For a country which has cultivated the world’s largest
economy based on free market capitalism, the United States is most assuredly not
taking those principles to heart when it comes to politics. The dominance of the two-party system is one
of the biggest issues with American politics at the moment. The system and
resulting parties are more than outdated, they no longer lend themselves to an
effective means of governing through intelligent discourse and compromise. Throw into the mix the current trends of
increasing polarization of the American population and now we really do have
something to worry about.
This linear descriptor of one’s political affiliation is so
emphatically limiting that you are forced into a zero-sum situation. Either you are with “us” or “against us”.
Essentially what this system is requiring is that you side with an inherently idealistic
group on nationally relevant issues which are almost immeasurably complex. God
forbid we, as a country, get to a point where the Republicans are right about
some things and the Democrats are right about the others, but the correct
solution needs to be instituted within one election period. The current system guarantees failure in this
case. God forbid a Republican doesn’t flaunt
his/her religion or a Democrat thinks that tax cuts are necessary.
Obviously it is ridiculous to say that all the American
policy issues are a product of the two-party system, or the political
structure, but it is a contributing factor.
More
or less what the system looks like now:
Now I am just brainstorming here but what if the American
political spectrum looked something like this. Vertical axis is the allocation
of government funds, now TO BE CLEAR, I am not saying that this model is the
best way to go or the axis are the best identifiers.
Just look, you have doubled the “products” the American can
chose from. To me this just seems like a better choice, because for those of us
who tend to side with a party on the majority of topics but strongly disagree
with some of their stances what can you do.
You bite the bullet and pick the lesser of two evils. Because what we
have now really can accurately be construed as two evils.
