Uniparty is a political term referring to the idea that seemingly separate political parties, typically the two dominant parties in a liberal democracy, function in practice as a single entity. It is often applied to the Republican Party and the Democratic Party in the United States, or to the Conservative Party and the Labour Party in the United Kingdom. [1] The concept implies that despite their outward disagreements, the parties collaborate behind closed doors and share a unified set of political and economic interests, effectively creating a de facto one-party state. Proponents of this idea argue that such a "uniparty" suppresses genuine political alternatives and dissenting viewpoints by leveraging control over the media, grassroots organisations, and ballot access regulations. [2]
"Uniparty" dates back to a 1944 scandal wherein a letter (which turned out to be a forgery) was claimed to show that Franklin D. Roosevelt had selected Wendell Willkie to be his opponent in the 1940 election. [3] Supporters of the 2000 Green Party presidential bid of Ralph Nader used the term extensively, and Nader himself called the prevailing political structure a "corporate uniparty" in his 2002 book Crashing the Party . [3]
Afterwards, the term was largely dormant, being sporadically used by third parties until it was adopted by Steve Bannon in describing how in his view the Republican "establishment" was working with the Democrats to suppress Donald Trump's campaign seeking the 2016 Republican nomination. [3] The term saw resurgence in 2024 with claims by figures including Marjorie Taylor Greene and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. that the two-party system operates as a uniparty. [4] [5] When Elon Musk announced he would create his own third party, the America Party, on 5 July 2025, he stated that he was doing so because the Republicans and Democrats had become a "Uniparty". [6]
In the United Kingdom, the term has been used to describe the rightward shift of the Labour Party under Keir Starmer, which some observers argue has made the Labour and Conservative parties nearly indistinguishable in their political and social positions. This shift is often traced back to the New Labour era under Tony Blair, while the most distinct ideological separation between the two parties in recent history is seen to have occurred during Jeremy Corbyn's leadership of Labour. [7]
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