Question

Explain the major party realignments that have occurred in the US. Why have we not seen a major realignment in recent years?

Answer 1

The major Party realignments in the US have generally been from the GOP (republican) party to the Democratic party. These changes generally take place during Presidential elections. We have not seen a major realignment in recent years because the general populace believes that the current structure is doing the right thing, or else because the majority of those voting have their votes paid for by the government via welfare right now.

Answer 2

There are many of these, and it would take many paragraphs to even summarize them. Here's a starting point:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_parties_in_the_United_States#History

As for why there has not been a major realignment in recent years, first of all the answer would depend on specific definitios of "major" and "recent," and party re-alignments are distinguishable from momentary blips only in hindsight. That is, the only way we know the 2010 elections didn't represent a major Tea Party-driven realignment was because the 2012 election didn't confirm them (but of course the 2014 election might, proving 2012 the blip, so we still don't know yet).

Those caveats aside, generally major party alignments have to happen for some reason: the reality needs to change in such a way that old parties don't have plausible approaches any more, or the debates that matter have to shift away from old allegiance patterns. For example, at the eve of the Civil War the essential debate was between slavery and not, and this is something the Whigs had no coherent policy solution to, driving the establishment of a new party -- the Republicans -- which did.

In recent times, the essential debate has been between whether the United States should become a giant welfare state in the European mold, or whether it should not. Both parties have clear ideological positions on this subject, and a set of policy prescriptions that their adherents like, so there is no need for any new parties -- most people can find a home in one of the two existing parties.

That may change. It looks increasingly likely that the United States is going to suffer a sovereign debt crisis unlike any ever seen before. In short, we have been borrowing enormous quantities of money that simply cannot be repaid -- there is not enough wealth on the entire planet to do so. It also seems like neither political party today has any kind of clue about how to address that coming disaster, and it doesn't seem unlikely that new parties will form to address the crisis and propose varying means of coping with it.

Answer 3

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