Dr. Zerwin
SLCC Period 3
November/17/2010
Argumentative Research Paper
There are some Americans out there who don’t even know about any other parties other than Republican and Democrat.The political two party system may have, at a time it was made, seemed like a good idea and a way to satisfy divided interests in a country with two separate main interests, but now things are more complicated and there are so many more ideas and people who aren’t even in a party, that two main parties don’t meet the needs of the people in the country. A two party system couldn’t function when both parties try to lie and lean way in the middle to collect votes and the favor of the Independents, other parties, and the no-party people. People can’t form opinions based on lies and motives so unclear you have no idea what a politician is going to do after being elected. The two party system is not very well thought out and doesn’t offer enough opportunities or opinions in a government that doesn’t provide enough information for the people to make their own educated political decisions on matters that should involve some thought process to them.
Historically, a divided party system was considered a bad idea by Americans and they had hoped it would never happen. They seemed to understand that it would become a problem and/or just pointless. Even when this country was relatively “new” people seemed to see the future and know that it was a bad idea, like this guy who said, “There is nothing I dread so much as the division of the Republic into two great parties, each under it’s leader.... This, in my humble opinion, is to be feared as the greatest political evil under our Constitution.”(John Adams, American Political Parties: Their Natural History, Binkley, Wilfred E.). This quote shows that some people didn’t approve of two parties in America, even when they were barely a small thought in anyone’s mind. He must have seen what happened in a party system before and figured it probably wouldn’t be the best method for running a government, but at some point it was an inevitability when a single conflict divided American politics in to two major categories called Federalists and Anti-Federalists. At the time, it was a working system that satisfied the American people and their beliefs. Now, there are so many options and “issues” that two parties couldn’t possibly cover all of it.
The majority of Americans today are a part of or lean towards the Independent side of the political spectrum. Because of that, politicians lie and pretend to be more “in the middle” to appeal to the Independents instead of actually representing their party. Then, when they’ve gained approval from the Independents they lied to, and the members of the party they supposedly represent have already blindly voted for them, they steer into the opposite direction and do exactly what they said they wouldn’t and fail to do what they said they would. One of my cited articles expresses, “We vote. We get our little stickers with an American flag that proudly proclaims: I VOTED. But when we vote for a member of the political duopoly, we are only voting for “Dee or Dum”(Cindy Sheehan, Aljazeera, “US: Myth of the Two Party System”). It seems like when we vote for a member of either one of the two major parties, we might as well almost be voting for the same person, or at least not even knowing exactly what we’re voting for besides those labeled Democrat and Republican. People can’t form opinions with any value to them based on empty promises and media drama.
It’s scary that some Americans don’t know there are more parties out there than the two major parties and maybe Communism. Since the two party system completely dominates American politics, it vastly increases the collective national ignorance everyone keeps complaining about. Some random individual on Pearl Street didn’t know much about government at all. When I asked him what he knew about political parties he just said, “Uhhhhh, there’s Republicans and Democrats”(Anonymous Pearl Street Stoner). He didn’t even seem to be aware of other parties’ existence. Then he tried to tell me what they were, and he said, “I know that Republicans like war and Democrats don’t”(Anonymous Pearl Street Stoner), and that was the extent of his political knowledge. One person doesn’t represent the whole country, but the amount of people who voted last time was in the 60 percentile range and dropping. People obviously don’t care enough about the governmental issues going on right now because there are only two sides from which they can choose from that actually have the power to make a difference, so why should they care? The entire country isn’t divided by only two parties. There are lots of different people and opinions from everywhere. If the government had people with different opinions and more solutions and more options and they had people that discussed other issues, people would definitely care a little bit more. Americans have given up on the two parties because there’s just too much going on. That system is obsolete.The American government is way too limited with only two major powers. Since Americans have lost interest in politics up to the point where they don’t even know what the only two parties in power are even about, the only thing that can hold attention is petty mistakes, word gaffes, media drama,and a Sarah Palin reality TV show as if reality TV wasn’t bad enough.
America should completely abolish the party system altogether because parties influence people to choose this or that or the other thing. instead of thinking for themselves. People like to categorize themselves too much. It’s because of these these categories (parties) that the members of the parties have to try to lie to fit a certain criteria. I don’t understand why there can’t just be people with their own original thoughts and ideas that can be elected by those who can relate or agree with their ideas, without having to lie and conform to a particular party running for the government. It’s not like they were given only two options to choose from. According to the source against the two party system, “including more parties would only further divide us”(TeachersCount Blog).This points out the issue that regardless of how many parties are added to the mix, people will choose sides instead of making decisions from what sounds best to them and the information they gathered. This is why we just shouldn’t have parties.
By now the two party system should be abolished now that politics in America aren’t one or the other anymore. Maybe the reason why we haven’t gotten rid of it yet is because we’re taught that our system is the best in the world and there is no other way. But it’s partly because of this system that the parties have resorted to lies and manipulation to earn favor instead of getting people that can say what they believe and say what they will do. We could have the exact same sort of government system, but without any parties at all just people. The two party system has made people ignorant and not really think about decisions or what’s even going on. It has become a cycle of not knowing what we’re getting ourselves into when we give our support to someone because they’ve lied to seem more appealing to other people and parties. The two party system is very obsolete and should have been gone already but everyone’s too afraid of what would happen if their precious government were to change anything about itself.
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