Two Party System
The American government has been controlled by two political parties for many years. The Democratic party and the Republican party are the two major political parties. A political party is a group of people with similar political views that want to control government and promote their ideas. Each political party believes that their ways of governing are the best way to lead the country to health and prosperity. The Democrats believe in liberalism and the Republicans believe in conservatism. In the 21st century political parties have become important factors in order to raise money for campaigns, but American citizens have become less loyal to either political party. The political party in power will usually adopt ideas and policy from both sides in order to maintain support from liberals and conservatives. In many ways both political parties use different means to get to the same end. There are many smaller political parties, but most citizens who don’t identify with either of the two major parties consider themselves independents. Almost every political campaign has made it a huge priority to gain support of not only their base but to independents as well in order to obtain the majority of the vote.
- The Democratic party was formed in 1792 by Thomas Jefferson as a way to promote the Bill of Rights and oppose the Federalist party. Six years later the “party of the common man” was changed to the Democratic-Republican party. The Republican party started in 1854 and stemmed from the debate on whether or not to expand slavery into the new Western territories.
- During the creation of our country and for many years, political party loyalty was a lot more important than it is today. This might be due to politicians being less independent in ideas and policy than they are today. Generally speaking in the past, conservatives running for office would strictly suggest only conservative views and liberals would use only liberal ideas. However, today politicians are given credit and gain more support if they are mavericks and promote whatever policies they believe will accomplish the goal, whether it is a conservative or liberal means of doing so. President Barack Obama has been promoting mostly liberal policies. However, he has issued tax cuts to a majority of Americans and has issued a spending freeze starting in 2011. Tax cuts and spending freezes are both conservative ways to help fix economic problems. Most modern politicians balance liberalism and conservatism in order to fix our nations problems.
- Independent voters are a major concern for both political parties. If a politician running for office is promoting policies that are critical to their party, then chances are they have the support of the majority of their party. Having the support from your base is usually not enough to win an election. This is why office seekers must adhere to independent voters. These are people who do not identify with either major party and will support either liberal and conservative policies depending on the issue. Over 19 million independents voted for Barack Obama in 2008.
Many Americans see the two party system as a healthy way to run the country. In order to fix current domestic and national problems, our government will need to take a liberal or conservative approach depending upon the issue. The system that runs our government today is similar to how it was in the beginning in terms of principles and values of the political parties, but we have come a long way from the the system that used to be occupied by many parties. Bi-partisanship is an issue that has gotten more popular with American citizens as time goes on. Complete party loyalty is not respected today as much as it used to be and an independent approach is now the goal of many politicians.
