Just double checked online, it looks like you and schnuritto are both partially correct. The “Democratic Republicans” did splinter off to the Democrats and the Republicans, but these were different from the modern kind and they seem to be unrelated to each other. This was the “National Republican” party that supported John Adams and were conservative too, but not related to the “Republican” party of today. These national republicans later merged into the Whig party, pretty interesting I think.
Comment on Why are the two major American parties called what they are?
Mr_Wobble@thelemmy.club 1 week ago
There was a political party called the Democratic Republicans. They split, giving us Democrats and Republicans.
sbeak@sopuli.xyz 1 week ago
sbeak@sopuli.xyz 1 week ago
Oh yeah, I think I knew that at one point but completely forgot it. I wonder if they decided to keep the old “big tent” kind of names in order to not alienate any voters
schnurrito@discuss.tchncs.de 1 week ago
No. The Democratic Party does descend directly from them, but the Republican Party was founded much later independently.