Democratic Party, USA The oldest democratic political party in the world. Known in the 1790s as the Democratic-Republican Party, Democrats split in 1860 over the questions of slavery and the US Civil War. It reunited after the Civil War, gaining support from the ever-expanding west and from the immigrant working classes of the industrialized north-east, while retaining the loyalty of the deep south. In the early twentieth century the party adopted many of the policies of the
Progressive movement and its candidate for President, Woodrow
Wilson, was elected in 1912. Although in eclipse during the 1920s, it re-emerged in the years of the
Great Depression, with policies to end unemployment and stimulate industry. It captured both
Congress and the Presidency, with Franklin D.
Roosevelt the only President to have been elected four times. Since then the Democratic Party has tended to dominate the House of Representatives and has generally held the Senate as well, supporting civil rights, social welfare, and Third World aid.
Following the
civil rights movement and desegregation in the 1950s and 1960s, the Democratic Party lost much of its support from the
Dixiecrat southern states. The Democratic presidencies of John F.
Kennedy and Lyndon B.
Johnson saw fruitful partnerships between Congress and President. The
Vietnam War, however, badly divided the party in 1968. Under the Republican President
Nixon, Democrats retained control of Congress and won the election of President
Carter in 1976. During the 1970s and 1980s, following
Nixon's and
Reagan's adoption of
Goldwater's ‘new republicanism’, the Democratic Party lost the support of large sections of the middle and upper classes, becoming increasingly identified with the poorer population of the big cities and small farmers. As a result, defections of urban workers to the
Republican Party undermined the strength of the party in presidential elections during the 1970s and 1980s.
A key problem for the Democrats in the 1980s and 1990s was the diversity of their coalition, comprising many different ethnic groups and social movements each requiring support from party representatives. Related to this was a reputation for ‘big government’ policies. The first two years of the
Clinton administration were dogged by controversy in part because Clinton owed political debts to homosexuals, environmentalists, labour unions, women, and ethnic minorities. Nevertheless, Clinton managed to capture the allegiance of the ‘soccer moms’. These had formed the core of floating voters attracted to
Reagan's Republicans, as Clinton emphasized fiscal rectitude, economic growth, and investment in education. The failure of Al
Gore's presidential campaign of 2000 left the Democrats leaderless and divided. They struggled to find policies in the face of an atmosphere of national unity after
September 11, and the President's unprecedented popularity. In the mid-term elections of 2002, they even lost control of the Senate. Democrat divisions were manifested in the primaries to the 2004 presidential nomination, which were contended by nine candidates.
http://www.democrats.org
