Why are there only two parties in America?
Two-party system
A two-party system is a party system where two major political parties dominate the government. One of the two parties typically holds a majority in the legislature and is usually referred to as the "majority" or "governing party" while the other is the "minority" or "opposition party". Around the world, the term has different senses. For example, in the United States, Jamaica, and Malta, the sense of "two-party system" describes an arrangement in which all or nearly all elected officials belong to one of the only two major parties, and third parties rarely win any seats in the legislature. In such arrangements, two-party systems are thought to result from various factors like winner-takes-all election rules. In such systems, while chances for third-party candidates winning election to major national office are remote, it is possible for groups within the larger parties, or in opposition to one or both of them, to exert influence on the two major parties. In contrast, in the United Kingdom and Australia and in other parliamentary systems and elsewhere, the term "two-party system" is sometimes used to indicate an arrangement in which two major parties dominate elections but in which there are viable third parties which do win seats in the legislature, and in which the two major parties exert proportionately greater influence than their percentage of votes would suggest.
Two-party system
A report in "The Christian Science Monitor" in 2008 suggested that Spain was moving towards a "greater two-party system" while acknowledging that Spain has "many small parties". However a 2015 article published by "WashingtonPost.com" written by academic Fernando Casal Bértoa noted the decline in support for the two main parties, the People's Party (PP) and the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE) in recent years, with these two parties winning only 52 percent of the votes in that year's regional and local elections. He explained this as being due to the Spanish economic crisis, a series of political corruption scandals and broken campaign promises. He argued that the emergence of the new Citizens and Podemos parties would mean the political system would evolve into a two-bloc system, with an alliance of the PP and Citizens on the right facing a leftist coalition of PSOE, Podemos and the United Left.
History of conservatism in the United States
A relatively new element of conservatism is the Tea Party movement of 2009–present, a populist grassroots movement comprising over 600 local units who communally express dissatisfaction with the government and both major parties. Many units have promoted activism and protests. The stated purpose of the movement is to stop what it views as wasteful government spending, excessive taxation, and strangulation of the economy through regulatory bureaucracies. The Tea Party attracted national attention when it propelled Republican Scott Brown to a victory in the Senate election for the Massachusetts seat held by the Kennedy brothers for nearly 60 years. In 2010, Tea Party candidates upset establishment Republicans in several primaries, such as Alaska, Colorado, Delaware, Florida, Nevada, New York, South Carolina, and Utah, giving a new momentum to the conservative cause in the 2010 elections, and boosting Sarah Palin's visibility. Rasmussen and Schoen (2010) conclude that "She is the symbolic leader of the movement, and more than anyone else has helped to shape it." In the fall 2010 elections, the "New York Times" identified 129 House candidates with significant Tea Party support, as well as 9 running for the Senate; all are Republicans, as the Tea Party has not been active among Democrats.
Party system
First Party System: This system can be considered to have developed as a result of the factions in the George Washington administration. The two factions were Alexander Hamilton and the Federalists and Thomas Jefferson and the Democratic-Republican Party. The Federalists argued for a strong national government with a national bank and a strong economic and industry system. The Democratic-Republicans argued for a limited government, with a greater emphasis on farmers and states' rights. After the 1800 Presidential election, the Democratic-Republicans gained major dominance for the next twenty years, and the Federalists slowly died off.
Plurality voting
The countries that inherited the British majoritarian system tend toward two large parties: one left, the other right, such as the U.S. Democrats and Republicans. Canada is an exception, with three major political parties consisting of the New Democratic Party which is to the left, the Conservative Party which is to the right and the Liberal Party which is slightly off center to the left. A fourth party that no longer has major party status is the separatist Bloc Québécois party, which is territorial and concentrated in Quebec. New Zealand used the British system, and it too yielded two large parties. It also left many New Zealanders unhappy, because other viewpoints were ignored, so its parliament in 1993 adopted a new electoral law, modelled on Germany's system of proportional representation (PR) with a partial selection by constituencies. New Zealand soon developed a more complex party system.
Green Party of the United States
Gayle McLaughlin was twice elected mayor of Richmond, California, defeating two Democrats in 2006 and then reelected in 2010; and elected to City Council in 2014 after completing her second term as mayor. With a population of over 100,000 people, it was the largest American city with a Green mayor. Fairfax, California; Arcata, California; Sebastopol, California; and New Paltz, New York are the only towns in the United States to have had a Green Party majority in their town councils. Twin Ridges Elementary in Nevada County, California held the first Green Party majority school board in the United States.
One-party state
One-party states explain themselves through various methods. Most often, proponents of a one-party state argue that the existence of separate parties runs counter to national unity. Others argue that the one party is the vanguard of the people, and therefore its right to rule cannot be legitimately questioned. The Soviet government argued that multiple parties represented the class struggle, which was absent in Soviet society, and so the Soviet Union only had one party, namely the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.
Socialist Party of America
The party changed its name to Social Democrats, USA (SDUSA) by a vote of 73 to 34. Renaming the party as SDUSA was meant to be "realistic". "The New York Times" observed that the Socialist Party had last sponsored a candidate for President in 1956, who received only 2,121 votes and which were cast in only six states. Because the party no longer sponsored candidates in presidential elections, the name "Party" had been "misleading" as "Party" had hindered the recruiting of activists who participated in the Democratic Party, according to the majority report. The name "Socialist" was replaced by "Social Democrats" because many Americans associated the word "socialism" with Soviet Communism. The party also wished to distinguish itself from two small Marxist parties, the Socialist Workers Party and the Socialist Labor Party.
New Party (United States)
The New Party was a third political party in the United States that tried to re-introduce the practice of electoral fusion. In electoral fusion, the same candidate receives nomination from more than one political party and occupies more than one ballot line. Fusion was once common in the United States but is now commonly practiced only in New York State, although it is allowed by law in seven other states. The party was active from 1992 to 1998. (There had been an earlier, unrelated New Party in 1968 that ran Eugene McCarthy for President.)
Politics of the United States
Since the 1790s, the country has been run by two major parties, beginning with the Federalist vs. the Democratic-Republicans, then the Whigs vs. the Democrats, and now the Democrats and Republicans. Minor or third political parties appear from time to time and tend to advocate for policies dedicated to a specific issue. At various times the Socialist Party, the Farmer-Labor Party and the Populist Party for a few years had considerable local strength, and then faded away—although in Minnesota, the Farmer–Labor Party merged into the state's Democratic Party, which is now officially known as the Democratic–Farmer–Labor Party. At present, the Libertarian Party is the most successful third party. New York State has a number of additional third parties, who sometimes run their own candidates for office and sometimes nominate the nominees of the two main parties. In the District of Columbia, the D.C. Statehood Green Party has served as a strong third party behind the Democratic Party and Republican Party.
Third party officeholders in the United States
Third-party officeholders in the United States have been rare at any point of the country's existence thus-far. Although the current two-party system in the U.S., with the Republican Party and Democratic Party, started in 1856, many of the older parties still existed and had an influence. Therefore, this article includes any politician since the end of Reconstruction or since the 45th United States Congress.
List of unsuccessful major party candidates for Vice President of the United States
The two current major parties are the Democratic Party and the Republican Party. At various points prior to the American Civil War, the Federalist Party, the Democratic-Republican Party, the National Republican Party, and the Whig Party were major parties. In the 1872 presidential election, the Liberal Republican Party put forward an unsuccessful major party vice presidential nominee, Benjamin Gratz Brown. Brown and his running mate, Horace Greeley, were also nominated by the Democratic Party.
Politics of the United States
In American politics, the Democratic Party is commonly known as the well-established center-left liberal national party, while the smaller Green Party is known for being closer to the progressive anti-capitalist left-wing of modern American politics. The Republican Party is commonly known as the dominant right-wing national party, and the alternative Libertarian Party attracts some independent-leaning voters who tend to be more social liberal on social issues and fiscally conservative on economic policy.
Democratic Party (United States)
The Democratic Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. Tracing its heritage back to Thomas Jefferson and James Madison's Democratic-Republican Party, the modern-day Democratic Party was founded around 1828 by supporters of Andrew Jackson, making it the world's oldest active political party.
Laura Wells
The two parties, the Democrat and Republican parties, do not address the root causes of the problem," Wells said. "That's off the table for them. ... To get what we want and to have the revenue that pays for it we need to have a budget that makes sense.
Non-partisan democracy
The Confederate States of America had no political parties during its entire existence from 1861 to 1865. Despite political differences within the Confederacy, no national political parties were formed because they were seen as illegitimate. "Anti-partyism became an article of political faith." Without a two party system building alternative sets of national leaders, electoral protests tended to be narrowly state-based, "negative, carping and petty". The 1863 mid-term elections became mere expressions of futile and frustrated dissatisfaction. According to historian David M. Potter, this lack of a functioning two-party system caused "real and direct damage" to the Confederate war effort since it prevented the formulation of any effective alternatives to the conduct of the war by the Davis administration.
Modern liberalism in the United States
In the 1950s and 1960s, both major US political parties included liberal and conservative factions. The Democratic Party had two wings: on the one hand, Northern and Western liberals, on the other generally conservative Southern whites. Difficult to classify were the northern big city Democratic "political machines". The urban machines had supported New Deal economic policies, but faded with the coming of prosperity and the assimilation of ethnic groups; nearly all collapsed by the 1960s in the face of racial violence in the cities
Two-party system
There have been arguments that the winner-take-all mechanism discourages independent or third-party candidates from running for office or promulgating their views. Ross Perot's former campaign manager wrote that the problem with having only two parties is that the nation loses "the ability for things to bubble up from the body politic and give voice to things that aren't being voiced by the major parties." One analyst suggested that parliamentary systems, which typically are multi-party in nature, lead to a better "centralization of policy expertise" in government. Multi-party governments permit wider and more diverse viewpoints in government, and encourage dominant parties to make deals with weaker parties to form winning coalitions. Analyst Chris Weigant of "the Huffington Post" wrote that "the parliamentary system is inherently much more open to minority parties getting much better representation than third parties do in the American system". After an election in which the party changes, there can be a "polar shift in policy-making" when voters react to changes.
Party switching in the United States
The first two major parties in the United States were the Federalist Party and the Democratic-Republican Party. The Federalists experienced success in the 1790s but lost power in the 1800 elections and collapsed after the War of 1812. Many former Federalists, including John Quincy Adams, became members of the Democratic-Republican Party. After the 1824 presidential election, the Democratic-Republicans fractured between supporters of Adams and supporters of Andrew Jackson. Jackson's followers formed the Democratic Party, while those who supported Adams formed the National Republican Party. Two short-lived but significant third parties, the Anti-Masonic Party and the Nullifier Party, also arose during this period. In the 1830s, opponents of Jackson coalesced into the Whig Party.
Two-party system
Political analyst A. G. Roderick, writing in his book "Two Tyrants", argued that the two American parties, the Republicans and Democrats, are highly unpopular in 2015, and are not part of the political framework of state governments, and do not represent 47% of the electorate who identify themselves as "independents". He makes a case that the American president should be elected on a non-partisan basis, and asserts that both political parties are "cut from the same cloth of corruption and corporate influence."
Political party
While there is some international commonality in the way political parties are recognized and in how they operate, there are often many differences, and some are significant. Many political parties have an ideological core, but some do not, and many represent ideologies very different from their ideology at the time the party was founded. Many countries, such as Germany and India, have several significant political parties, and some nations have one-party systems, such as China and Cuba. The United States is in practice a two-party system but with many smaller parties also participating and a high degree of autonomy for individual candidates.
Bipartisanship
According to political analyst James Fallows in "The Atlantic" (based on a "note from someone with many decades' experience in national politics"), bipartisanship is a phenomenon belonging to a two-party system such as the political system of the United States and does not apply to a parliamentary system (such as Great Britain) since the minority party is not involved in helping write legislation or voting for it. Fallows argues that in a two-party system, the minority party can be obstructionist and thwart the actions of the majority party. However, analyst Anne Applebaum in "The Washington Post" suggested that partisanship had been rampant in the United Kingdom and described it as "a country in which the government and the opposition glower at each other from opposite sides of the House of Commons, in which backbenchers jeer when their opponents speak." Applebaum suggested there was "bipartisanship" in Britain, meaning a coalition in 2010 between the opposing major parties but that it remained to be seen whether the coalition could stay together to solve serious problems such as tackling Britain's financial crisis.
Labor Party of the United States
The Labor Party of the United States was a short-lived political party formed by several state-level labor parties upon the encouragement of Chicago Federation of Labor leader John Fitzpatrick. It was formed in the immediate aftermath of World War I, due in large part to deterioration in the condition of the country's workers due to the imbalance between static workers' wages and rapidly escalating prices for necessities and consumer goods.
List of third party performances in United States presidential elections
Occasionally, a third party becomes one of the two major parties through a presidential election (the last time it happened was in 1856, when the Republicans supplanted the Whigs, who had withered and endorsed the ticket of the American Party): such an election is called a realigning election, as it causes a realignment in the party system; according to scholars, there have been six party systems so far. Only once one of the two major parties came third in an election, but that did not cause a realignment (in 1912 the Progressive Party surpassed the Republicans, but the party quickly disappeared and the Republicans re-gained their major party status).
Non-partisan democracy
The administration of George Washington and the first few sessions of the US Congress were nonpartisan. Factions within the early US government coalesced into the Federalist and Democratic-Republican parties. The Era of Good Feelings, when the Federalist party collapsed, leaving the Democratic-Republican party as the sole political faction, was the United States' only experience with a one-party system.
Party switching in the United States
A second reason is to gain power and influence. The incumbent may be a member of the minority party in a legislature and would like to gain the advantages of being in the majority party, such as the potential to chair a committee. A disaffected incumbent who might not hold a leadership position or feels ignored or mistreated by the majority party might join the minority party with the expectation of holding a leadership position in the minority party and if currently elected, having the complete support of the minority party for re-election, who would certainly want to have more elected officials in their ranks.
Political party
French political scientist Maurice Duverger drew a distinction between "cadre" parties and "mass" parties. Cadre parties were political elites that were concerned with contesting elections and restricted the influence of outsiders, who were only required to assist in election campaigns. Mass parties tried to recruit new members who were a source of party income and were often expected to spread party ideology as well as assist in elections. Socialist parties are examples of mass parties, while the Conservative Party in the UK and the German Christian Democratic Union in Germany are examples of hybrid parties. In the United States, where both major parties were cadre parties, the introduction of primaries and other reforms has transformed them so that power is held by activists who compete over influence and nomination of candidates.
Third-party and independent candidates for the 2016 United States presidential election
"Third party" is a term commonly used in the United States in reference to political parties other than the two major parties, the Democratic Party and the Republican Party. An independent candidate is one who runs for office with no formal party affiliation.
Walter Karp
"The Two Americas" article presents his perspectives of democracy and patriotism; citing the Pledge of Allegiance, he proposes that the United States of America is two countries, a republic and a nation; the republic "exists for its own sake" but the nation exists only relative to other nations and so is most alive when at war. He often quoted Lincoln's praise of Kentucky Senator Henry Clay as a man who "loved his country, partly because it was his own country, but mostly because it was a free country."
Source
First Party System
The First Party System is a model of American politics used in history and political science to periodize the political party system that existed in the United States between roughly 1792 and 1824. It featured two national parties competing for control of the presidency, Congress, and the states: the Federalist Party, created largely by Alexander Hamilton, and the rival Jeffersonian Democratic-Republican Party, formed by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, usually called at the time the Republican Party. The Federalists were dominant until 1800, while the Republicans were dominant after 1800.
Duverger's law
In countries that use proportional representation (PR), a two-party system is less likely, especially in countries where the whole country forms a single constituency, as it does in Israel, along with low electoral thresholds to obtain office. Israel's electoral rules historically had an electoral threshold for a party to obtain a seat as low as one-percent of the vote; the threshold is 3.25% as of 2014. Germany's threshold in its Bundestag is either 5% of the national party vote or three (directly elected) constituency representatives for a party to gain additional representation through proportional representation. The number of votes received for a party determines the number of seats won, and new parties can thus develop an immediate electoral niche. Duverger identified that the use of PR would make a two-party system less likely. However, other systems do not guarantee new parties access to the system: Malta provides an example of a stable two-party system using the single transferable vote, although it is worth noting that its presidential elections are won by a plurality, which may put a greater two-party bias in the system than in a purely proportional system.
Politics of the Caribbean
Two party systems are found primarily in the Anglophone countries. Although there are some smaller parties found the two main parties have the greatest chance of winning. Many times these two parties can be found alternating running the government. The classic two party systems can be found in Jamaica and The Bahamas. Jamaica is a classic representation of the British government. It is the only country in the region to have had two parties in the first elections. From 1944 until 1980 there was a perfect record of the parties alternating running the government.
Political parties in the United States
The Republican Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States of America. Since the 1880s it has been nicknamed (by the media) the "Grand Old Party" or GOP, although it is younger than the Democratic Party.
Political party
The UK political system, while technically a multi-party system, has functioned generally as a two-party (sometimes called a "two-and-a-half party") system; since the 1920s the two largest political parties have been the Conservative Party and the Labour Party. Before the Labour Party rose in British politics the Liberal Party was the other major political party along with the Conservatives. Though coalition and minority governments have been an occasional feature of parliamentary politics, the first-past-the-post electoral system used for general elections tends to maintain the dominance of these two parties, though each has in the past century relied upon a third party to deliver a working majority in Parliament. (A plurality voting system usually leads to a two-party system, a relationship described by Maurice Duverger and known as Duverger's Law.) There are also numerous other parties that hold or have held a number of seats in Parliament.
Greens/Green Party USA
The source of the rift between the two national Green parties is a matter of contentious debate. Some point to differences of political philosophy or views on the proper structure of the party or attitudes toward elections, while others suggest it was more about personality conflicts, turf struggles, and poor communication leading to concerns about financial and political accountability, or perhaps the 1991 name grab or the inaccurate G/GPUSA FEC filing in 1995. It is important to note that the heated debates and the fighting that was waged for several years at the national level (and among Greens within a few states, such as New York, Missouri, California and New Jersey) seemed largely irrelevant to the vast majority of grassroots Greens, who preferred to devote their energies to local organizing.
Political positions of the Democratic Party
The Democratic Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States. The party describes itself as supporting American liberalism and American progressivism. The party incorporates centrists liberals and progressives, as well as more left-wing or socialist movements, many aligned with the presidential campaign of independent Senator Bernie Sanders. There is also a small Conservative wing represented in the house by the Blue Dog Coalition, although Conservative Democrat ideology is different from the traditional Conservatism the Republican party supports. Policies of past Democratic platforms have sought to protect social programs, labor unions, consumer protection and workplace safety regulation, equal opportunity and racial equality, and regulation against pollution of the environment. Democrats support abortion rights and same-sex marriage, tend to support an easier pathway to citizenship for illegal immigrants.
Minor party
In the United States they are often described as third parties. Minor parties in the U.S. include the Libertarian Party, the Green Party, Constitution Party, and others that have less influence than the major parties. Since the American Civil War (1861–1865), the major parties have been the Republican Party and the Democratic Party. Since 1860, six presidential candidates other than Republicans and Democrats have received over 10% of the popular vote, although one of them was a former president, Theodore Roosevelt.
Political parties in the United States
Political scientists and historians have divided the development of America's two-party system into five eras. The first two-party system consisted of the Federalist Party, who supported the ratification of the Constitution, and the Democratic-Republican Party or the Anti-Administration party (Anti-Federalists), who opposed the powerful central government, among others, that the Constitution established when it took effect in 1789.
Politics of the United States
The United States Constitution does not mention political parties, primarily because the Founding Fathers did not intend for American politics to be partisan. In "Federalist Papers" No. 9 and No. 10, Alexander Hamilton and James Madison, respectively, wrote specifically about the dangers of domestic political factions. In addition, the first President of the United States, George Washington, was not a member of any political party at the time of his election or during his tenure as president. Washington hoped that political parties would not be formed, fearing conflict and stagnation. Nevertheless, the beginnings of the American two-party system emerged from his immediate circle of advisers. Hamilton and Madison ended up being the core leaders in this emerging party system.
Third party (politics)
In U.S. politics, a third party is a political party other than the Democrats or Republicans, such as the Libertarians and Greens. The term "minor party" is also used in a similar manner. Such third political parties rarely win elections, as proportional representation is not used in federal or state elections, but only in some municipal elections. But however since 2018, Maine as become first state for adopted Majoritarian favor ranked-choice voting system to deduced spoiler effect nor vote splitting made under First-Past-The-Post system.
Moral Majority
The Moral Majority had adherents in the two major United States political parties, the Republicans, and the Democrats.
Political parties in the United States
The central domestic issues changed to government regulation of railroads and large corporations ("trusts"), the protective tariff, the role of labor unions, child labor, the need for a new banking system, corruption in party politics, primary elections, direct election of senators, racial segregation, efficiency in government, women's suffrage, and control of immigration. Most voting blocs continued unchanged, but some realignment took place, giving Republicans dominance in the industrial Northeast and new strength in the border states. Historians have long debated why no Labor Party emerged in the United States, in contrast to Western Europe.
Political parties in the United States
The Constitution Party is a small national, conservative political party in the United States. It was founded as the U.S. Taxpayers Party in 1992 by Howard Phillips. The party's official name was changed to the "Constitution Party" in 1999; however, some state affiliate parties are known under different names.
Political party
In dominant-party systems, opposition parties are allowed, and there may be even a deeply established democratic tradition, but other parties are widely considered to have no real chance of gaining power. Sometimes, political, social and economic circumstances, and public opinion are the reason for others parties' failure. Sometimes, typically in countries with less of an established democratic tradition, it is possible the dominant party will remain in power by using patronage and sometimes by voting fraud. In the latter case, the definition between dominant and one-party system becomes rather blurred. Examples of dominant party systems include the People's Action Party in Singapore, the African National Congress in South Africa, the Cambodian People's Party in Cambodia, the Liberal Democratic Party in Japan, and the National Liberation Front in Algeria. One-party dominant system also existed in Mexico with the Institutional Revolutionary Party until the 1990s, in the southern United States with the Democratic Party from the late 19th century until the 1970s, in Indonesia with the "Golkar" from the early 1970s until 1998.
Political parties in the United States
Political parties in the United States are mostly dominated by a two-party system consisting of the Democratic Party and the Republican Party. The United States Constitution has always been silent on the issue of political parties, since at the time it was signed in 1787 there were no parties in the nation.
Fourth Party System
Many of the Progressives, especially in the Democratic Party, supported labor unions. Unions did become important components of the Democratic Party during the Fifth Party System. However, historians have long debated why no Labor Party emerged in the United States, in contrast to Western Europe.
Political parties in the United States
Because American political parties are more loosely organized than those in other countries, not all members of a party subscribe to all of the officially held positions in their respective party's platform. The usual degree of variation generally is higher for the larger parties. Party members may hold different views on legislation to be enacted at the state or federal levels, and an elected official once in office may act contradictory to many of his or her party's positions (this has led to terms such as "Republican In Name Only"). Furthermore, the modern American political spectrum, and the usage of left–right politics, differs from the rest of the world. For example, the Democratic Party, the primary left-of-center party in the country, generally supports a social liberal position rather than a social democratic one.
Two-party system
Gary Cox suggested that America's two-party system was highly related with economic prosperity in the country:
Political parties in the United States
The United States Constitution is silent on the subject of political parties. The Founding Fathers did not originally intend for American politics to be partisan. In Federalist Papers No. 9 and No. 10, Alexander Hamilton and James Madison, respectively, wrote specifically about the dangers of domestic political factions. In addition, the first President of the United States, George Washington, was not a member of any political party at the time of his election or throughout his tenure as president. Furthermore, he hoped that political parties would not be formed, fearing conflict and stagnation, as outlined in his Farewell Address.
Third party (United States)
Greens, Libertarians and others have elected state Legislators and local officials. The Socialists had 600 mayors at one time before World War I, including Milwaukee, Wisconsin; New Haven, Connecticut; Reading, Pennsylvania; and Schenectady, New York. There have been 20th Century governors elected as independents, and from such parties as Progressive, Reform, Farmer-Labor, Populist, and Prohibition. There were others in the century before.
However, the United States has had a two-party system for over a century. The winner take all system for presidential elections and the single-seat plurality voting system for Congressional elections have over time created the two-party system (see Duverger's law).
Third-party and independent candidates for the 2012 United States presidential election
"Third party" is a term commonly used in the United States to refer to political parties other than the two major parties, the Democratic Party and Republican Party. An independent candidate is one who runs for office with no formal party affiliation.
Two-party system
An effort in 2012 by centrist groups to promote ballot access by Third Party candidates called Americans Elect spent $15 million to get ballot access but failed to elect any candidates. The lack of choice in a two-party model in politics has often been compared to the variety of choices in the marketplace.
Unity Party of America
The Unity Party of America is a centrist political party founded on November 4, 2004 which has a membership in 38 states (Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia and Wisconsin) listed on its website, as well as the District of Columbia under the name "Unity Party of New Columbia".
Political parties in the United States
Besides the Constitution, Green, and Libertarian parties, there are many other political parties that receive only minimal support and only appear on the ballot in one or a few states.
Dominant-party system
Sub-national entities are often dominated by one party due the area's demographic being on one end of the spectrum. For example, the current elected government of the District of Columbia has been governed by Democrats since its creation in the 1970s, Bavaria by the Christian Social Union since 1957, Madeira by the Social Democrats since 1976, and Alberta by Progressive Conservatives 1971–2015. On the other hand, where the dominant party rules nationally on a genuinely democratic basis, the opposition may be strong in one or more subnational areas, possibly even constituting a dominant party locally; an example is South Africa, where although the African National Congress is dominant at the national level, the opposition Democratic Alliance is strong to dominant in the Province of Western Cape.
Federally, a multi-party system exists, although only two federal parties have ever held power, the Conservative Party and the Liberal Party. However, in some provinces, a party holds hegemonic status over all other parties.As a whole, the nation has a two-party system, with the main parties since the mid-19th century being Democratic Party and the Republican Party. However, some states and cities have been dominated by one of these parties for up to several decades. Generally, the Democratic Party dominate in the urban metropolitan areas, while the Republican Party dominate in the rural areas. Following the 2018 elections, the Republican Party continued to hold a majority of State Legislatures and a majority of Governorships. However the Democratic Party won a majority of seats in the House of Representatives, while the Republican Party increased their majority in the the Senate, resulting in a split Congress. As a consequence of Donald Trump's victory in the 2016 elections, the Republican Party also controls the Presidency.
Third party (politics)
The term "third parties" is used mostly in countries with first past the post electoral systems, as those systems tend to create a two-party system, so that successful smaller parties are rare to stronger two-party systems like the United States.
List of state parties of the Republican Party (United States)
The Republican Party, also commonly called the GOP (abbreviation for Grand Old Party), is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, the other being the Democratic Party. Founded by anti-slavery activists in 1854, it dominated politics nationally for most of the period from 1860 to 1932. There have been 19 Republican presidents, the first being Abraham Lincoln, serving from 1861 to 1865, and the most recent being Donald Trump.
Republican Party of Arkansas
The United States Republican Party, or GOP, is the second oldest currently existing political party in the United States after its older rival, the Democratic Party.
Constitution Party (United States)
The Constitution Party's website criticizes the dominance of two parties in the US electoral system, saying:
United States
The United States has operated under a two-party system for most of its history. For elective offices at most levels, state-administered primary elections choose the major party nominees for subsequent general elections. Since the general election of 1856, the major parties have been the Democratic Party, founded in 1824, and the Republican Party, founded in 1854. Since the Civil War, only one third-party presidential candidate—former president Theodore Roosevelt, running as a Progressive in 1912—has won as much as 20% of the popular vote. The President and Vice-president are elected through the Electoral College system.
Democratic Party (United States)
After the War of 1812, the Federalists virtually disappeared and the only national political party left was the Democratic-Republicans. The era of one-party rule in the United States, known as the Era of Good Feelings, lasted from 1816 until the early 1830s, when the Whig Party became a national political group to rival the Democratic-Republicans. However, the Democratic-Republican Party still had its own internal factions. They split over the choice of a successor to President James Monroe and the party faction that supported many of the old Jeffersonian principles, led by Andrew Jackson and Martin Van Buren, became the modern Democratic Party. As Norton explains the transformation in 1828:
Electoral history of the American Independent and American parties
This is a list detailing the electoral history of the American Independent and American Parties, sorted by year. While initially a single party, a schism occurred between factions that sought either to expand the party's influence beyond into the North, and those that sought to concentrate largely within the Deep South. Though they were by 1976 established as two parties, it remains difficult to ascertain which candidates were loyal to which faction, and so they have been collected for the sake of simplicity into a single list.
Outline of American politics
The two major national parties are:
Justice Party (United States)
The Justice Party USA is a political party in the United States. It was organized in November 2011 by a group of political activists including former mayor of Salt Lake City Rocky Anderson as an alternative to what he saw as a duopoly of the two major political parties. One of the major goals of the Justice Party is removing corporate influence and other concentrated wealth from politics.
Liberalism in the United States
In the 1950s and 1960s, both major U.S. political parties included liberal and conservative factions. The Democratic Party had two wings: on the one hand, Northern and Western liberals, on the other generally conservative Southern whites. Difficult to classify were the northern urban Democratic "political machines". The urban machines had supported New Deal economic policies, but would slowly come apart over racial issues. Some historians have divided the Republican Party into liberal Wall Street and conservative Main Street factions; others have noted that the GOP's conservatives came from landlocked states (Robert Taft of Ohio and Barry Goldwater of Arizona) and the liberals tended to come from California (Earl Warren and Paul N. "Pete" McCloskey), New York (Nelson Rockefeller), and other coastal states.
Politics of the United States
The modern political party system in the United States is a two-party system dominated by the Democratic Party and the Republican Party. These two parties have won every United States presidential election since 1852 and have controlled the United States Congress since 1856. The Democratic Party generally positions itself as left-of-center in American politics and supports a modern American liberal platform, while the Republican Party generally positions itself as right-wing and supports a modern American conservative platform.
Third party (politics)
In the United States of America, there have been numerous "third parties". The largest since the mid-20th century are the Libertarian and Green Parties.
Libertarianism
A number of countries have libertarian parties that run candidates for political office. In the United States, the Libertarian Party was formed in 1972 and is the third largest American political party, with over 370,000 registered voters in the 35 states that allow registration as a Libertarian and has hundreds of party candidates elected or appointed to public office.
Two-party system
Duverger concluded that "plurality election single-ballot procedures are likely to produce two-party systems, whereas proportional representation and runoff designs encourage multipartyism." He suggested there were two reasons why "winner-takes-all" systems leads to a two-party system. First, the weaker parties are pressured to form an alliance, sometimes called a "fusion", to try to become big enough to challenge a large dominant party and, in so doing, gain political clout in the legislature. Second, voters learn, over time, not to vote for candidates outside of one of the two large parties since their votes for third party candidates are usually ineffectual. As a result, weaker parties are eliminated by voters over time. Duverger pointed to statistics and tactics to suggest that voters tended to gravitate towards one of the two main parties, a phenomenon which he called "polarization", and tend to shun third parties. For example, some analysts suggest that the Electoral College system in the United States, by favoring a system of winner-takes-all in presidential elections, is a structural choice favoring only two major parties.
Party system
There have been at least six different party systems throughout the history of the United States:
History of the United States Republican Party
The Republican Party, also referred to as the GOP (abbreviation for Grand Old Party), is one of the world's oldest extant political parties. The party values reflect economic conservatism, classical conservatism (modern day American conservatism) and corporate liberty rights. It is the second oldest existing political party in the United States after its primary rival, the Democratic Party. The party emerged in 1854 to combat the Kansas–Nebraska Act, an act that dissolved the terms of the Missouri Compromise and allowed slave or free status to be decided in the territories by popular sovereignty. The early Republican Party had almost no presence in the Southern United States, but by 1858 it had enlisted former Whigs and former Free Soil Democrats to form majorities in nearly every Northern state.
Kurt Vonnegut
Vonnegut did not particularly sympathize with liberalism or conservatism, and mused on the specious simplicity of American politics. "If you want to take my guns away from me, and you're all for murdering fetuses, and love it when homosexuals marry each other ... you're a liberal. If you are against those perversions and for the rich, you're a conservative. What could be simpler?" Regarding political parties, Vonnegut said, "The two real political parties in America are the Winners and the Losers. The people don't acknowledge this. They claim membership in two imaginary parties, the Republicans and the Democrats, instead."
Youth vote in the United States
The winner-take-all system in the United States limits the success of third party candidates who may have a difficult time achieving an electoral majority. Young people are increasingly supporting third party candidates, though the American political system has continued to foster a two-party system. In 1992, Ross Perot, a third party candidate for president, won 22 percent of the eighteen-to-twenty-four-year-old vote, his strongest performance among any demographic group". These third party candidates who gain such support from the youth of the U.S. do not benefit from major party coffers - they must campaign by themselves.
Simon Burns
Despite his conservative views, Burns is a "proud" supporter of the more liberal-leaning U.S. Democratic Party. Citing the big tent nature of American political parties, he argues "You can't just say that, because you’re a British Conservative, so you have to be a [U.S.] Republican. American politics isn’t contained in that way. Turn the clock back to the 1970s, and the Democrat Party went from the liberal Kennedy wing right through to the out-and-out racists in the Southern states. The Republican Party had its liberal wing – people like John Lindsay, Chuck Percy and Nelson Rockefeller."
Libertarian Party (United States)
While it is the third largest political party in the United States, it currently has no members in Congress or governorships, though it does hold three lower house state legislative seats. There are 511,277 voters (0.46% of total) registered as Libertarian in the 30 states that report Libertarian registration statistics and Washington, D.C. The Libertarian Party was the party under which the first electoral vote was cast for a woman (Tonie Nathan) for Vice President in the 1972 United States presidential election due to a faithless elector.
Republicrat
Republicrat or Demopublican (also Repubocrat, Demican, Democan, and Republocrat ) are portmanteaux names for both of the two major political parties in the United States, the Republican Party and the Democratic Party, collectively. These derogatory names first appeared in the presidential election of 1872.
Federalist No. 67
In modern society, the government, especially the executive branch, has struggled with the ever-growing mixture of republican and energetic governments. The executive branch can be held by two major political parties: the Democrats and the Republicans. The elections that take place every four years, unequal representation within Congress, and differing opinions makes it difficult to find a balance within the Executives. Each new term brings in new faces, who come with new ideas and backgrounds. This rapid exchange of power often leads to a president who tries to do too much in too little of time, which forces a president to be the main problem solver despite having Congress for guidance or intellectual support. This contributes to the overall sense that the president may hold too much power - much like a forceful dictator.
Politics of the United States
Most officials in America are elected from single-member districts and win office by beating out their opponents in a system for determining winners called "first-past-the-post"; the one who gets the plurality wins, (which is not the same thing as actually getting a majority of votes). This encourages the two-party system; see Duverger's law. In the absence of multi-seat congressional districts, proportional representation is impossible and third parties cannot thrive. Although elections to the Senate elect two senators per constituency (state), staggered terms effectively result in single-seat constituencies for elections to the Senate.
Third party (United States)
In the United States, if an interest group is at odds with its traditional party, it has the option of running sympathetic candidates in primaries. If the candidate fails in the primary and believes he or she has a chance to win in the general election he or she may form or join a third party. Because of the difficulties third parties face in gaining any representation, third parties tend to exist to promote a specific issue or personality. Often, the intent is to force national public attention on such an issue. Then, one or both of the major parties may rise to commit for or against the matter at hand, or at least weigh in. H. Ross Perot eventually founded a third party, the Reform Party, to support his 1996 campaign. In 1912, Theodore Roosevelt made a spirited run for the presidency on the Progressive Party ticket, but he never made any efforts to help Progressive congressional candidates in 1914, and in the 1916 election, he supported the Republicans.
Politics of India
Compared with other democratic countries, India has a large number of political parties. It has been estimated that over 200 parties were formed after India became independent in 1947.
Some features of the political parties in India are that the parties are generally woven around their leaders, the leaders are actively playing a dominant role, and that the role of leadership can be transferred, thus tending to take a dynastic route. The two main parties in India are the Bharatiya Janata Party, also known as the BJP and the Indian National Congress, commonly called the INC or simply Congress. These two parties dominate national politics. On the left-right political spectrum, the Indian National Congress is a welfare-heavy, centre party, whereas the BJP is a fiscally conservative, Right-wing party.
Polarization (politics)
In a two-party system like the U.S., a polarized legislature has two important characteristics: first, there is little-to-no ideological overlap between members of the two parties; and second, almost all conflict over legislation and policies is split across the broad liberal/conservative ideological divide. This leads to the conflation of political parties and ideologies (i.e., Democrat and Republican become nearly perfect synonyms for liberal and conservative) and the collapse of the ideological center.
Midwestern United States
The Midwest has been an important region in national elections, with highly contested elections in closely divided states often deciding the national result. In 1860–1920, both parties often selected either their president or vice president from the region.
One of the two major political parties in the United States, the Republican Party, originated in the Midwest in the 1850s; Ripon, Wisconsin had the first local meeting while Jackson, Michigan had the state county meeting of the new party. Its membership included many Yankees who had settled the upper Midwest. The party opposed the expansion of slavery and stressed the Protestant ideals of thrift, a hard work ethic, self-reliance, democratic decision making, and religious tolerance.
Republicrat
Another usage of the term puts the words together in order to voice the not unheard-of opinion that the two mainstream American political parties are the same with different names. Often, this usage expresses the sentiment of ordinary citizens who see all politicians as serving the same special interests and make little distinction between the two parties.
Earl Killian's U.S. political glossary defines the term as "a portmanteau of the words "Republican" and "Democrat"...used to symbolize the one-party nature of U.S. politics, when it comes to issues on which the dominant parties of the two-party system agree...In this view...Republicrats is then the name of the single U.S. political party, and the Republicans and Democrats are seen as factions of this one-party system, rather than as true independent parties."
History of conservatism in the United States
Except briefly in the 1860s-1870s, in the United States there has never been a national political party called the Conservative Party. All major American political parties support republicanism and the basic classical liberal ideals on which the country was founded in 1776, emphasizing liberty, the pursuit of happiness, the rule of law, the consent of the governed, opposition to aristocracy, and fear of corruption, coupled with equal rights. Political divisions inside the United States often seemed minor or trivial to Europeans, where the divide between the Left and the Right led to violent polarization, starting with the French Revolution.
Green Party of the United States
Peter Camejo was quoted in 2002 as claiming that he was a watermelon—green on the outside, but red on the inside. In January 2004, he initiated the Avocado Declaration, which compares Greens to avocados. "An avocado is Green on the outside and Green on the inside". The Declaration goes on to explain that Greens have a vital role in bringing democracy to the otherwise undemocratic two party system of the United States; that the Greens have a unique and independent identity as a third party, which cannot be subsumed into the Republican or Democratic parties; and that they cannot be dismissed by Republican or Democratic critics by implying that they are merely socialists or communists.
United States presidential primary
There is no provision for the role of political parties in the United States Constitution, since the Founding Fathers did not originally intend for American politics to be partisan. In Federalist Papers No. 9 and No. 10, Alexander Hamilton and James Madison, respectively, wrote specifically about the dangers of domestic political factions. Thus in the first two presidential elections, the Electoral College handled the nominations and elections in 1789 and 1792 that selected George Washington. The beginnings of the American two-party system then emerged from Washington's immediate circle of advisors. Hamilton and Madison, who wrote the aforementioned Federalist Papers against political factions, ended up being the core leaders in this partisanship: Hamilton became the leader of Federalist Party while Madison co-helmed the Democratic-Republican Party with Thomas Jefferson.
Politics of the United States
State parties exist in all fifty states, though their structures differ according to state law, as well as party rules at both the national and the state level.
List of candidates in the 2004 United States presidential election
The two major parties in the United States are the Democratic and the Republican parties which are on the ballot in all fifty States and the District of Columbia.
2016 United States presidential election
On the other hand, Green Party candidate Jill Stein stated that the Democratic and Republican parties are "two corporate parties" that have converged into one. Concerned by the rise of the far right internationally and the tendency towards neoliberalism within the Democratic Party, she has said, "The answer to neofascism is stopping neoliberalism. Putting another Clinton in the White House will fan the flames of this right-wing extremism."
Two-party system
Other parties in these countries may have seen candidates elected to local or subnational office, however. Historian John Hicks claims that the United States has never possessed for any considerable period of time the two party system in its pure and undefiled form.
Two-party system
However, as in other regions, the original rivalry between liberals and conservatives was overtaken by a rivalry between center-left (often social-democratic) parties vs center-right liberal conservative parties, focusing more in economic differences than in cultural and religious differences as it was common during the liberal vs conservative period. Examples of this include National Liberation Party vs Social Christian Unity Party in Costa Rica, the peronista Justicialist Party vs Radical Civic Union in Argentina, Democratic Action vs COPEI in Venezuela, the Colombian Liberal Party (despite the name, a democratic socialist party) vs the Colombian Conservative Party in Colombia, Democratic Revolutionary Party vs Panameñista Party in Panama and Liberal Party vs National Party in Honduras. After the democratization of Central America following the end of the Central American crisis in the 90s former far-left guerrillas and former right-wing authoritarian parties, now in peace, make some similar two-party systems in countries like Nicaragua between the Sandinista National Liberation Front and the Liberals and in El Salvador between the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front and the Nationalist Republican Alliance.
Political parties in the United States
Although American politics have been dominated by the two-party system, several other political parties have also emerged throughout the country's history. The oldest third party was the Anti-Masonic Party and was formed in upstate New York in 1828; the party's creators feared the Freemasons, believing they were a powerful secret society that was trying to rule the country in defiance of republican principles.
Political parties in the United States
Since its founding, the Republican Party has been the more market-oriented of the two American political parties, often favoring policies that aid American business interests. As a party whose power was once based on the voting clout of Union Army veterans, this party has traditionally supported more aggressive defense measures and more lavish veteran's benefits. Today, the Republican Party supports an American conservative platform, with further foundations in economic liberalism, fiscal conservatism, and social conservatism. The Republican Party tends to be strongest in the Southern United States and the "flyover states", as well as suburban and rural areas in other states. One significant base of support for the Republican Party are Evangelical Christians, who have wielded significant clout in the party since the early 1970s.
Purple America
Purple America is the belief that a more detailed analysis of the voting results of recent United States national elections reveals that the U.S. electorate is not as polarized between "Red" America (Republican) and "Blue" America (Democratic) as is often depicted in news analysis. The term reflects the fact that news organizations generally use the colors red and blue on maps to indicate when a state or congressional district has been won by a Republican or Democratic candidate, respectively. Because the American political system often awards a state or congressional district entirely to one candidate ("winner take all") without regard to the margin of victory, it results in a map that does not reflect the true distribution of "red" or "blue" votes across the nation. The distortions contained in these maps, the argument goes, contribute to the misperception that the electorate is highly polarized by geography.
Two-party system
Partisan politics revived in 1829 with the split of the Democratic-Republican Party into the Jacksonian Democrats led by Andrew Jackson, and the Whig Party, led by Henry Clay. The former evolved into the modern Democratic Party and the latter was replaced with the Republican Party as one of the two main parties in the 1850s.
History of the United States Democratic Party
The Democratic Party is the oldest voter-based political party in the world and the oldest existing political party in the United States, tracing its heritage back to the anti-Federalists and the Jeffersonian Democratic-Republican Party of the 1790s. During the Second Party System (from 1832 to the mid-1850s) under Presidents Andrew Jackson, Martin Van Buren and James K. Polk, the Democrats usually bested the opposition Whig Party by narrow margins. Both parties worked hard to build grassroots organizations and maximize the turnout of voters, which often reached 80 percent or 90 percent of eligible voters (at this time, suffrage was granted only to white males). Both parties used patronage extensively to finance their operations, which included emerging big city political machines as well as national networks of newspapers. The party was a proponent for slave-owners across the country, urban workers and caucasian immigrants.
List of third party performances in United States House elections
In the United States it is rare for third party and independent candidates, other than those of the six parties which have succeeded as major parties (Federalist Party, Democratic-Republican Party, National Republican Party, Democratic Party, Whig Party, Republican Party), to take large shares of the vote in elections.
Political organisation
Two-party systems are similar to multiparty systems in that power is not concentrated in one party and that parties have to consider the opinion of the general public in order to retain power by winning elections. However, two-party systems restrict the people's democratic rights by not authorizing the citizen's to found their own political parties.
Two-party system
Generally, a two-party system becomes a dichotomous division of the political spectrum with an ostensibly right-wing and left-wing party: the Nationalist Party vs. the Labour Party in Malta, Liberal/National Coalition vs. Labor in Australia, Republicans vs. Democrats in the United States and the Conservative Party vs. the Labour Party in the United Kingdom.
Two-party system
In countries such as Britain, two major parties emerge which have strong influence and tend to elect most of the candidates, but a multitude of lesser parties exist with varying degrees of influence, and sometimes these lesser parties are able to elect officials who participate in the legislature. In political systems based on the Westminster system, which is a particular style of parliamentary democracy based on the British model and found in many commonwealth countries, a majority party will form the government and the minority party will form the opposition, and coalitions of lesser parties are possible; in the rare circumstance in which neither party is the majority, a hung parliament arises. Sometimes these systems are described as "two-party systems" but they are usually referred to as "multi-party" systems. There is not always a sharp boundary between a two-party system and a multi-party system.
Noam Chomsky
Chomsky highlights that, since the 1970s, the U.S. has become increasingly economically unequal as a result of the repeal of various financial regulations and the rescinding of the Bretton Woods financial control agreements. He characterizes the U.S. as a "de facto" one-party state, viewing both the Republican Party and Democratic Party as manifestations of a single "Business Party" controlled by corporate and financial interests. Chomsky highlights that, within Western capitalist liberal democracies, at least 80% of the population has no control over economic decisions, which are instead in the hands of a management class and ultimately controlled by a small, wealthy elite.