew Jackson. The Jacksonian Democrats portrayed themselves as, you know, representing the ordinary citizen. Farmers, frontier settlers, working class voters, people like that. And this is otherwise known as populism. So they fought against the political and financial elites.

They prioritized expanding political participation for white male voters. They were skeptical of concentrated economic power, especially large banks. They placed more of an emphasis on state rights and limited. federal government, whereas the Whig party really came about in opposition to the Jacksonian Democrats. The Whigs were more open to federal involvement in economic development. They supported more infrastructure projects like roads, canals, and railroads. And they wanted Congress to have more power than the presidency. And this was in part because Andrew Jackson, who they were opposing, was president at the time.

Now, despite only existing for about 20 years, the Whig Party ended up winning two elections, one in 1840, another in 1848. They held seats in Congress. They controlled the House of Representatives at the time. They also helped shape major economic policy decisions like tariffs and infrastructure investment. But they really weren't around very long. And in the 1850s is when the Whig Party collapsed. And the reason the Whig Party collapse is because of slavery.

So there were too many disagreed. within the Whig Party over slavery. There were too many disagreements within the Whig party over slavery, specifically whether slavery should be expanded into new Western territories. Many Whigs in the North were opposed to the expansion of slavery and ultimately went on to help form that what would be the new Republican Party, wigs in the South kind of split into different directions on the issue of slavery. So some Southern Whigs already have. held views that were pretty similar to views of Southern Democrats, like protecting slavery, as well as the importance of state rights and concern about too much federal intervention.

So a lot of the Southern Whigs ended up joining the Democratic Party. And then there were Northern Whigs, not many, but some, who joined this new Republican coalition. So at this point, the Whig Party falls apart because of internal disagreements over slavery. And now we have the Republican Party and the Democratic Party. But it is not. not the same two parties that we know today. The parties were not yet ideologically aligned in the way that they are today. That didn't happen until more than 100 years later. So in the 1850s, we were working with a Republican Party and a Democratic Party. It was just very different than what it is today. The biggest difference between the two parties at the time was the expansion of slavery.

So Republicans generally opposed the expansion of slavery, whereas Democrats, were more supportive of slavery. But keep in mind, at this time, Democrats were still considered a national coalition, meaning they had major support in the South and the North, whereas the Republicans primarily had support in the North and were more regional. They weren't quite a national party like the Democratic Party was. Because the Democratic Party was a national coalition, it had Southern Democrats, Southern Democrats who strongly supported slavery and its expansion, but it also had northern

Democrats who were more moderate and generally supported what's called popular sovereignty, which is the idea that territories should vote and decide for themselves whether to allow slavery. So that was the issue of slavery. Economically, at the time, Republicans supported industrial development. They wanted more infrastructure projects like railroads. They also supported protective tariffs, which were higher tariffs on foreign goods in order to, you know, support the domestic industries here in the United States. And they felt that if there were higher tariffs on foreign goods, then northern manufacturing would be protected. Democrats, on the other hand, especially those in the agricultural regions, generally wanted

lower tariffs. And this was because, one, farmers sold crops overseas and they felt that higher U.S. tariffs would trigger retaliatory tariffs from other countries, which would then make it harder to sell their exports. And two, lower tariffs made imported goods cheaper for regions that bought manufactured products rather than producing them. Democrats were also more skeptical of federal economic intervention because federal economic intervention primarily benefited the industries in the north. Then when it came to federal power and the extent of power that the federal government should have, Republicans were more willing to rely on federal power for economic development, whereas Democrats were more focused on states' rights. And again, particularly

Southern Democrats regarding slavery. Now, something I mentioned earlier is that in this time period, party ideology did not align with the modern left-right framework that people kind of assume has always existed. In fact, neither party was ideologically uniform. So you could have a Northern Democrat that was very different than a Southern Democrat. For instance, Southern Democrats generally supported slavery, but Northern Democrats didn't. So on some issues, it wasn't, it wasn't Democrats versus Republicans. It was more so North versus South. And back then, if you wanted to know how someone might vote, knowing where they were from could actually tell you more than just knowing their party affiliation. So while we had the same party labels back then, things were much different than they

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Welcome back. Before the break, we talked about. about the emergence of the Democratic and Republican parties, but we noted that in the mid to late 1850s, the parties looked a lot different than how they look today. So then we move into the early 1900s. And at this point in history, the United States was going through a lot of change and change was happening pretty fast. So industrialization was kind of transforming the economy. Cities were growing. Labor movements were gaining strength. Economic inequality was becoming more of a political issue. And all of these changes forced both political parties, Republicans and

Democrats, to face new questions that they didn't have to face before. Questions like how the government should deal with big corporations, what protections workers should have, how much the federal government should regulate the economy, how the country should address the growing inequality. All of these things, you know, the parties were trying to figure out. And because these questions were were relatively new questions, both parties were trying to figure out where they stood on these sorts of issues. And because of that, progressive reform ideas, things like workplace protections, antitrust enforcement, government oversight of certain industries, those things didn't belong to just one party. You could find progressive leaders in both parties that wanted these kinds of

reforms. And at the same time, you could find more conservative factions in both parties. that we're skeptical of expanding government power too quickly. And if you think about those definitions, right? Progressive generally means pushing for reform and change. Well, conservative means taking a more cautious or conservative approach to change a reform, or in this case, government expansion. So inside the Republican Party at the time, you really had two different wings that didn't always agree with each other.

On one side were the more progressive Republicans like Theodore Roosevelt, who felt that, you know, the federal government should step in to deal with issues like unsafe working conditions, monopolies and corporate abuses of power. Progressive Republicans supported things like antitrust enforcement, consumer protection laws, and just generally stronger regulation of certain industries. But on the other side were the more conservative Republicans who felt that too much government intervention could actually slow economic growth. They felt that the market should operate with less federal regulation, not more.

federal regulation. And then in the Democratic Party, you had a similar internal divide, right? So the progressive Democrats supported labor protections and voting reforms and stronger regulation of powerful corporations. But the more conservative Democrats, especially in the more rural and southern areas, were more cautious about expanding federal authority. They tended to focus on states' rights and lowering federal spending and a more limited national government, you know, in the economy. So, during. this period, the biggest disagreements in politics, they weren't always just between Republicans and Democrats. In fact, most of the time, they weren't. A lot of the biggest debates were happening

inside each party between the progressive factions, which were pushing for reform and the conservative factions, which were arguing that the federal government should not be as involved. Then there was another shift that happened. And this was during the Great Depression in the late 1920s, early 1930s. So keep in mind that at this time, the country was dealing with massive unemployment, failing banks, and a totally collapsed economy. So President Franklin Roosevelt responded to those issues with what became known as the New Deal. And this was a series of federal programs that were intended to stabilize the economy and create jobs and regulate parts of the financial sector and just provide relief to Americans that were, you know, hit the hardest. But these programs didn't just

reshape the economy. They also reshape the political landscape. So the Democratic Party started building what historians call the New Deal Coalition, which brought together the groups that were hit hardest by the Great Depression. So we're talking about labor unions, urban voters, immigrants, minority voters. Because when the New Deal program started providing things like minimum wage requirements and social security and housing and infrastructure investments in the cities, many of the voters in these communities began to associate. the Democratic Party with a federal government that was trying to help them, that was trying to address the economic crisis that was affecting them the most. At the same time, the Republican Party became associated with more business-oriented economic policies. So for instance, the Republicans felt that long-term economic recovery should come primarily from private businesses, hiring workers,

rather than the federal government becoming a major employer. So the Republicans are more skeptical of this large-scale federal economic expansion. They wanted a smaller federal footprint in the economy. So while the Democrats were creating social safety net programs, Republicans felt that these bigger programs would just add to the country's spending and increase the country's debt. While Democrats were enacting labor protections, Republicans felt that too much federal regulation of industries would slow down economic growth. Now, Republicans didn't oppose everything that Democrats did, but for the most part, like I said, they wanted a smaller federal for footprint and less federal oversight.

And now we get to the civil rights era of the 1950s and 60s. And this time period was one of the most significant political transitions in modern American history. But to understand why, we kind of have to recap what the political landscape looked like before this point. So before the 50s and 60s, both parties, Republicans and Democrats were still ideologically mixed. The Democratic Party had both conservative Southern Democrats who were focused on states' rights and skeptical of federal civil rights intervention and liberal Northern Democrats who supported federal civil rights protections and labor reforms. The Republican Party had conservative factions, but it also had more moderate and liberal Republicans. So again, you know, I keep saying this, but it's true. The divide wasn't this clean Democrats or liberal Republicans are conservative, the kind of thing we see today.

That still hadn't happened yet. The divide was inside each party. But during the civil rights era, things changed. The country was dealing with segregation, voting discrimination, racial inequalities. And the federal government was starting to pass these major civil rights laws that were meant to address those issues. And all of these things led to this shift in the political. landscape. So during the civil rights era, there was a gradual sorting of these coalitions. In other words, as national democratic leaders increasingly supported federal civil rights legislation, many of the voters who supported those same policies, including a growing number of black voters and liberal voters nationwide, became more aligned with Democrats. At the same time, more of the conservative voters, particularly in parts of the South, began shifting toward the Republican party. And over the next 30 years or so, this gradual movement helped transform the parties from ideologically mixed groups into the more clearly defined liberal-leaning Democratic Party and

conservative-leaning Republican Party that we have today. So by the 70s, 80s and 90s, the parties had become far more ideologically consistent nationwide than they had been at any point in American history leading up to that. Conservatives ended up being in the Republican coalition. Liberals ended up being in the Democratic coalition. But, you know, again, this didn't happen overnight. It was a gradual movement. And several things contributed to this ideological sorting. So for example, primary elections, right? Primary elections gave party voters more direct control over who their party nominated. And this often rewarded the candidates who more clearly matched the ideological preferences of the party's base voters. And over time, what that did is it made it

harder for liberal Republicans or conservative Democrats to win nominations. It came down to conservative Republicans and liberal Democrats. That is who was winning these primaries. The other people didn't really have a shot. So that was one of the things. At the same time, the rise of nationalized media coverage, right? That first it was cable. news, nationally syndicated talk radio, then later came the internet. And this meant that voters were increasingly hearing the same national political debates rather than these local debates that they had heard before. And because of this, campaigns became more nationalized. Candidates, you know, weren't just running on local issues anymore. They were running on these bigger national party

agendas. And their messaging strategies changed. And a lot changed with that, right? Because previously that it was more regional. But then once media became this national, you know, national thing, now all of a sudden, the messaging strategies were different. The, the party agendas were different. They were now catering to their voter base on a national level. And as a result, the Republican Party in one state increasingly resembled the Republican Party in another state. And the same became true for Democrats. So you can kind of see these, there's, there's, there's there's a few reasons for the shift. Before party affiliation was based more on region than it was party labeled. That's why I said back in the day, you could tell more about someone's policies

by asking where they were from than asking what party they were affiliated with. But once politics became nationalized, it was not about region anymore. It was really about party labels. So all of these factors together helped produce this political environment where party ideology became more clearly defined nationwide. And by the 2000s and 2010s, it became far less common to see conservative Democrats or liberal Republicans. Speaking of which, I think we can all feel that politics are different today than they were in the 90s, 2000s, and even early 2010s, right? Back then, politics felt less intense. And in a lot of ways, it was. So take President Clinton in the 90s. He was a Democrat, okay? But he signed the 1990s.

crime bill, which increased funding for law enforcement. It provided billions of dollars in prison grants. And it created this three strikes sentencing rule, which required that anyone convicted of a third serious felony offense receive a significantly harsher sentence regardless of the circumstances of that third crime. And by the way, guess who drafted that crime bill, President Biden, who is also a Democrat. Nowadays, that kind of tough on crime law would be far more controversial, inside the Democratic Party. President Clinton also signed the illegal immigration reform and

Immigrant Responsibility Act of 96. This expanded deportation authority and increased border enforcement. And publicly, he spoke about strengthening border security and enforcing immigration laws. This is the kind of rhetoric that today would probably draw some pretty heavy criticism from some factions in the Democratic Party. Same thing with Obama. Obama was given the nickname Deporter in chief because of how many deportations were carried out under his administration. And he publicly talked about on many occasions the fact that entering the country is, or entering the country unlawfully, is illegal and that the people who did it would be deported. And again, you likely wouldn't hear a Democratic presidential candidate speaking those same words

today. President George W. Bush, a Republican, supported comprehensive immigration reform. That included, you know, a pathway to legal status for undocumented immigrants. that's something that today would divide much of the Republican base. Bush worked with Democrats on that issue, even though the legislation ultimately failed. He worked with Democrats on that issue. So the ideas that leaders pushed back in the 90s and 2000s and early 2010s, much more bipartisan than they are today. Now, this doesn't mean that politicians in years past were, you know, these universally moderate saints or that polarization didn't exist because it did.

but there was definitely more ideological overlap between the parties on certain issues. There was more cross-party voting not only in Congress, but everyday Americans. Americans crossed party lines more. And there were more bipartisan legislative coalitions. So, you know, when we talk about what changed, we talked about primary elections. Primary elections became more powerful in shaping who gets nominated. and again, that's because primary voters tend to be more ideologically consistent and more politically active than the average voters. So candidates increasingly had to win over the most passionate

members of their party before facing the general population. And two, the media. Okay, cable news was growing in the 90s. It wasn't 24-7 yet. And social media didn't exist yet by the 2010s with the advent of social media and a 24-7 news cycle. Politicians were now operating in this constant non-stop environment where every statement could be clipped and criticized and used against them within minutes. So naturally with social media and this 24-7 news cycle, the loudest, most emotionally charged messaging, that's what gets rewarded online. As we know, virality does not necessarily reward nuance, right? So the media ecosystems tend to amplify the most intense and extreme voices. But the thing that I do want to say before we finish this discussion is that even though

party messaging today might sound more extreme. Public opinion itself has not necessarily moved as dramatically as this messaging might suggest. Okay. Yes, we have extremists. Yes, those people are often the loudest in the room, which can make it feel like they're in the majority. But for the most part, most Americans still fall somewhere in the middle. The loudest voices just simply are not representative of the median voter. And I just think it's really important to remember that because it's easy to forget it. Even me, when I'm scrolling through my comments on social media, I have to constantly remind myself, these people are not the majority. So it can sometimes be a bit discouraging to see this, you know, extreme messaging and highly emotionally charged

content from politicians and the media. But just remember that most Americans still fall somewhere in the middle. Now, what I find really interesting in all of this, and I'm sure you do too, is just how much, and I'm not talking in the last 30 years, I'm talking when you go back to the 1800s, how much political parties have changed over time. Because if you look at today's climate and you don't think about the last 250 years of history, it can sometimes feel like it's always been this way, right? Republicans on one side, Democrats on the other, and there's a strong divide between them. But the reality is that these parties have evolved alongside the country itself. And as the country has faced these major turning points, whether it be the founding of the founding of the

nation or the fight over slavery or the economic collapse of the Great Depression or the civil rights movement. The coalitions inside these parties have shifted too. And it makes me wonder whether we are currently living through the next political shift right now. Are the parties continuing to move further apart? And what kinds of economic, cultural, or technological changes might be driving that? Those are just a few questions I want to leave you thinking about as we wrap up today's episode. So thank you for being here for yet another class at Unbiased University. I hope to see you in the next class where we'll talk about local, state, and the federal government, and who has what power.