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Democratic Party (United States)

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"Democratic Party" redirects here. For other uses, see Democratic Party (disambiguation).
Democratic Party
ChairpersonJaime Harrison
Governing bodyDemocratic National Committee[1][2]
U.S. PresidentJoe Biden
U.S. Vice PresidentKamala Harris
Senate Majority LeaderChuck Schumer
House Minority LeaderHakeem Jeffries
Founders
FoundedJanuary 8, 1828; 196 years ago (1828-01-08)[3]
Baltimore, Maryland, U.S.
Preceded byDemocratic-Republican Party
Headquarters430 South Capitol St. SE,
Washington, D.C., U.S.
Student wing
  • High School Democrats of America
  • College Democrats of America
Youth wingYoung Democrats of America
Women's wingNational Federation of Democratic Women
LGBT wingStonewall Democrats
Overseas wingDemocrats Abroad
Ideology
Political positionCenter-left[b]
CaucusesBlue Dog Coalition
New Democrat Coalition
Congressional Progressive Caucus
Colors  Blue
Senate
47 / 100[c]
House of Representatives
212 / 435
State Governors
23 / 50
State upper chambers
857 / 1,973
State lower chambers
2,425 / 5,413
Territorial Governors
4 / 5
Seats in Territorial upper chambers
31 / 97
Seats in Territorial lower chambers
9 / 91
Election symbol
Website
democrats.org Edit this at Wikidata

The United States Democratic Party is one of the two biggest political parties in the United States. Since the mid-1850's, the party's main opponent has been the Republican Party. Both political parties have controlled American politics ever since.

Overview

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The party sits at the center to center-left of the American political spectrum, with the Republican Party being positioned to their right.

Every four years, the party holds a National Convention where they agree on their candidate for president. The Democratic National Committee coordinates most of the activities of the Democratic Party in all 50 United States. Since Andrew Jackson's inauguration in 1829, there have been 16 Democratic presidents. The most recent and current is Joe Biden who took office as the 46th president of the United States in January 2021. The Democratic Party represents a broad spectrum of liberal and left-wing ideologies,including but not limited toclassical liberalism, social democracy, progressivism, and social modern liberalism.[source?]

Philosophy

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Democrats, also sometimes called the left, liberals or progressives make up one of the two main political parties in the United States. A mostly Democratic state is sometimes called a blue state. This comes from the party’s main color, which is blue, referring to a state supporting "blue" candidates.

Role of government

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Democrats believe in a strong government with social assistance programs to help members of society. They prefer diplomatic solutions to conflicts, and take generally multilateralist views on trade, believing that trade must be free, but fair to protect American workers, consumers, local communities, and the environment. Some Democrats are economic centrists.[14][15]

Social issues

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Socially, most Democrats believe in sociocultural liberalism, taking pro-immigration, pro-marriage equality, and pro-choice views.[16]

Beliefs

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Currently, the Democratic Party is identified by progressivism, liberalism, and left-wing policies. Not all Democrats hold the same beliefs, but generally these are the things many Democrats support:

  • Progressive income tax
  • Higher corporate taxes and recapturing income from overseas profits
  • Spending on business, education, infrastructure and clean energy
  • Expanding spending on government programs
  • Ending the death penalty
  • Expanding rights to abortion
  • Gun regulations to prevent citizens from hurting themselves and others with firearms
  • Support same-sex marriage
  • Universal healthcare
  • Declare Washington D.C. an official state
  • Helping students go to college or university for free without having to pay back the government
  • Believe in allowing undocumented immigrants to work for their U.S Citizenship in the U.S. to stay, pay taxes, and oppose mass deportation

Most support for Democrats comes from states in the Northeast, Upper Midwest, and the Pacific Coast, as well as from the state of Hawaii.

Symbols

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The symbol of the Democratic Party is the donkey.[17] Since the election of 2000, the color blue has become a symbol for Democrats.[18]

Historically, Thomas Jefferson, whom the party claims as its founder, has been often seen as symbols of the Democratic Party, particularly emphasized in the annual celebrations of Jefferson Day Dinners held since the days of Andrew Jackson. As such, the Democratic Party is also often referred to as the “Party of Jefferson.”[19]

List of Democratic presidents

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# President PortraitApril 12, 1945 State Term start Term end Years in office
7 Andrew Jackson (1767–1845) Tennessee March 4, 1829 March 4, 1837 8 years, 0 days
8 Martin Van Buren (1782–1862) New York March 4, 1837 March 4, 1841 4 years, 0 days
11 James K. Polk (1795–1849) Tennessee March 4, 1845 March 4, 1849 4 years, 0 days
14 Franklin Pierce (1804–1869) New Hampshire March 4, 1853 March 4, 1857 4 years, 0 days
15 James Buchanan (1791–1868) Pennsylvania March 4, 1857 March 4, 1861 4 years, 0 days
17 Andrew Johnson (1808–1875) Tennessee April 15, 1865[d] March 4, 1869 3 years, 323 days
22 Grover Cleveland (1837–1908) New York March 4, 1885 March 4, 1889 8 years, 0 days
24 March 4, 1893 March 4, 1897
28 Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924) New Jersey March 4, 1913 March 4, 1921 8 years, 0 days
32 Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945) New York March 4, 1933 April 12, 1945[e] 12 years, 39 days
33 Harry S. Truman (1884–1972) Missouri April 12, 1945 January 20, 1953 7 years, 283 days
35 John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) Massachusetts January 20, 1961 November 22, 1963[e] 2 years, 306 days
36 Lyndon B. Johnson (1908–1973) Texas November 22, 1963 January 20, 1969 5 years, 59 days
39 Jimmy Carter (born 1924) Georgia January 20, 1977 January 20, 1981 4 years, 0 days
42 Bill Clinton (born 1946) Arkansas January 20, 1993 January 20, 2001 8 years, 0 days
44 Barack Obama (born 1961) Illinois January 20, 2009 January 20, 2017 8 years, 0 days
46 Joe Biden (born 1942) Delaware January 20, 2021 Incumbent 3 years, 341 days

Select list of Democratic politicians

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Independents who work with Democrats

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List of former Democrats

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President Ronald Reagan
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References

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  1. ↑ "About the Democratic Party". Democratic Party. Archived from the original on April 6, 2022. Retrieved April 15, 2022. For 171 years, [the Democratic National Committee] has been responsible for governing the Democratic Party
  2. ↑ Democratic Party (March 12, 2022). "The Charter & The Bylaws of the Democratic Party of the United States" (PDF). p. 3. Archived (PDF) from the original on March 27, 2022. Retrieved April 15, 2022. The Democratic National Committee shall have general responsibility for the affairs of the Democratic Party between National Conventions
  3. ↑ Cole, Donald B. (1970). Jacksonian Democracy in New Hampshire, 1800–1851. Harvard University Press. p. 69. ISBN 978-0-67-428368-8.
  4. ↑ Arnold, N. Scott (2009). Imposing values: an essay on liberalism and regulation. Oxford University Press. p. 3. ISBN 9780495501121. Archived from the original on October 2, 2020. Retrieved April 28, 2020. Modern liberalism occupies the left-of-center in the traditional political spectrum and is represented by the Democratic Party in the United States.
  5. ↑ Bacon, Perry Jr. (March 11, 2019). "The Six Wings Of The Democratic Party". FiveThirtyEight. Archived from the original on August 15, 2021. Retrieved October 21, 2021.
  6. ↑ Stein, Letita; Cornwell, Susan; Tanfani, Joseph (August 23, 2018). "Inside the progressive movement roiling the Democratic Party". Reuters. Archived from the original on June 13, 2022. Retrieved June 13, 2022.
  7. ↑ Rae, Nicol C. (June 2007). "Be Careful What You Wish For: The Rise of Responsible Parties in American National Politics". Annual Review of Political Science. 10 (1). Annual Reviews: 169–191. doi:10.1146/annurev.polisci.10.071105.100750. ISSN 1094-2939. What are we to make of American parties at the dawn of the twenty-first century? ... The impact of the 1960s civil rights revolution has been to create two more ideologically coherent parties: a generally liberal or center-left party and a conservative party.
  8. ↑ Marantz, Andrew (May 24, 2021). "Are We Entering a New Political Era?". The New Yorker. New York, New York: Condé Nast. Archived from the original on April 19, 2024. Retrieved June 16, 2024. Moderation may be relative, but moderates still run the Democratic Party.
  9. ↑ Bruner, Christopher M. (2018). "Center-Left Politics and Corporate Governance: What Is the 'Progressive' Agenda?". BYU Law Review. 2018 (2). Digital Commons: 267–334. doi:10.2139/ssrn.2917253. ISSN 2162-8572. SSRN 2917253. This article has argued that a widespread and fundamental reorientation of the Democratic Party toward decidedly centrist national politics over recent decades fundamentally altered the role of corporate governance, and related issues, in the project of assembling a competitive electoral coalition.
  10. ↑ Coates, David, ed. (2012). "Liberalism, Center-left". The Oxford Companion to American Politics. Oxford University Press. pp. 68–69. doi:10.1093/acref/9780199764310.001.0001. ISBN 978-0-19-976431-0. Observes that the terms "progressive" and "liberal" are "often used interchangeably" in political discourse regarding "the center-left".
  11. ↑ Cronin, James E.; Ross, George W.; Shoch, James (August 24, 2011). "Introduction: The New World of the Center-Left". What's Left of the Left: Democrats and Social Democrats in Challenging Times. Duke University Press. ISBN 978-0-8223-5079-8. pp. 17, 22, 182: Including the American Democratic Party in a comparative analysis of center-left parties is unorthodox, since unlike Europe, America has not produced a socialist movement tied to a strong union movement. Yet the Democrats may have become center-left before anyone else, obliged by their different historical trajectory to build complex alliances with social groups other than the working class and to deal with unusually powerful capitalists ... Taken together, the three chapters devoted to the United States show that the center-left in America faces much the same set of problems as elsewhere and, especially in light of the election results from 2008, that the Democratic Party's potential to win elections, despite its current slide in approval, may be at least equal to that of any center-left party in Europe ... Despite the setback in the 2010 midterms, together the foregoing trends have put the Democrats in a position to eventually build a dominant center-left majority in the United States.
  12. ↑ Hacker, Jacob S.; Malpas, Amelia; Pierson, Paul; Zacher, Sam (December 27, 2023). "Bridging the Blue Divide: The Democrats' New Metro Coalition and the Unexpected Prominence of Redistribution". Perspectives on Politics. Cambridge University Press on behalf of the American Political Science Association: 3. doi:10.1017/S1537592723002931. ISSN 1537-5927. We conclude by considering why Democrats have taken this course, why they are not perceived as having done so, and why, at this fraught juncture for American democratic capitalism, political scientists could learn much from closer examination of the rich world's largest center-left party.
  13. ↑ Cite error: The named reference Polarized by Degrees was used but no text was provided for refs named (see the help page).
  14. ↑ Gould, Joe (2021-05-13). "Bernie Sanders wants to cut defense spending. Not all Democrats agree". Defense News. Retrieved 2021-05-14.
  15. ↑ "Biden's sweeping — and fluid — tax plans are making some congressional Democrats nervous". Washington Post. ISSN 0190-8286. Retrieved 2021-05-14.
  16. ↑ * Paul Starr. "Center-Left Liberalism". Princeton University. Archived from the original on March 3, 2015. Retrieved June 9, 2014.
  17. ↑ see "History of the Democratic Donkey"
  18. ↑ Farhi, Paul (November 2, 2004). "Elephants Are Red, Donkeys Are Blue". Washington Post. p. C01. Archived from the original on May 9, 2008. Retrieved October 11, 2016.
  19. ↑ Trotter, Bill (February 11, 2008). "Obama sets sights on November battle". Bangor Daily News. Archived from the original on February 28, 2008. Retrieved February 12, 2008.
  20. ↑ Tom Murse (July 20, 2019). "Was Donald Trump a Democrat?". ThoughtCo. Retrieved September 13, 2019.
  1. ↑ According to the Manifesto Project Database MARPOR dataset for 2020, the Democratic Party has a RILE score of -24.662, putting it within the range of being a center to center-left party. Historically, it has classified the party as centrist or center-right, but the database has noted a relatively recent shift to the left in the party's politics.
  2. ↑ [7][8][9][10][11][12][13][a]
  3. ↑ There are 47 senators who are members of the party; however, four independent senators, Angus King, Bernie Sanders, Joe Manchin III, and Kyrsten Sinema caucus with the Democrats, effectively giving the Democrats a 51–49 majority.
  4. ↑ Elected as Vice President with the National Union Party ticket in the 1864 presidential election. Ascended to the presidency after the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln in 1865. Rejoined the Democratic Party in 1868.
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 Died in office.

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