Top — a contracted 5-stroke form of 尚 (which stands alone with 8 strokes). 尚 supplies the sound: shàng to dǎng with significant initial drift, but the connection holds across this phonetic series (堂 táng, 棠 táng, 賞 shǎng). Standalone 尚 keeps its full 'still, yet, esteem' shape; here it is a graphic skeleton fitted onto 兄 below.
Bottom 兄 is 'elder brother' — a person 儿 with mouth 口 above, the speaking elder. Simplified 党 collapses traditional 黨 and effectively swaps in 兄 to give a mouth-and-figure beneath the cap, reading as a faction with someone speaking for it. Indexed under Kangxi #10 儿 (ér) via the legs at 兄's base.
Filed under radical 儿 (ér) by convention. 儿 is not a separate component in 党, so no strokes are highlighted.
