A Brief History of the Major Political Parties of the U.S.
which explains pretty well where we are politically
In the U.S., two parties are basically all we have ever had. That has never been a formal rule, but at any time two parties have always dominated elections.
Since just before our Civil War (in the early 1860’s), those two parties have been the Democratic Party and the Republican Party. Both of them claim roots back to the Democrat-Republican Party, led primarily by Thomas Jefferson. Its opposition was the Federalist Party of, primarily, Alexander Hamilton.
Really, though (those damned Republicans just can never be completely honest about anything) the Republican Party grew out of the remains of the Whig Party. It was founded in 1854. Yet, from pretty much its inception it has chosen to refer to itself as the ‘Grand Old Party’: GOP. Its economic agenda — promoting industrialization — was Hamiltonian, not Jeffersonian.
The Whig Party was formed (1833) as a reaction to Andrew Jackson. He was president from 1829 until 1837 (and the one Donald Trump resembles politically more than any other U.S. president). He was the primary instigator a ‘populist’ movement in the 1820’s and 30’s that came to be called ‘the Democracy’, pandering to the worst in people to get their votes in order to pursue a personal agenda: putting an end to the central bank, displacing and killing indigenous peoples, and promoting slavery. The Democratic Party was formed (1828) within that field of political energy (making it actually the oldest continually existing political party in the world). Beginning in the 1930’s, as a response to the collapse of the economy in the Great Depression (and also influenced by the ‘Progressive’ movement of the late 1800’s and early 1900’s, calling for the reform of politics and government and the regulation of businesses), that party has grown something of a social conscience — a development that has by now driven Republicans quite literally insane.