Fifth Party System

The Fifth Party System refers to the era of American national politics that began with the New Deal in 1932 under President Franklin D. Roosevelt. This era emerged from the realignment of the voting blocs and interest groups supporting the Democratic Party into the New Deal Coalition following the Great Depression. For this reason it is often called the New Deal Party System. It followed the Fourth Party System, usually called the Progressive Era. Experts debate whether the Fifth Party System ended (and thus a Sixth Party System emerged) in the mid-1960s, the early 1980s (when the Moral Majority was formed), the mid-1990s, or possibly continues to the present.