The Two Party System is Obsolete
As a governed society, the president and its accompanying administration is chosen by us, for the most part. Although the electoral college is the final decider— another outrage for another day— Americans are handed two major parties to side with on Election Day. Any alternative parties don’t stand a chance.
The parties in their essence, however, have changed in unprecedented ways since their inception. In the foundational stages of American politics, partisanship was discouraged. Despite George Washington’s warnings against the dangers of separate parties, the First Party System emerged, paving the way for the organization of politics as we know it.
Over time, support for the Federalists dwindled and its opposition, the Republican-Democrat party, disbanded. For years to come, these two parties would undergo numerous developments and name changes— from the Jacksonian Democrats to the Grand Old Party— and somehow leave us with the 21st century Republican and Democrat parties that hold the majority of the seats in our government today.
As we’ve seen, our social climate is historically divided. The country now more than ever is illuminating the effects of a decades long “big-sort.” Political affiliations serve more as an echo-chamber to spew and strengthen “politically” charged narratives than anything else. Thanks to the polarizing rhetoric that defines the Trump Administration, it’s safe to say that your loyalty to your party inherently reflects your stance on major human rights concerns.
Voting Republican or Democrat no longer means what it used to. Lee Drutman writes in The Atlantic, “From the mid-1960s through the mid-’90s, American politics had something more like a four-party system, with liberal Democrats and conservative Republicans alongside liberal Republicans and conservative Democrats... But that was before American politics became fully nationalized, a phenomenon that happened over several decades, powered in large part by a slow-moving post-civil-rights realignment of the two parties.” Drutman continues to explain that the parties have now evolved into a battleground for conflict that has only continued to intensify.
Now, he cites the Democrats to be the party of “diversity and cosmopolitan values,” and the Republicans to be the party of “traditional values and white, Christian identity.” The accuracy of these descriptions is evident in the 2020 presidential candidates’ respective policies, histories with, and stances on key issues.
These parties— divisive in nature, as one side advocates for equality and the other for the opposite— are now obsolete, completely removed from any intent at functionality. The upholding of years worth of progressive legislation is dependent on a single vote for a party. “The two-party system is destroying America,” suggests Michael Coblenz in an article for The Hill.
“Partisans on both sides are so angry they can barely speak with the other, much less work together. The most extreme are convinced that members of the other party are treasonous and purposefully harming the nation,” he points out.
If the main identifying factors of the two current parties are the way they can’t stand each other nor see eye to eye on any American interests, what purpose do they serve today aside from chaos and division? Trump ideology is so impenetrable and he looks to serve his faithful supporters in bigotry.
To remedy this irreconcilable conflict and remove American citizens from the middle of an endless fight, a Multi-Party system has been proposed. For the Stanford Social Innovation Review, George Cheung writes, “In a NBC News/Survey Monkey poll of Democratic voters released in mid-October, 2015, 54 percent of young people backed socialist Bernie Sanders compared to just 26 percent for Hillary Clinton,” connoting this data to a desire in young voters to gravitate towards less traditional, more leftist views. In short, voters are looking towards policy as opposed to party loyalty. With a Multi-Party system, there would be more room for choice and a more competitive election. Voters would not have to “settle” for the lesser of two perceived evils, thus decreasing the number of people who choose not to vote at all.
In a perfect world, there’d be no parties. Nominees would run on the basis of equality for all citizens, there’d be a separation between the church and the state, and we simply wouldn’t have Neo-Nazis and white supremacists running amuck because the President gave them a hall pass. Multiple candidates would present their progressive policy platforms that didn’t debate marginalized identities and whether or not they should exist freely. But that’s a perfect world.