The Democratic Party

The Democratic Party is one of the two major United States political parties. The Party is currently the minority in both the United States Senate and the United States House of Representatives, as well as in governorships and state legislative seats. The Democratic Party is a center-left political party, and it has numerous internal factions.
Its origins lie in the original Republican Party founded by Thomas Jefferson in 1794 (today, this party is usually referred to as the "Democratic-Republican Party" for the sake of convenience; but such usage is anachronistic). After the disintegration of the Federalist Party, the Republicans were the only major party in American politics. The Presidency of Andrew Jackson, however, destroyed the unity of the Party, with the Jacksonians forming the Democratic-Republican faction, opposed by the National Republicans, led by John Quincy Adams. The Jacksonian "Democratic-Republicans" soon became known as simply "Democrats." From 1833 to 1856, the Democratic Party was opposed chiefly by the Whig Party. From 1856 onward its main opposition has come from the modern Republican Party.
In contemporary times, its primary political ideologies are commitment to tempering capitalism with programs of social welfare. Some other issues have included support for labor unions, civil rights, multilateralism, secularism, multi-culturalism, governmental and private sector actions to create new jobs, environmentalism, public education, progressive taxation, gun control, reproductive rights and gay rights. The political platform of the Democratic Party is usually described as left-wing, as the platform of the Republican Party has generally and especially recently been characterized as right-wing. The New Democrat movement of the 1980s and 1990s, however, has moved the Democratic agenda in favor of a more centrist approach