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Fifth Party System
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The New Deal Coalition, also known as the Fifth Party System, refers to the era of United States national politics that began with the New Deal in 1933. It followed the Fourth Party System, usually called the Progressive Era. Experts debate whether it ended in the mid-1960s (as the New Deal coalition did) or the mid-1990s, or continues to the present. The System was heavily Democratic through 1964 and mostly Republican at the presidential level since 1968, with the Senate switching back and forth after 1980.
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Encyclopedia
The New Deal Coalition, also known as the Fifth Party System, refers to the era of United States national politics that began with the New Deal in 1933. It followed the Fourth Party System, usually called the Progressive Era. Experts debate whether it ended in the mid-1960s (as the New Deal coalition did) or the mid-1990s, or continues to the present. The System was heavily Democratic through 1964 and mostly Republican at the presidential level since 1968, with the Senate switching back and forth after 1980. The Democrats usually controlled the House except that the Republicans won in 1946, 1952, and 1994 through 2004 elections. Both chambers went Democratic in 2006. Of the twenty presidential elections since 1932, the Democrats won 7 of the first 9 (through 1964), with Democratic control of Congress as the norm; while the Republicans won 7 of the 11 since 1968, with divided government as the norm.
With Republican promises of prosperity discredited by the Great Depression, the four consecutive elections, 1932, 1936, 1940, and 1944, of Franklin D. Roosevelt gave the Democrats dominance, though in domestic issues the conservative coalition generally controlled Congress from 1938 to 1964. The activist New Deal promoted American liberalism, anchored in a New Deal Coalition of specific liberal groups—especially ethno-religious constituencies (Catholics, Jews, African Americans)—white Southerners, well-organized labor unions, urban machines, progressive intellectuals, and populist farm groups. Opposition Republicans were split between a conservative wing, led by Ohio Senator Robert A. Taft, and a more successful moderate wing exemplified by the politics of Northeastern elites such as Nelson Rockefeller, Jacob Javits, and Henry Cabot Lodge.
The period climaxed with Lyndon B. Johnson's smashing electoral defeat of conservative Republican presidential candidate Barry Goldwater in 1964; in no other election since 1944 except LBJ, Jimmy Carter in 1976, and Barack Obama in 2008 has the Democratic party received more than 50% of the popular vote for President, although in 1996, Clinton had come very close to a majority (a substantial portion of the vote went to a third party candidate Ross Perot).
The Democratic coalition divided in 1948 and 1968, in the latter election allowing the Republican candidate Richard Nixon to take the White House. Republicans gained support from the formation of the Reagan coalition in the 1980s. Democrats kept control of the House of Representatives until the 1994 election. For the next twelve years the Republican Party was in control with small majorities, until the Democrats recaptured the chamber with 2006 election and the 110th Congress. The Democrats held the Senate until 1980; since then the two parties have traded control of the Senate back and forth with small majorities, until the Democrats consolidated a near-supermajority in 2008.
Sixth Party System?
The party system model dates to the late 20th century. The numbering of the systems was introduced in 1967. Much of the work published on the subject has been political scientists explaining the events of their own time as the imminent breakup of the Fifth Party System, and the installation of a new one; some papers argue that it broke up at some time long before publication. However, no decisive electoral event, shifting both presidential and congressional control, has occurred since 1932. This idea was particularly popular in the 1970s, specifying dates as early as 1960.
Other current writing on the Fifth Party System expresses admiration of its longevity: the first four systems lasted about 30 to 40 years each, which would have implied that the early twenty-first century should see a Sixth Party System. It is also possible, as argued in (Jensen 1981) and elsewhere, that the party system has given way, not to a new party system, but to a period of dealignment in politics. Previous party systems ended with the dominant party losing two consecutive House elections by large margins, with a presidential election coinciding with or immediately following (in 1896) the second house election—decisive electoral evidence of political realignment. By this definition, consecutive Democratic victories in the Congressional elections of 2006 and 2008, in addition to the election of Barack Obama, implies that such a realignment is possibly underway.
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