Political Parties and What's Wrong With the American System

Now I realize that this is a blog primarily for the purposes of completing AP U.S. Government Assignments, but I also realize that it is a blog dedicated to government, and when I have political musings to share, I see no reason to withhold myself from posting them here.

On that note...

The other day, in my previous blog, I found myself commenting on the necessity of bi-partisanship in making necessary changes in our government today. Later on, I found myself recalling the fact that numerous democratic governments have more than two parties. Granted, technically, so does the United States, if you include the Green Party, Libertarian Party, or Constitution Party, along with a plethora of parties with absolutely no degree of contention in current elections. But still, our country has two major parties that are consistently in the media, winning elections, and arguing between themselves and amongst themselves. So what's wrong with two parties?

Some people would certainly say nothing, and even I would say that it has served this country fairly well. But now, as the two parties continue to fight only for themselves and not for the people of America, improvements could be made. For one thing, having two parties with starkly opposing viewpoints polarizes the people of America into two camps, one on the right, and one on the left. If they wish to have their votes count for anything, even a "stark" moderate must choose a side, and at this point they have joined whichever pole they decided upon, even if it was for the most trivial of purposes. In a multi-party system, far right and far left parties can be brought together by more nuetral parties. For instance, if there is a country with four parties, a far right, moderate right, far left, and moderate left, negotiation can occur between the right parties and left parties, respectively, who can then negotiate a compromise between their specific ideas on a topic. Obviously it isn't this simple, but that is, in essence, the idea. In this way, the more parties there are, the easier the compromising would become, theoretically. This is one strong argument for a multi-party system.

Another argument, which is certainly related, focuses more on the voter. As I said above, a voter is forced to choose a main party in our current system to have their voice count, as third parties rarely, if ever, win an election. By having multiple parties, it allows a voter to choose a party that better suits their ideals and morals. By doing this, it enables a voter to, in casting his/her vote, speak their opinion more exactly and specifically than in having two, wider ranging parties.

Despite the good that it might do, there is really no way of telling what would change in America if it was to develop a multi-party system, and unfortunately, I don't ever think that it will happen. We have simply developed, over the course of our history, into a certain way of partisan thinking, and I feel that it would take a shake-up of extreme proportions to change our current system. More than likely that shake-up would be a political or economic catastrophe, and I certainly don't wish that. It's likely that a true multi-party system will never exist in this country, but it certainly poses the ever present question, "What if?" Thanks for reading.

- Mike Olson