Populism as Continuity: A History of U.S. Party Realignments

Did America’s two major parties really swap core philosophies?
This explainer walks through the three big reversals that re-wired U.S. politics—and the one populist constant that never went away.

We start with the Founders’ fear of distant centralized power, then trace how crises—the Civil War, the Great Depression, and the Civil Rights Movement—forced both parties to change positions on:

Federal Power: Democrats (Jacksonian states’ rights) → modern federal activism; Republicans (Lincoln’s strong federalism) → modern devolution & local control

Economics: Democrats (laissez-faire, anti-bank) → Keynesian/New Deal; Republicans (protective tariffs, nation-building) → supply-side/free-market—with a recent protectionist turn

Social Contract: Democrats (Solid South, segregationist faction) → civil-rights enforcement; Republicans (party of Lincoln) → Southern-anchored coalition

The twist: while policies flipped, the language of “fighting for the common man against elites” persisted across parties for 200+ years.

Chapters
00:00 Intro (the paradox)
01:16 Baseline: Founders & local power
02:50 Flip #1: Federal power
04:35 Flip #2: Economics
06:15 Flip #3: Social contract
08:10 The populist through-line
09:00 Final question: Are ideals permanent—or tools?

#history #politics #realignment #democrats #republicans #civilrights #newdeal #federalism

Read full text: https://archive.org/details/the-third...

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