A Brief History of the Democratic Party
The Democratic Party, and the US political system as a whole, is a very strange beast.
The 1968 Democratic National Convention held at the International Amphitheatre in Chicago, Illinois, from August 26 to 29, 1968. (NBC / NBC Newswire / NBCUniversal via Getty Images)
Following Joe Biden’s disastrous debate performance and the subsequent scrambling of the Democratic Party to oust him from the presidential ticket, many voters could be forgiven for wondering how on Earth a party could be this dysfunctional. The answer lies in the historical idiosyncrasies of Democrats and the American political system as a whole, as political scientist Adam Hilton recently explained.
Hilton is an associate professor of politics at Mount Holyoke College and the author of True Blues: The Contentious Transformation of the Democratic Party. In an interview conducted before today’s announcement that Kamala Harris has selected Tim Walz as her running mate, Hilton spoke with Doug Henwood on his show Behind the News on Jacobin Radio. You can listen to the episode here. The conversation has been edited for length and clarity, and to reflect new developments in the last several weeks.
Doug Henwood
Whether you read a Marxist like Antonio Gramsci or a mainstream political scientist, you see the claim that parties are central to politics. How does that play in the United States? Generally, the American party system is a real anomaly in the world, isn’t it?
Adam Hilton
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