Democratic Party (1828-1933)

The Democratic Party was a major American political party in the Old United States. Often characterized as classically liberal with populist elements, and socially conservative, the party had it's origins in the Anti-Administration Faction and Thomas Jefferson's Republican Party (not to be confused with the Democrat's rival in the Republican Party, or the post-revolution Democratic-Republican Party), and represented the interests of the plantation class that dominated the First Republic. With the Republicans ascendant after Loyalist victory in the Slavers' War, the Democratic Party lost it's dominant status, although it would continue to contest the legislative branch of the Second Republic, and held a firm grip over the Southern United States. The Democratic Party was the senior partner in the National Unity Government, electing it's last President, Thomas R. Marshall, against the backdrop of the Great War. It would take the blame for the horrors of the war and it's failure to combat the Bienno Rosso immediately after it, which saw the party fall into a slump it would never recover from.

The Democratic Party would contract into a mostly regional party with the defection of it's progressive flank as the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party, which aligned itself with the Republican Party, and would be put constantly on the backfoot with the triumph of Leonard Wood's Progressive Republicans, which saw the dismantling of Jim Crow and the destruction of the Klu Klux Klan as an effective political force. As the Republicans drifted rightwards after the death of Wood, the remains of the progressive Democrats seized power, nominating Huey Long for the 1932 election. Upon the WCP-DFLP Popular Front's victory in the election, the majority of Democrats would support the Putsch, although the progressives led by Huey Long would not, resulting in his liquidation and the progressives fervently allying with the Provisional Government in Chicago. After the conclusion of the Civil War, the pro-Putsch elements of the party would join MacArthur in exile, while the progressives seized the party apparatus and merged with the remains of the Republican party to form the Democratic-Republican Party, while conservatives who opposed both the putsch and the results of the Red May Revolution would form the True Democrats, who still claim to be the Party's legal successor.

History
The embryonic Democratic Party emerged from the supporters of Andrew Jackson from the Jeffersonian Republican Party, which had managed to subdue their Federalist rivals to the point of their dissolution, briefly dominating American politics before once again splitting along the old Republican-Federalist divide. Andrew Jackson set the tone his party would take for the majority of it's existence: classically liberal and socially conservative, but with populist elements allowing the party to appeal to poor white farmers along with rich white landowners. The Democrats sought to preserve the dominance of slave power within the First Republic, and thus became it's establishment party. It opposed the abolition of slavery and supported it's expansion, and preferred the physical expansion of the United States over financial party. It would have a narrow edge over it's rival Whigs, who represented the urban bourgeoisie, until that party's collapse in 1854 over the issue of slavery.

The Democrats would not get the chance to splinter however, for they would finally fall from power in the elections of 1860, when the newly born Republican Party, born from the merger of anti-slavery Northern Whigs and the Free Soil Party, nominated Abraham Lincoln for the Presidency and won the election. The Democrats either supported the Second Confederation in the ensuing Slavers' War, or if they remained loyal to the Republic, peace with it. Upon Loyalist (and Republican) victory in the conflict, the Democrats would be eclipsed by the Republicans on a national level, although it would continue to compete with them over control for the House and Senate. Upon the cessation of Reconstruction in 1877, "Redeemer" Democratic governments within the former territory of the Second Confederation formed effective one party states by disenfranchising poor whites and blacks alike. Towards the end of the 1800s, increasing tension developed between the "Bourbon" wing of the party, who represented the interests of rich Southern landowners, and the party's populist and agrarian wing.

Democrats along with progressive Republicans scored a victory in the clash against Charles Fairbanks, resulting in the passage of the 18th Amendment and the beginning of parliamentary government within the Second Republic. With Woodrow Wilson, a Bourbon Democrat, constructing the new system and leading two successive governments in the legislative, and the nomination of William Jennings Bryan, a Populist, briefly saw the two wings of the party reconcile. The Democrats would become the senior partner of the National Unity Government during the Great War, even electing their last President, Thomas R. Marshall in 1916, and led the charge to suppress the growing Socialist Labor Party, who led opposition to the war at home. This peak would ultimately be the parties undoing: they would be blamed by the SLP for the excesses of the Great War, and by the Republicans for their failure to contain the Bienno Rosso, and the defection of the Party's left flank, forming the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party in 1919, would sound the death knell for the Democrats as an national party.

The 1920s would see the Democratic Party increasingly contract into a regional party, with Wood's Progressive Republicans and the Workers' Party of America leading the charge against Jim Crow and the KKK, only intensified by Wood's assassination by a former Klansman in 1927. The DFLP, as coalition partners with the Republican Party, stole the party's agrarian base outside the South, and even threatened to within it. The Democrats would be firmly on the backfoot for the entirety of the decade, unable to shed their connections to the Klan and desperately searching for the soul of the Party in a world after Jim Crow.

As the Republicans drifted right after the assassination of Leonard Wood, taking a confrontational attitude to the growing Workers' Communist Party, the remaining progressives of the Party saw their chance, and assumed control over the Party by force, nominating Louisiana governor Huey Long for the 1932 election. Upon the victory of the WCP-DFLP Popular Front in the elections, and the ensuing MacArthur Putsch marked the beginning of the end of the Democratic Party. Bourbon Democrats fell in lockstep behind the Putsch, but the Progressives, led by Huey Long, the only Democratic governor to oppose the Putsch, did not. Long's execution by Putschist forces only further alienated the progressives from their own party, leading them to earnestly support the Provisional Government in Chicago, although the majority of the Party's politicians continued to align with the National Salvation Front.

After the Red victory in the Civil War, the Party would completely fragment. The Progressives, few in number but in possession of the Party's remaining apparatus, chose to fold into the rump Republican Party, which had met a similar fate, to form the Democratic-Republican Party. The Bourbon Democrats who supported the Putsch would join MacArthur and his National Salvation Front in Cuba. Conservative Democrats who opposed both the Putsch and the results of the Red May Revolution would form the True Democrats, bolstered by conservative former Republicans. The True Democrats hold that the dissolution of the Democratic Party was not legal, and that they are the true successor/continuation of the Party of Jackson, although this claim is not recognized by the majority of those outside of the True Democrats.