two party politics

            The two party system

America has been a two party system for a long time. But, many Americans assume that this has just always been the case, that it is - in fact- exactly what the founding fathers had intended for our great nation.

Yet, this is not at all the case; rather, our founding fathers were terrified of this concept. In fact, back in England the parliament of the time was largely a two party system, not too much unlike our system today. That system was primarily the Tories and the Whigs. According to the Scholastic.com the two parties had; “their view of what government should do and how strong it should be. Tories wanted rule by a strong king. Whigs wanted ordinary people to have more rights and gain more control of their government. In time, as Parliament took greater control, the Whigs and Tories developed into organized parties.” These two parties and their stance probably sound fairly familiar to modern Americans!

Now, we must consider whether or not this was what the American Democratic Republic was really meant to be. I will posit that the answer is, in fact, a resounding no. One of the early American giants, - John Adams- wrote:

“There is nothing which I dread so much as a division of the republic into two great parties, each arranged under its leader, and concerting measures in opposition to each other. This, in my humble apprehension, is to be dreaded as the greatest political evil under our Constitution.”

The concern the founding fathers had was that if two major political parties existed then our constitution would be in danger as “political parties become arranged under its leader”. The focus would then become an extremely polarized interpretation- of the constitution, as well as an extremely polarized nation. Which, again, was a problem they recognized from England!

Upon initial consideration it appears that two parties are the best option because, as we all know, choice can also be problematic. I personally really like that more restaurants have the “coca cola freestyle” but, it is also problematic because among all the carbonated goodness it becomes more difficult to know what to choose. And this is a fairly simple example to say nothing of ten million political parties vying for your undying emotion; all of whom cannot realistically get far.

Those of us more familiar with foreign politics will also recognize that some countries face problems of stalled progress because they have so many different political parties and people become so fed up with each one each new election that they just keep voting new ones into office and not much can ever be accomplished as a result.

 America does, technically, have more than two political parties. But, the other two parties exist as a monopoly over the system. Which is why I think we need to change the system because, as monopolies do economically, so the two party system does politically. A monopoly constricts creativity and ingenuity because competition forces new ideas to constantly be put forward. Which is why I believe Americans deserve more options.

The two party system also creates issues in how we understand our rights as Americans. I am a book worm and watching politics today I am struck by how much Americans are like the Animals in “Animal farm”, - a book by George Orwell, - for those of you who are not familiar I do not mean this as dehumanizing people. What I mean by this is in this allegorical story the animals run the farmer out of the farm and a leader rises up. This leader as this leader, and his crew, ultimately convince the farm animals that the “head animals” have more rights than the rest leading to one quote “all animals are equal some are just more equal than others”. It finally reaches the point that the animals can no longer “read” the “constitution” they wrote and are reliant on the “elite” to more or less tell them what each thing means and its practicality. While I do not think we have reached this point I am concerned that as America becomes more polarized this becomes more and more possible.

With all of this in mind, though I cannot say exactly how we can do this, I am, however, convinced that Americans deserve more than our two party sy