Washington's farewell speech warned of them. That he was ignored does not mean that there have always been political parties in the United States, far from it. It also does not mean that any existing party is guaranteed any sort of future influence, or even existence.
Parties have come and they have gone. The modern Republican Party has clearly lost any semblance of purpose, and is headed the way of the Whigs in whose wake they arose.
No political partIES were enshrined by the founders, but the structure they created - a winner take all setup with no chance of coalition government, effectively established a 2 party system whether they wished for that or not.
It is what it is. You can try to pretend every election cycle we don't have 2 options, but we do and everyone knows it.
The modern Republican Party has clearly lost any semblance of purpose, and is headed the way of the Whigs in whose wake they arose.
That almost certainly will not happen. And even if it did, the new party would aborb the carcass of the GOP and become the new second leg of the 2 party system. The problem is there is no critical mass over any major issue that could lead to this new political party some are dreaming of. There is the Constitution Party and any number of other partIES right now, and they just don't amount to squat.
The problem is for every Republican voter that thinks the party is not conservative enough on say fiscal issues, another thinks it should be more libertine on social issues, and yet a different person thinks we should be more isolationist, and another thinks precisely the opposite. There is no one issue creating some giant schism that would shatter the party. Instead we have lots of competing interests, which is normal (especially after an election) that are jockeying for a dominant role.