The Democrat party is corrupt and the GOP has become a party for losers. History will bury them both.
The first guy to come up with a political party that can figure out how to win will sweep all before him. Then, an opposition made up of a consortium of the losers will form their own political party. They will try to get 50% + 1 vote.
This will go back and forth for decades.
Both of the major parties are simply coalitions of groups that share some interests in common. Change occurs as coalition members change ~ which is why minority parties never really get much beyond the organizing stage. Virtually all minority parties in American history have been focused on single issues ~ which pretty well excludes their getting involved in coalition politics.
Getting beyond that primary political lesson, we have several layers of politics. There's the Presidency, the Senate, the House, the states ~ with their Governors and legislatures, and local or municipal bodies with, in general a mayor, and a council ~ and there are school boards, etc.
In virtually every case there's a single member district, and in every case there are two local party organizations ~ which in some cases are pretty weak, but something is there, somewhere.
The Whig party was the first large scale party to challenge the Democrats. They ended on a sour note when they ran out of ways to continue compromising on slavery. They were replaced by the Republican party which was made up of anti-tax, pro-commerce, anti-slavery Whigs ~ and some Whig state and district parties were brought in whole and unchanged by the Republicans. The remainder consisted mostly of the Abolitionist movement which was never quite able to become a party itself.
In the wake of the Whig disaster there were some smaller regional parties with narrower interests but by the end of the Civil War they'd pretty much disappeared or were absorbed by the Victorious Republicans.
Currently our major internal Republican party problem is the development of a major faction that is not devoted to any of our myriad of coalition partner's interests, but instead focuses on the mechanics of winning ~ including fund raising and polling. We call them the GOP-e. They've lost 11 major Presidential races, a good myriad of Senate races, and would have kept us as a minority party in the House except that state based movements grew up to challenge the old order and take over the House. We currently have 30 Governors and most state legislatures.
The GOP-e has failed to demonstrate over the last two Presidential races any reason for its continued existence.
Alas, they control the RNC.
My proposal for eliminating the GOP-e is simple ~ create a NEW RNC and invite the state parties to send representatives to the NEW RNC ~ and cease sending representatives to the old RNC!
Certain persons involved in GOP-e activities would simply be banned. I think we can come up with a list in any 10 minute period if we think about it even casually. Obviously all those who advocated nominating a guy who is now said by his own eldest son to have not wanted to win would be on that list.