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9.7: Indispensible Parties

  • Page ID
    287393
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    Are parties a bug or a feature of the machine that is America? They’re certainly useful for politicians seeking to win office and achieve policy goals, as well as for voters looking to make sense of a complex political world. They’re also nearly as unpopular as they’ve ever been in the United States. Polls show pluralities of Americans have unfavorable views of the Democratic and Republican parties.

    Bug or feature, it’s crucial to remember that America’s parties exist not because the Founders, Congress, or anyone else decided that the country should be divvied up between Democrats and Republicans. The election laws of the United States did not create a two-party system on purpose, but they did create an electoral environment in which a two-party system would naturally develop.

    Of course, the fact that something is natural does not automatically make it good, and reasons for pessimism about America’s parties are legion. Americans often chafe at these limited options, looking jealously at other countries with multiparty systems and feeling discontented with their binary choices. The penchant of both major parties for framing partisan conflict in the United States as an ultimate battle between good and evil, particularly in polarized times, can make for uncomfortable and confrontational political conversations. Moderates, independents, and minor-party sympathizers who feel unrepresented by either major party may disengage from politics rather than enter the fray or “waste” their votes on candidates with no chance of winning.

    The First Amendment guarantees the right of U.S. citizens to peaceably assemble. Unless and until that stipulation is removed, parties are here to stay. Changes to electoral rules might bring welcome or unwelcome changes in the parties or the party system, but as long as working in groups to influence politics is more efficient than going it alone, parties or something like them will endure.


    9.7: Indispensible Parties is shared under a CC BY-NC 4.0 license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by LibreTexts.