RCL 2 Civic Issue Blog

The current political landscape in the United States of America is extremely bad for any real work to be done through legislation. Currently, the United States uses a two-party system where only two main political parties essentially decide everything to do with government. Most people will already know what they are, but in the US they are the Democrats and the Republicans.

Currently, out of the total number of positions in the house of representatives 435 voting seats, 435 are either republicans or democrats. In the senate, out of the 100 seats, 97 are either republicans or democrats, and the three remaining seats all caucus with the democrats. Not only that, but the president hasn’t been anything other than a democrat or republican since 1853. Clearly, there is incredible favoritism towards these two parties in the United States, a land where freedom, especially political expression, is said to be held above all else. To me, it seems like such an incredible favoritism towards only two different political parties undermines the values that America is said to stand on, and severely limits the options given to the voters. Not only do I feel this way, but a good percentage of Americans will agree. Almost four out of ten of all Americans feel strongly that there should be more parties in the American political landscape.

To me, this seems like more and more people want a more accurate representation of themselves in the political scene rather than a party that is just “good enough” or just barely follows only some of their opinions. Yet again, Americans are guaranteed a right to political expression but time and time again it seems like only a fraction of the population is truly represented by their elected figures. On top of the general population, younger people are more likely to agree with the idea that there needs to be more options politically in America.

To me this makes sense as the older someone is the more likely they are to have identified with a specific party their whole life, and less likely to stray away from that idea. Not only that, but the older generations are the ones who built the political parties to be what they wanted. But the new generations are going to be the future of America’s politics, so it’s important that they are able to feel included and represented in the future. Some people may be against the idea of creating new parties in the American political scene because they may believe that it could lead to even further division among Americans, but I believe that only having two parties leads to the most amount of division between people because it’s so easy to label the extremists of each side as what the general average of each party is like, when in most cases each person is more alike than people think. If the US were able to implement a new party, or preferably multiple new parties, then there would be better options for people to relate themselves to so they are more accurate descriptions of themselves and their views. You could say that we already have multiple parties in the US, and you’d be right, but the major problem of the situation is that smaller and newer parties that aren’t already in power have an extremely hard time establishing themselves as political forces due to the set up of our voting and election system in America. Take the green party for example. Many people find that they agree with the green party more than they do with either the democrats or republicans, but they know that they can’t vote for the green party because there’s no chance that they will win. Even if the green party had an explosive jump in popularity they still likely wouldn’t be able to match either of the parties that are already in place. So how would America be able to change the way it votes and elects its politicians? Would it even be worth changing something that has been in place for so many years already? To me, the answers are there but will be hard to implement. To be able to get the best politicians possible, it would likely be best to have a ranked choice voting system, in which voters will rank their choices by rank so that if their first choice isn’t able to garner enough votes, their backup won’t lose their precious vote that could be vital to win. This solution has been talked about for a long time, and has recently gained even more traction during some of the more recent elections, as many people are starting to wake up to the problem in the American political scene. This change would allow for more competition and would result in better politicians as well as politicians that better represent their communities. Changing the way we’ve been electing people is also extremely important, because there is a clear problem to many people in America, and being afraid of change will only negatively affect the country in the long run. I see the change to be similar to how America values its free market economy. Allowing more politicians and parties to have a chance at succeeding allows for more power to the people and makes sure that the best rises to the top. Imagine if when you went shopping you only had the option to shop at two mega stores and a couple of the smallest stores ever, even if they had products that better fit your needs. It would feel terrible, but that’s how so many people feel politically these days, and which is why so few people actually involve themselves with politics at all. It’s also said that a party like the republican party wouldn’t have been able to come to power if it had to deal with the same voting restrictions and limitations that small parties have today, so it just goes to show how important or influential one of these newer parties can be.