Emerging Seventh Party System: United States

The two-party system is based on laws, party rules, and customs. Several other parties also operate in the U.S. and occasionally have a member elected to local office. The need to win popular support in a republic led to the American invention of voter-based political parties in the 1790s. Americans were especially innovative in devising new campaign techniques that linked public opinion with public policy through the party. Political scientists and historians divided the development of America's two-party system into six or so eras or "party systems starting with the Federalist Party, which supported the ratification of the Constitution, and the Anti-Administration party (Anti-Federalists), which opposed a powerful central government and later became the Democratic-Republican Party. (First Party System: 1792–1824; Second Party System: 1828–1854; Third-Party System: 1854–1890s; Fourth Party System: 1896–1932; Fifth Party System: 1932–1976; Sixth Party System: 1980s–2016; Emerging Seventh-Party System – Trumpism.