Civic Issues

The United States was not founded on the principle of political parties. In fact, “Political parties themselves are not necessarily central to democracy” (Coolidge). Furthermore, the Democrat and Republican parties have not been around since the onset of the party system. It started with the Federalists and the Anti-Federalists, the latter of which changed its name to Democratic Republicans who eventually became the Democratic party that we know today. Today’s Republican party has its roots in the combination of The Whigs and abolitionist Democrats, becoming firmly established under Abraham Lincoln (Bush). The two party system that exists today was not established, but rather evolved over time.

For the first time since the establishment of this two party system, leaders, politicians, and the general populace have predicted the end of this system in the near future.

The first indicator of political party breakdown comes within the Republican party. While on a national level Republicans have generally been known to oppose gay marriage, Republican senators and representatives have voiced their opinions supporting equal marriage laws. Furthermore, within the Republican party there has already been a small split, the Tea Party. As do many others, Kent Bush believes that the Tea Party could easily split from its dependence on the Republican Party.

This problem does not just lie with the Republicans, but disputes within the Democratic party have led many to believe that there may be a party split. Democrats nationwide have voiced their complaints about President Obama’s actions, especially in regards to Social Security, Medicare, and taxes. They feel betrayed by some of his proposals, specifically those that are geared to gaining republican support.

Social Security and Medicare are important topics that may form the basis for a strong third party. Social Security is “without a doubt the most popular program ever created in Washington,” along with its “its more recent offspring, Medicare” (Lindorff). It is an issue that could unite Americans from both sides of the political spectrum, and offers a specific focus of the party. The advent of a new party with the capability of gaining strong support from both of the existing parties could be the end of the political system that has been in place for the majority of American history.

I was just browsing the internet to see what was new in politics when I was pleasantly surprised to find an article called “Have political parties lost their purpose?”

The majority of political debates are purely Democrats versus Republicans. This is because our political system has evolved in a way that these two sides are expected to disagree. In the above article, Karen Tumulty speaks of the dynamic nature of our nation and its beliefs. Americans choose leaders that hold similar views to their own, but the time period determines which issues are most important to the constituents. Tumulty points out that “Republicans for decades were united primarily by their views on economic issues, and tolerated a broad range of opinion on social matters and on national security.” During the decades that she speaks of, the U.S. economy was struggling, having immediate effects on Americans. The nation looked to its leaders for help, and therefore the two parties revolved around this issue.

While the political system still governed our nation with strength and success, there was “the concern was that the parties were too much alike and philosophically undefined.” This idea was not broadly declared, but was integral in the slow reformation of the political parties. Over time, the Democratic and Republican Parties evolved into our current state of politics, where “Party labels have become a shorthand for a rigid ideological dividing line — Democrats to the left and Republicans to the right.”

This “rigid ideological dividing line” defines, in my opinion, the greatest problem with our nation’s political party system. Identifying with a party defines an individual to have certain beliefs that are associated with that party but that the individual may not actually associate with. For this reason, our generation has a larger percentage of individuals that declare to be independent, or describe their political views as moderate. The advancement of more moderate political views in our society does not solely pertain to our generation, seeing that “the Gallup organization has reported a record 40 percent of Americans identifying themselves as independent.” These results show an obvious problem with the political parties of our nation, but the parties themselves are often reluctant to acknowledge this problem or enact change. For this reason, I was surprised when I can across this article.

It seems that politicians have finally began to accept that change is required in the political system of our nation. Karen Tumulty quotes Obama’s 2012 campaign manager and head of OFA, Jim Messina, saying, “parties have to continue to redefine themselves to be relevant to the future.” President Obama’s campaign operation is taking over this duty with its new name Organizing for Action. Furthermore, it seems that the Republicans are following suit with its Growth and Opportunity Project, “an effort to give the party engine a top-to-bottom tuneup.”

It should be interesting to see the new ideas that both parties implement, as well as their approach to these new policies. Unfortunately, there are no guarantees. In 2008, the Obama administration attempted a similar program, ending in failure; many saw it as a waste of time, money, and energy. I’m curious if either programs last, whether they’ll make any significant changes, and the consequences of this. This could be progress.

The two party system can be very deceiving when it comes to the beliefs of the people of the United States. It fails in describing the beliefs of the nation because it tries to sum it up with two words: Democrat or Republican. Many political debates revolve around the idea that the majority of each party agrees the that party’s opinions on policies and issues. Obviously it can’t be 100%, we know that. There are plenty of people who identify with one party but have many beliefs that would align them with the opposite party. I decided to do some research into the topic.

Since it is difficult to tell how many republicans are true republican (or democrats), I chose a topic that is very split: gay rights/marriage. It is known that, in general, democrats support gay marriage and republicans oppose it; it is also known that their is vigorous debate on this issue. When I looked for numbers for and against gay marriage in each party I found some results that point to real problems with our political system.

I ran into the obvious fact that large amounts of each party had opinions on gay marriage that differed from their party’s opinion. This is not exactly what I want to talk about though. I want to discuss bias. As I searched for percentages and articles about who supports gay marriage, I found huge contradictions. The first thing that caught my eye and made me question the facts was and article by David Lampo in the Huffington Post. He said, “57 percent of Republicans support either same sex marriage or civil unions (Fox News poll).” Searching for some more facts on the topic, I found a poll from the Pew Forum that had contradictory data.

According to this poll, only 24 percent of the Republicans support gay marriage, which makes more sense in terms of being in line with Republican ideals, but makes no sense at all in comparison to the Huffington Post. Even more problems are caused when we throw ABC News into the mix. Dalia Sussman says

“A majority of Americans oppose allowing homosexual couples to marry legally, but most also say it’s not worth amending the U.S. Constitution to ban such unions, an ABCNEWS poll has found.”

How can she say this when the Pew Forum shows that only 44 percent of the public oppose gay marriage? And while Huffington shows that a large portion of republicans support same sex marriage (and we can assume the majority of democrats support it also)? What is going on? Are the Republican and Democratic ideals different than we thought? Are people lying about their party affiliation? Are the writers of these articles lying? No, not per se. The problem is politics, and more specifically bias.

Statistics can be very misleading. Politicians and journalists use them because they are trusted by people as fact, but in reality they are not. Numbers can be misused for personal gain. The polls that the data come from can be biased. Different questions will lead to different answers, as in the ABC article linked above. It says, “55 percent say [same-sex marriage] should be illegal,” while “when opponents are asked if it’s worth amending the Constitution to ban such marriages, six in 10 of them say it’s not.”

So 55% of people want same-sex marriage to be illegal, but 60% say it should not be put in the Constitution, an method of actually making it illegal. In other words, same-sex marriage should be illegal, without being officially illegal. Because that makes sense. The question asked can have huge implications on the answers received. There are analysts and psychologists that work with the makers of polls to determine whether they should ask about support gay marriage, enacting laws, changing the constitution, including civil unions in their questioning, or rather focus on gays’ rights in businesses or their right to adopt. They will determine which question will provide them with the results that they most desire, and that is all they will use.

Politicians and journalists can have biased polls not only because of the type of questions they ask, but also because of the people they ask. Many people argue that certain polls have over-representations of certain parties. Furthermore, the entire poll is rarely used. Writers can pick and choose which numbers they want to show you – the numbers that are most likely going to change your opinions.

What you have to understand is this: The numbers don’t add up.

Politics is many times a controversial and touchy subject. If asked about party affiliation, many people our age will either claim to be independent or moderate, or will tell you that they’re just not strongly affiliated with either party and just lean one way because of their parents. Older generations claim that we are apathetic towards politics, and I won’t even go as far to say we’re not, but it may not be our fault. I believe that there is a lot wrong with our two-system party, creating the distaste that we have.

When our government was established, political parties did not exist. They were not part of the founding principles of our nation. We were even warned about them, by the man who many consider to be the most important figure in the history of the United States, one of our founding fathers as well as our first president, George Washington. In his farewell address, he takes time to “warn [us] in the most solemn manner against the baneful effects of the spirit of party.” He calls them our “worst enemy,” one “sharpened by the spirit of revenge,” which “leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism.”

As the first President of the United States, George Washington set many precedents that still hold today. Only one president, Franklin D. Roosevelt, broke his precedent of only serving for two terms, which led to the 22nd Amendment. Why, then, did we not listen to him on this? Washington believed that one party would end up dominating the country if a party system was formed, and, while this is not exactly what happened, I believe our two party domination may be worse. One group of individuals in control is by no means good – it is the reason democracy was formed – but at least it gets things done. With our two party system, we find the nation in a perpetual stalemate.

The house and senate are many times split, unable to get a popular vote on anything, or they have control but disagree with the president. Things just don’t get done. Then a bill comes along that actually makes sense, and a majority is actually achieved, but then so is the ugliness of our political system. Because the bill passed, this probably means that some republicans voted for it while the majority were against it, or some democrats voted yes with disapproving looks from their other party members. Either way, tension is caused. We see news articles about “flip-flopping” politicians who are thrown under the bus as “traitors to their party.” This is because of the intense rivalry that has been formed between the two parties. Party affiliation immediately associates certain beliefs to the party member. Our generation is choosing not to affiliate with a certain party because, although we may agree with it in many aspects, there are topics in which our beliefs differ. Usually these are the “hot topics” of our society, like gay rights and abortion.

We don’t want to immediately want to be judged based on our party, which is what happens in our society. Stating that you belong to a certain party immediately influences others’ opinions of you. Everyone has certain views of the parties, they make assumptions of your beliefs based on your party. If you speak out about the issues in which your are not in accordance with your party, party members will question your belief as well as your loyalty to the party.

I believe that our generation sees this problem, and that many, like me, are sick of it. And it isn’t just us. Recently the number of people who believe our two-parties are not doing an adequate job has increased significantly, as shown by the Gallup Polls. The system is so integrated into our country that it would be extremely difficult to change. Many want a “Moderate Party” but may cause problems too. The range of beliefs considered to be “moderate” is so vast that a single party could not cover them. The only solution is a cultural change. One that lets American change their beliefs as they learn while not be criticized for it. One in which political parties do not dominate, where politicians can vote based on what the people they represent believe, not what their parties represents. A new cultural where, by avoiding the need to affiliate to a party, people can openly discuss their own unique set of beliefs.