The New Deal Coalition came together in the early years of the 1930s to promote and keep in office President Franklin D. Roosevelt. This coalition was immensely strong, mainly due to its wide inclusion of diverse citizens from all walks of life, including Southerners, African Americans, Catholics, Jews, members of labor unions, people who lived in cities, and the poor. While the very wealthy were not likely to support the New Deal Coalition, the other groups joined together because of their respect and support for the numerous programs which FDR put into action to help the nation hold itself together during the difficult years of the Great Depression. This Coalition would prove so strong in its Democratic Party allegiance that it continued to vote Democratic leaders into office up through the 1960s.

Our current party system, with the Democrats and Republicans as the two main parties, came into being right before the start of the Civil War and has held sway ever since. The Federalist Party, however, actually vigorously promoted the US Constitution, with its leaders Alexander Hamilton and John Adams lobbying intensely for its adoption. Abraham Lincoln was actually the very first Republican candidate to become President and the Jacksonian Democrats took their name from their most famous and popular member, Andrew Jackson, whose ideas the party aggressively supported for decades.

Out of the above list, the Jeffersonians are the only example of a mainstream political party. The Jeffersonians formed at the beginning of the 1800s to support Thomas Jefferson and eventually transitioned into the Democratic-Republican Party, which continued to uphold Jefferson’s ideals. Every other party listed is an example of an influential third party – from the Free Soilers who campaigned throughout the 1850s to halt the spread of slavery to Ralph Nader’s environmentally-conscious Green Party to Theodore Roosevelt’s reform-minded Progressives. While none of these parties ever successfully managed to win the White House, nevertheless they each forced the public and the mainstream party system to take notice and respond to the crucial issues each championed.

While the Federalists and Anti-Federalists did disagree on exactly to spell out the various individual freedoms (the Anti-Federalists, who championed the Bill of Rights, thought the Constitution was initially too unclear), both parties agreed wholeheartedly about the necessity and governmental preservation of personal liberties. On the other hand, these two groups did indeed engage in many conflicts and shared few other commonalities. The Federalists wanted the national government to be stronger than the individual state governments, a power structure which the Anti-Federalists fiercely opposed. Meanwhile, the Anti-Federalists believed that political officials should be directly elected by the people and should serve only short terms, while the Federalists wanted just the opposite (indirect election and longer terms). Most of the Federalists were well-off individuals, either large landowners or successful merchants or professionals, and therefore believed that the highest government offices would be best run by their fellow elites, who they contended had the necessary education and experience for successful governing. The Anti-Federalists derided this belief; as small farmers or laborers, they felt that the so-called “common man” (aka the average white male citizen) was more than intelligent and qualified enough by their various life experiences to effectively govern. According to the Anti-Federalists, the Federalists were nothing more than snobby elitists, while the Federalists looked down their opponents as small-minded and petty.

The first major party that organized in the United States was the Federalists. They organized around the effort to get the Constitution rarified. They faced loose and unorganized opposition from the Anti-Federalists (not a formal party).

The political spectrum, from left to right, could be illustrated as: Radical - Liberal - Moderate - Conservative - Reactionary. So a "radical" would appear furthest left on the political spectrum. Radicals favor quick and immediate changes to the social or political life. A "reactionary," on the other hand, favors the maintenance of the status quo at all costs, or even further, the return to some previous ordered system that has been overturned by recent "radical" action.

Supply-side economics is a macroeconomic theory that suggests that the best way to encourage economic growth is to remove obstacles for those who produce goods. Essentially it proposes lowering regulations and taxes on wealthier individuals and corporations, supporting the notion that such a policy will cause a "trickle-down" effect that will improve the economic and social conditions of the working and middle classes. It is most closely associated with Ronald Reagan and was part of the platform on which he won his landslide election victory in 1980 over Jimmy Carter.

The modern Democratic Party tends to be supported by minorities, women, young people, people living in cities, whereas the modern Republican party tends to be supported by wealthy people, southerners, and white males.

The term "New Democrat" was first introduced into the popular consciousness during the Democratic National Convention of 1992; however, it first appeared as an ideology in the wake of the election of George H. W. Bush in 1988. It meant to establish the Democrat party as considerably more conservative and centrist than the party had previously been. This may be understood as a reaction to two broad American political trends of recent years: firstly, the movement to the political right of the majority of the American population and secondly, the idea that a political party, be it conservative or liberal, is best served by adopting centrist views and appearing less extreme than its opponent(s).

One of the fundamental components of the American Conservative ideology is a belief in states' rights.  This often involves a condemnation of a large federal government.