Now here is the kicker that undermines a lot of what this thread was saying. If Yankees are the anti-authority/rebellious/egalitarian ones, than why was the whole of the 19th century defined by a largely New England centered party that almost always sided with the elites, versus a party based in the South and west that was almost universally defined at its core of opposing the elites?
This didn't happened unless you mean the Greenback and Populist parties, yet you seem to speak of the Democratic Party. The Democratic Party simply favored Southern slave-agricultural elites and the Catholic hierarchy over Protestant clergy and Northern industrialists.
Even if you are right, that doesn't make the Republicans in this equation not a party bought and paid for by robber barons. But of course you are not right.
One of the greatest misnomers going around and it is one spread by the right often is that the Democrats "were the party of slavery and slave owners from its founding", that is not correct. The Democratic Party's natural base was the populist small farmer and the immigrant laborer. The existence of the Populist Party is down to the failure of the Democratic Party to service its traditional base in favor of yes the Plantation Owner and the bourbon elites, but this was corrected for in 1896. Decades before the Democrats stopped being the "Party of the South".
A large percentage of the plantation owning class and slave traders were Whigs not Democrats prior to the Civil War and these people only joined the Democrats because 1) they hated the Republicans and 2) They had common cause with those small farmers and immigrant laborers in their hatred of blacks, hatred of Republicans and preference for free trade. By the 1880s and 1890s, their interests had diverge and liberalism was evolving across the globe in a direction of more direct aid for the poor through Government action. The Bourbon elites kept hocking the same Jacksonian lines thinking that is what Jackson's old base still wanted, fun fact economy is dynamic and evolving while political establishments are glued to the past.
The history of the Democratic Party and the Jeffersonian Republicans before them, is one of an egalitarian revolution overthrowing a decadent elite that lost touch with its base. Happened in the 1800s, the 1830s, the 1890s and it is arguably happening now.
In Some ways the Democratic party have always been the party against industrial interests, which through the 1800s meant being the party of agrarians , in the 1900s being the party of labor/unions and now in 2000s being the party of Big Tech/New Economy.
While all 3 of them may seem to be radically different what connects them together is they each were the biggest threat to industrial interests in each of their respective centuries. I think rather than conservative vs liberal, or even right wing vs left wing it would be better argued that the two parties more or less through their history were
Republicans: Party of Industrial/Old School Financial Interests
Democrats: Party against Industrial/Old School Financial Interests
