>>/43823/
Parties existed through the ages, they were there in feudalism too, the aristocracy, nobility, priesthood were divided along their own agenda, interests, and family ties.
I think the rising political ideologies, first with the Big Three (what I always say, Liberalism, Socialism, Nationalism), gave lasting lines to follow, relatively constant views on how to solve problems. But they have the problem that these ideas can go against interests, or even common sense. Or the other way around people can go against principles which they should follow based on their ideological preference (like some liberals wanting to restrict freedom of speech).
The Big Three is just not enough, and now myriad of tiny ideologies exist with their own particularities.
And there's ofc, the dichotomies, left-right, or conservative-progressive, also creating divisions, and raising the expectation from parties to follow such "values".
And lastly populism also makes things blurry and from what I can tell it isn't really about anything, just to "win as much people for our party as we can" and what they say changes with the wind. And this is why it sometimes used as a nicer way of saying demagoguery.