Political Parties and Systems

1.    Describe the concept of political/partisan realignment.  Then provide, in as much detail as you can, an overview of the six major “party systems,” from the Founding (1789), through the New Deal system and its demise in the 1960’s.  Why are these moments of change in the two-party system in American political history important?  What might be some of the reasons that the pattern of firm partisan realignment (with a clear majority and minority party) ended in the late 1960’s with the sixth two-party system? [See Paris recorded lecture on Political Parties and Party Systems) Links to lecture: Political Parties, Part I https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rk9DCAw2RsM&list=PLZE6_1Me3jmM2rHB4a8cD1GNAzFykdZNs&index=19 Political Paris, Part II https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CMYa8pJHy0s&list=PLZE6_1Me3jmM2rHB4a8cD1GNAzFykdZNs&index=20