Hi everyone, and welcome back from the midterm and either fall or spring break! We're returning to our discussion of national politics after that test and a few days off, and we begin discussing what are known as collective action politics. Collective action is really thinking about group actions rather than how we behave as political individuals. Our initial topic is political parties: we'll cover the different parties we have (with a focus on the Democratic and Republican parties but we'll also talk about third parties), what is included in party platforms, how parties exist in the electorate and in government, and all about the groups and subgroups associated with certain party identification. This episode is a longer one as I cover all the slides in a single podcast, but you can easily stop around 30 minutes and pick up where you left off!