How Well Does the American Political System Perform Essay Example

States can no longer be moderates. You are either pro-this or pro-that, no discussion needed. People of the United States should be able to clearly state their opinion without having to be questioned on it. It seems as if every single issue today arises in a fight or debate. It occurs everywhere, from the national stage to most households that are divided nowadays. Just like religious tolerance needs to be active in society, so does party tolerance.

When we evaluate how well the political system performs in the United States, our group came to the conclusion that the political system is to worried about identifying voters with their party and constantly seeking reelection that they are not necessarily focused on the future of the country and that is a problem. With that in mind, the political system’s performance is not one that we can completely bash though. It is doing what is necessary to maintain incumbency in government. Political performance has and always will cause many Americans to become upset and overwhelmed with our Government.

Not only does the political performance of politicians affect voters, interest groups, and lobbyists; it also effects the direction of our nation. Members and followers of political parties often rate our governments political performance as good or bad, there seems to be no in between. And often times we blame the passage or non-passage of legislature on our government or on the opposing political parties. The opposition between political parties of today and the quality of performance seems very unlike the grand U. S. government.

In order to look at the polarization of today’s parties, we must

look at the development of the political parties of the United States of America and how parties of the past were able to perform. The United States of America’s political parties have greatly changed since the late 18th century. There have been many different parties that have developed over time throughout our nation’s 236 years. Opposing parties have and always will face conflict among one another. Before our nation’s birth, the framers of the constitution had already began discussing and debating how we would start off our country.

As the Declaration of Independence was signed, we had the Federalists vs. the Anti-Federalists. It was a consensus between the two parties that George Washington would be our first president, however, there was still a great amount of hostility from both sides. Patrick Henry and George Mason led the Anti-Federalist party while George Washington led the Federalists. The presidency of George Washington became more individualistic, and our government has forever been altered.

A Green Papers writer and staff member, Richard E. Berg-Andersson states, “The Term ‘Antifederalist’ ceased to have any real meaning as a designation of political faction once the constitution formally took effect on 4 March 1789, as anyone serving in the new federal government had to take an oath to the new constitution before entering upon their duties: referring to members of congress as ‘antifederalist’” (5). Immediately after the countries first election, the antifederalists were shut down. After the constitution was amended in 1789, there became a new era, the “Federalists v. Democratic Republicans” era.

As Berg-Andersson continues throughout his paper, he declares vital progress the nation’s history, “The Federalists were led by

John Adams and Alexander Hamilton and the Republicans were led by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison. The federalists favored a strong national government as opposed to the states. On the other hand, the Republicans wanted to defend the sovereignty of the states against encroachment of the national government. ” This was the beginning of Federalism; the separation between the national government and the state government.

By the start of the 23rd Congress in 1833, our nation now officially had the Democrats (formally the Democratic-Republicans). On the opposing side, there was the Whigs. The Whigs saw themselves as a bulwark against the “excesses” of the administration of “King Andrew” Jackson. The Whigs did not last very long. By 1850 they had been completely wiped out because of their pro-slavery representation. They eventually dissolved into the “Know-nothing” party which developed into becoming Republicans once again (5). The Whigs diminished quickly and democrats sailed forward.

Throughout the years, we had major changes of political parties and what they stand for; but by this point, our country had finally leveled with what both sides stood for. This came to an end to all party change in history. There have been a few add-ons to elections such as Teddy Roosevelt and Progressive party in the early 1900s elections or Libertarians in today’s elections but both the Democrats and the Republicans have dominated our political system since 1854. Neither party has seemed to control constant reelection in any era since.

The incumbency of parties in the white house is constantly changing, and party affiliation has always been a battle between the main parties in power. Political party affiliation

and the polarity it causes have had adverse effects on political advancement and achievement in the United States in that last fifteen years. The inability for opposite party members to get along and pass legislature fluidly has made many Americans unhappy with Congress. It is thought that our political parties today would want to follow the example set by our founding fathers, and that adversarial political parties are bad for the U. S. government, but it seems that the opposite has happened.

Fareed Zakaria, a notable political journalist for CNN, gave a list of reasons why our political parties are so dysfunctional [1]: “Redistricting has created safe seats so that for most House members, their only concern is a challenge from the right for Republicans and the left for Democrats. The incentive is to pander to the base, not the center. Party primaries have been taken over by small groups of activists who push even popular senators to extreme positions.

In Utah, for example, 3,500 conservative activists managed to take the well- regarded Senator Robert Bennett off the ballot. GOP senators like Orrin Hatch and John McCain have moved farther to the right, hoping to stave off similar assaults. Changes in Congressional rules have also made it far more difficult to enact large, compromise legislation. In the wake of the Watergate Scandal, "Sunshine rules" were put into place that required open committee meetings and recorded votes. The purpose was to make Congress more open, more responsive - and so it has become to lobbyists, money and special interests.

This is because they're the people who watch every committee vote and mobilize opposition to

any withdrawal of subsidies or tax breaks. Political polarization has also been fueled by a new media, which is also narrowcast. We see that these affects have taken a toll on all aspects of the legislative process, but why has this become such an ordeal? Maybe it has to do with how Americans affiliate themselves with their parties. Citizens have a psychological attachments to certain parties which determine how they perceive the political world and how they make voting decisions.

This has came to be an informational shortcut where people reasonably categorize candidates and politicians simply on the basis of party labels, and use a “running tally” of sorts where we think like this: I will be a Republican/Democrat as along as the party leaders perform well and to my liking. If my party disappoints me repeatedly and I think the other party might offer better performance, I will switch my allegiance [6]. When we affiliate ourselves with a certain party, we tend to hear only what our party says and wants done, not what them other party wants done. One-sided opinions do not get legislation passed.

Our political parties must learn how to compromise and become more open to listening to one another in order to get our country back on track. Political interest groups, the media, and the formation ultra-right-winged and ultra-left-winged political organizations have all cause many dysfunctional problems in the political party system of the United States. Maybe we should consider the governments of other countries when looking at our own. Take Great Britain for example, and their own Parliamentary system; many experts believe if adopted at least something

would get done with a ruling power in charge.

However, in our system we have noticed much diversity within the Congress of the United States. The two graphs below depict the fluctuating polarization inside the House of Representatives and the Senate:[pic][pic]Or is that against American values? Something needs to be done, and it needs to start with our generation; we need to find a way to compromise, get the legislative engine moving, and get our countries political system on the move. In the 21st century, we have plenty of past experiences to format our government today.

In the American two-party system, the Democrat and Republican Party's have always competed for party identification and support among voters. Party identification is something that has been rearranged throughout the past with the 2000 election, Bush v Gore, and the recent 2012 election, Romney v Obama. Based on voter support for the Democratic and Republican party platforms, and competitiveness between party control, we can evaluate the performance of each political party throughout the beginning of this century.

Democrats and Republicans both hold powerful seats in government, but as a majority of voters turn to one party, a more one-party government can form. Today, “35% of registered voters identify with the Democratic Party, 28% identify with the Republican Party, and the other 33% identify as independents [3]. ” When independents are taken into account, the support gap between the two party's becomes smaller, but democrats still have a five-point party affiliation lead overall. The targets between both party's are substantially important.

Both affiliated party's target different groups of race, class, and age. Racial diversity increasingly grows

in the United States as new immigrants search for better opportunities. Democratic's are the source party for these immigrants and are one of the reasons the party's number of supporters have been growing. “The Democratic Party consists of only 61% white, while 21% are African American, 10% are Hispanic, and 7% are other minorities. The Republican Party on the other hand consists of 87% white, while minorities represents a mere 11% [3].”

As more and more immigrants come to this country to seek better opportunities, the Democrats will be gaining the majority of the new citizens until Republican's change something in their platform. Democrats have also adjusted their political views on some key issues recently and throughout the past, such as Immigration, Gay Marriage, and Abortion. Democratic views have been shaped overtime as the United States further develops. Republicans on the other hand have kept consist and minimal changed stances on the issues.

New citizens and generations have formed different views over time, and Democrats have adapted to these new views and have done some changes to their political structure recently. This change in structure has attracted voters to their party and have solidified certain candidates for office, such as Obama for president and more democratic seats in Congress. Age, Income, and education levels also play a role in party identification. Older, more educated, and wealthy citizens tend to vote Republican, while younger, less educated, and middle to low class citizens tend to vote Democratic.

These different groups and views show the partisan divide in our country. Even though Democrats have a majority control of the Senate with fifty-one seats and have

the presidential seat, “the Republican Party still has majority control in the House with 242 seats [2]. ” With a split Congress, important legislature on laws and budget is hard to agree on. There is a high competitiveness level between the two parties on passing certain legislature. Congress needs to work together and agree on bills, or else important tasks will not be completed.

The last four years were not as productive as they could have been, they were much too competitive. During Obama's first term, “ObamaCare completely separated Democrats and Republicans [7]. ” Too successfully pass this bill, major lobbying, logrolling, and pork-barreling took place. Since the bill was passed, Republicans have tried to repeal. The legislature went to the Supreme Court, but it was confirmed as law. Legislature on healthcare, tax cuts, moral standards, and budget have been the main problematic agreement subjects of Congress.

The competitiveness in Congress for political party control has led to a divided Congress, which has substantially slowed down the legislative process. With all of the factors taking place recently, our political system has effected our economy greatly, and changed the landscape of economic performance. The American Political Party System plays a substantial role in the economic performance of the national government. Beginning in 2008, the United States faced the largest economic downturn since the Great Depression of the 1930’s.

It resulted in the need for national governments to bailout banks, the extreme possibility of total collapse of large financial institutions, and downturns in global stock markets. In many areas, the housing market also suffered, as the housing bubble burst, resulting in evictions, foreclosures, and

unemployment. The crisis led to the failure of key businesses, declines in consumer wealth, and a downturn in economic activity leading to the 2008–2012 global recession. With this financial situation that the U. S. is facing, it would only make sense to decrease U. S. national spending.

This poses as a problem as bipartisanship continues to develop polarization and “the right and the left” seem to fail to meet in the middle. For example, Republicans become at fault in increased government spending as they push for stronger national defense. The defense budget is now the largest budget in the national government, and according to Zenko and Cohen’s Clear and Present Safety, “the U. S. defense budget is larger than the next 14 countries’ defense budgets combined [9]. ” So is the amount of defense spending really necessary?

Especially since the next economic super power (China) has a defense budget that is one-ninth of the U. S. Along with the faults of conservative thinking, there are the faults of extreme liberalism. Usually a man who holds office as a democrat will increase government spending with the use of welfare and other funds to help those that are less fortunate live a life that is fair and equal to others. “The national government spends an average of $131. 9 billion on welfare annually [10];” this sum does not include food stamps or other unemployment services. A problem with this is that the system is faulty and contains a large amount of leaks.

This means that there are gross amounts of people utilizing financial aid provided by the government, even though it is not entirely necessary.

Other than those two primary examples of how political parties have encouraged the financial crisis, political parties have failed to cooperate to help clear the deficit that the U. S. is in today. Independent thinkers lack the opportunity to help with the situation as the two most diverse political parties seize the national election with popularity and the ability to spend increasing amounts of money in campaigning.

Now that the election of independent candidates is nearly impossible, the United States always seems to manage to have a divided government, leading to gridlock. Out of the past four election cycles (from the beginning of the financial crises to now) three terms have been a divided government. This is a prime reason as to why this nation has not thoroughly recovered from the 2008 financial crises. A country cannot and will not move forward in a government divided by political opinions and partisanship with extreme party loyalty.

Political parties can have positive and negative affects on fiscal policies, but in today’s politics, the negative affects of partisanship have become more and more prevalent. With the lack of focus to achieve one common goal for the good of America, political parties have been negatively affecting the economy and the performance of the national government. The United States needs cooperation, not partisanship. With that will hopefully come a change in our system as we know it. If anything has been learned between political parties effect on our economy, it is that anti-support of our system has led to a poor economy.

Throughout this paper, we have noticed that our political system is effected by numerous different

aspects of the political system. Past experiences have shaped parties into what they are today. It is important to learn from the past, and not make the same mistakes over again. With political parties comes polarization that stems from the development of government policies and special interest group actions. Parties are made from many different places. Gender, race, religious preference, social class, and demographics all play a huge role in who’s voice is heard through government.

Last but not least, our economy is probably the most important resultant from political polarization. The economy has been under much scrutiny and rightful so, but who is at fault for our poor economy? Though we do not know the direct answer, we assume it comes from gridlock caused by political polarization after changes in government. In terms of political parties, the American political system performs in an inconsistent manner. Though many skeptics criticize the functionality of the system, it would ignorant to say it does perform at all for it’s citizens.

Political parties have and always will be the foundation for American citizens involvement in government. With that in mind, it is important that citizens continue to be involved in the political system in order for it to function properly. As a group, we came together to specifically address the advantages and disadvantages of of political parties today. After dissecting the different aspects in our system, we agreed that political parties are vital part of our system, but have to be able to compromise with each other in order for anything to be accomplished.