party formations on a national scale. The Democratic and Republican parties are not really "parties at all in the sense that the term is understood in other bourgeois democracies. Rather they are loose organisational Shells whuch provide the hasis nationally for the gathering of political blocs and alliances embracing numerous, often diverse forces. The adaptable, absorptive character of the American two-party systein has been an impostant factor in the inability of any other political formations, especially these of the working class, to acquire a permanent mass buse. BROAD ALLIANCES The dominant party hat traditionally beca the one which could assemble the broadest pessible alliance of political forces, The first great 'blocbuilder' was Andrew Jackson, who in the carly 1830's managed to bring together the Northeastern proletariat and the Wester agrarian petty bourgeoisie under the hegemony of the Southera slave-owners in opposition to the North-castern bourgeoisie, Lincoln's great political feat was the destruction of the Jacksonian coalition by breaking the slave-owners erip on the workers and stall tanners through the cacation of the Republican Party. which also beld the loyalty of the 'emancipated' blacks for decades after the Civil War. From the carly 1930'% until 1968 Democratic bourgenis politics were dominated by the blac structured by Franklin Roosevelt. The hasic components of this bloc were: the liberal wing of the hit bourgeoisie and the intellectual and professional petty-bourgeoisie; the trade union bureaucracy, which was consistently able to deliver the electoral support uf the organised proletariat and which provided indispensable organisational support; the unhan political machines, largely based in European immigrant communitica: the vast majority of black people; and finally the Dixiecrats" reactionazy Southern politicians.
POLITICAL ORIENTATION The political orientation of this coalition bad two elements: a 'biberal' domestic policy fie massive use of state expenditure to alleviate social problems); and an ageressive interventionist foreign policy. World War I1, the Korean and Vietnamese was, and the Bay of Pigs and Dominicun invasions all took place under Democratic administrations, In conjunction with the expansion of American economic HI SHEETS 11 January 1974 Poster published in the United States by "The Committee to De-elect the President' CHARLES. CALSON 60's radicalisation, and the result was to hasten the diffusion of these energies and the disin legration of their social base. McGovern represented the temporary defoult of the Democrats as a bona fide option for the big bourgeoisic, and consequently they had no choice but to defect, us they did in large num her, under the banner of Democrats for Nixon And so. in the 1972 clections, Nixon pulled off a massive political regroupment, but he did so without willising the Republican Party as its organisational form, On the contrary, Nixen regrouped these forces, not around the Party, not around a congressional alliance (for the Democrats held their majority in Congress). but direcrly around the executive wing of the state itself.
STRUCTURES BYPASSED It was the amorphous, fluid character of the American Lwo-parly system that allowed this regroupment to totally bypass the organised structures of the Republican Party and cluster directly around the Office of the President itself. One clear indication that this process was well under way by 1972 was that Nixon established the Commitlee to Re-elect the • President to raise funds, strategise and organisc his campaign, therehy leaving the Republican National Committee high and dry.
This more, combined with the collapse of the Democratic Party, shifted the arena of bourgeol polities nutside of the Congressional forum, beyond the reach of either party, and concentrated it in the White House, The effect of this was to by pass the traditional locations built into the American political system where elec ted political representatives and stale bureaucrats hammer out policy in a hard-nosed give-und take fashion.
These traditional locations of the political system are points of contact where the government of the day and the permanent agencies of the state meet to determine policy. They are thus crucial interfaces in ensuring the stability of bourgeois democrucies. State burcaucrats must remain sufficiently flexible and non-partisan to be able to work with whichever party is currently in power. The state must be able to absorb the conflicting pushes and pull of contending interests within the bourgeoisie in order to remain an instrument working on behalf of the ruling class as a whole
of American capitalism oNcou AND PARTY POLITICS AND