A Realignment Study Of American Party Politics In The "Fourth Party System Period"

As an important period of transition in the United States,the "fourth party system period" in the United States is a critical period for shaping the modern United States.The "fourth party system period" in the United States spans the gilded era,the era of progressivism,and the era of "great prosperity." The gold-plated era laid a solid material economic foundation for modern America.The political reforms of the New Deal era after the era of progressives and the "Big Prosperity" have further embodied and clarified the basic political principles of the founding of the United States proposed by federalists.Therefore,the "fourth political party system period" in the United States is a stage which the study of American history must not omit.During this period,the US economy surpassed the UK and became the world's largest economy;the people's material and cultural living standards were higher than in other historical periods.On the other hand,during this period,the monopoly,rapid differentiation between the rich and the poor,and cultural ignorance accompanied by the rapid economic growth have become a stumbling block to restrain social productivity and the further development of the entire country.It is urgent to make adaptive changes.The purpose of this study is to study how the adaptive change of this political system is formed and consolidated.As a typical representative country of modern capitalism,political parties,as intermediaries of American politics,play an extremely important role in American politics.Therefore,the central manifestation of the adaptive change of the political system is the adaptive change of the party's political system.Therefore,it is necessary to understand how American politics adapts to the economic and social changes of this period from the perspective of the evolution of American party politics during this period.Studying the adaptability changes of American party politics during "the fourth party system period",and analyzing the background and development process of such changes are of great significance for understanding the internal role of American politics.In order to study the changes in American party politics during the"Fourth Party period",the author intends to use the theory of political party adjustment to analyze the changes in American party politics during this period.The party reorganization theory is an important theory used to analyze the political changes of political parties.It is often used to analyze the evolution of the relationship between political parties and society,especially how party politics adapts to changing social realities.The theory of political party reorganization believes that the driving force for political reform of political parties comes from the lagging or even decline of political party politics.If the political system of a political party cannot solve a large number of accumulated social problems through adaptive changes,then the political system of the political party will face increasing pressure for institutional change.Eventually,the new party's political reorganization will be clarified in the form of key elections and will ultimately affect political life for a long time.In the United States,due to its relatively stable bipartisan political system and special national conditions,this reorganization phenomenon has become more obvious.There are three parameters to measure whether or not re-alignment of American party politics occurs.The degree of unity within political parties,that is,whether there is division within a single party;the distribution of political power among political parties;and the voter base of political parties.There are two reasons for measuring whether there is division within a single political party.First,is there any disagreement within the party on specific political issues?Second,is there any split in the party's selection of candidates,especially candidates for president and vice president?Disagreements will be reflected through the political propositions of different parties within the party.Therefore,when examining the division within the political party,it is very necessary to take into account the policy propositions made by different forces within the party according to the changing economic and social conditions.The distribution of political power between political parties refers to the ability of the two major political parties to unite local forces in a political structure with a strong tradition of regionalism in the United States.Because,no matter whether it is the presidential election or the congressional elections,in the preliminary elections,nominations and final elections,we must not lose the support of local forces.First,the congressional pre-elections and elections are conducted at the local level.Second,although the president was elected by universal suffrage,the president's nomination was made at the party's national congress,and in the final universal suffrage,in order to obtain electoral votes in certain key states,local party organizations need to actively cooperate with propaganda to get the support of as many people as possible.Therefore,even the presidential election needs to balance the local forces.Of course,whether or not an alliance occurs depends on whether the views on certain issues are the same.Therefore,as with the unity within the party,the political proposition of the party and the differences between the alliances must be considered when examining the party's political power.The basis of alliance voters is related to the political propositions of political parties,but sometimes the political propositions of the parties are not highly consistent.There are often many different political propositions within the party.How voters ultimately make their choices depends on which political proposition will prevail in the party.Obviously,the voter base will be affected by the split in the party and the political power of the party.To sum up,the three indicators of the occurrence of realignment are the degree of solidarity within the political party,the development of political power within the political party,and the voter base.How these three indicators change is related to the political response of the various parties within the political party to the changing social and economic environment,that is,the choice of political propositions.Therefore,in this sense,the theory of political party realignment is a tool to study how the American political party system adapted to changes in economic and social conditions during the fourth party system.The realignment and reorganization is finally reflected in the victory of the Democratic Party and the Republican Party in the three major elections,namely the senate election,the house election and the presidential election.The study found that,the degree of internal solidarity,political power,and voter base of the two major political parties during the "fourth political party system period"have changed.As far as the Republican Party is concerned,first of all,First of all,within the Republican Party,because of differences of opinion on progressive reform,unity has moved toward division.Second,the political power of the Republican Party has weakened,and progressive politics has shifted out.Third,the Republican Party's voter base shrank as the party split and political power weakened.As far as the Democratic Party is concerned,first of all,the Democratic Party has moved from division to unity,and there is a general tendency towards progressive reform within the Party.Second,the party's political power is strengthened by taking over the progressive forces transferred from the Republican Party.Thirdly,the electorate base of the Democratic Party has expanded and it has absorbed a large number of voters who have benefited from social reforms.This group of voters is mainly workers,farmers and other bottom groups.The analysis of the reasons for the realignment of party politics in the "fourth party system period" will use environmental analysis methods,that is,how the changes in the external environment in which party politics is located affect the realignment of party politics in this period.The environment for the realignment of political parties mainly includes the legal environment,political environment and socio-economic environment.The legal environment specifically covers the legal provisions of the electoral system and the legal control of party organizations.Regarding the first aspect,it involves the voting system and the pre-selection system.What the voting system needs to solve is how to determine the form and content of the votes.The pre-selection system is to solve the nomination procedure of candidates.Regarding the second aspect,it involves the party leader's control over the party organization.The analysis of the political environment refers to how the political system influenced the realignment of party politics during this period.The specific political system involves the single majority electoral system and the presidential election system.The meaning of the analysis of the socio-economic environment is how the rapidly changing economic and social conditions are reflected in party politics.Does this reflection have a lag,and is the specific reason for this lag due to legal or political regulations?How does this reflection affect the provisions of laws and systems?The realignment of party politics during this period was facilitated by the interaction of multiple factors.First,since the legal reforms during this period were aimed at eliminating the political injustice of party leaders,the legal reform of the electoral system actually weakened the influence of party leaders to a certain extent,thereby weakening the influence of political parties.If this weakening develops to the extreme,it is very likely that political parties will be wiped out of American parties.But the reality is that political parties in the United States still play a vital role in American politics.The reason lies in the existence of a solid bipartisan system in the United States.The political provisions of the electoral system in which a single constituency is elected by a plurality and presidential electoral systems allow the two major political parties to basically include all voters' votes and exclude purely small local parties from party politics.Therefore,compared with the legal reform of the electoral system,the political system had a greater impact on the re-alliance of American parties in this period.The final result of the interaction between these two factors is the stability of the two-party system,but the reduced loyalty of voters to the party.Thirdly,the divisions among social groups caused by the drastic changes in the economic and social fields during this period eventually caused voters to shift between the two parties.The accumulated inequities in the economic and social spheres were not resolved during the Republican administration,because the Republicans adhered to conservative policies.This created divisions within the Republican Party and weakened the Republican's campaign advantage.The Democratic Party seized the opportunity and extended its tentacles to the northern industrial zone,realizing an alliance between the working class in the northern industrial zone and the south.The conclusion of the analysis and research found that the realignment of party politics in this period took almost 40 years to complete.This phenomenon reflects that American party politics,as a balancer that regulates different interests,has inherent stability,so there will be a certain length of time lag in the response to economic and social changes.Admittedly,there is a lag in the response of every political system to economic and social development.How to balance flexibility and lag is a problem that all political systems need to face.In this sense,the United States and other countries in the world have room for improvement.