“Why do I have to vote?”
“You’re an American, aren’t you?”
I’ve had many conversations with Mr. Mac, my high school government teacher, that’d start this way. I’d question some part of the American governmental system, and he’d shoot back a sarcastic non-answer, smiling just wide enough to make his cheekbones shift in the way an old man’s would. I always suspected he enjoyed toying with his students like this, with the way he’d squint, expecting some half-baked response from his less politically savvy kids, and an emotional outburst from his more revolutionary ones. He likely enjoyed being the stalwart representation of America to us. Teaching the next generation its iron rule and unquestionable principles seemed to be his duty, and yet he still always encouraged us to try and question anyway.
“We live in Massachusetts, does it even matter? Democrats will always win.”
“It’s your right and your duty as a citizen. Don’t you want your voice to be heard? What if the Republicans won Mass?”
“They wouldn’t.”
I noticed a few eyes turning to me, with hard-to-read expressions.
“They could, though. You wouldn’t want that, right?”
I thought about what he said for longer than I expected myself to.
“What would be the difference?”
At the center of almost every conversation regarding U.S politics are two parties. Specifically, the Democratic Party and the Republican Party (GOP). Even stating this fact could seem trivial- from the moment we as U.S citizens are old enough to even comprehend politics, we are made sharply aware of a certain divide in the country. We are aware of two sides, warring over control of an abstract concept of a “presidency”, a further, even less clear semblance of a legislature, some sort of “Supreme Court” which is allegedly nonpartisan, and many more things that many of us will never come to fully understand. All we know is that to vote, and truly participate in the system of government that we live under, it seems we must first choose a side, and recognize the other side as our enemy.
Source: 2014 Political Polarization in the American Public, Pew Research Center
Political parties were once labeled as a concept to be strictly avoided by the U.S, should it value its future as a successful nation. George Washington, in his farewell address in 1796, stated: “The common and continual mischiefs of the spirit of party are sufficient to make it the interest and duty of a wise people to discourage and restrain it.” Interestingly, that very same year, after John Adams narrowly defeated Jefferson to claim the presidency, he passed the Alien and Sedition acts, essentially making it illegal to criticize the president or his administration. Four years later, when Jefferson’s Democratic-Republicans won back control of both the Presidency and Congress, they fired half of all federal employees- mostly members of the opposing Federalist party. The Federalists never won another presidential election after that. By 1860, Andrew Jackson’s Republicans had formed, and the two party system we know today with it. The very system that Alexander Hamilton once labeled “the most fatal disease” of governments had come to be, and it has only strengthened since then.
The U.S. uses a First-Past-the-Post voting system. In such a system, citizens simply cast a vote for a single candidate, and the candidate that accumulates the most votes wins the election. The winning candidate needs to only garner a plurality of votes, not a majority- so even if one candidate gains less than 50% of the total vote, but still has the highest total amount, they still win. FPTP is a winner-take-all system, meaning that in an election where Party 1 has 48% of the vote, and Party 2 has 47%, Party 1 gains full representation in whatever electorate was being voted on, and Party 2 gains none. Note that in this example, 5% of the vote is unaccounted for- Party 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7 can certainly nominate candidates, but will never gain any representation, for the fact that they will never realistically garner enough support to surpass parties 1 and 2. This concept is known as Duverger’s Law, and it has held consistent throughout the history of almost every plurality voting system worldwide.
Reform Party, 2023
Assume that Party 3, 4, and 5 are aware of this fact. Represented by the yellow circles in the above diagram, they may have certain beliefs or philosophies that coincide with Party 2, and since their own candidates will never receive representation, they choose to vote with Party 2 as to not “waste” their vote. And so, with disenfranchised or “swing” voters on their side, Party 2 now wins the election over Party 1, gaining the entire share of political representation. As a result, the stronghold of parties 1 and 2 on the government becomes even more defined, and third-party candidates dwindle even further into irrelevance. As it exists now, to be politically relevant in this country, you must either side with Democrats or Republicans, and to align yourself anywhere else is all but pointless.
In terms of actual political and moral philosophy, Democrats and Republicans are not very different. Both overwhelmingly agree with upholding democracy as an institution, and both express strong interest in finding bipartisan solutions to issues. Both parties have support of a generally market-driven model, and both place importance on freedom of press and speech. However, often by design of party leadership, the differences between Democrats and Republicans are overstated through media coverage, the economic encouragement of corporations with party elites, and tendency of candidates to stand firm with a party’s status quo. In a two party system, similarities exist at both the top and bottom- the elites of both parties benefit from maintaining control of government and discouraging third party radicals from participation, and the citizens of both parties are similar in their helplessness to foster actual change. Democrats and Republicans never “lose” or “win”- they only serve to keep elites in power and benefit corporate interest.
Many cultural issues that Democrats and Republicans clash over are blown far out of proportion by both media sensationalism and the lack of recognition that the “enemy” actually has similar goals to them. A study by the Society for Personality and Social Psychology shows that when members of opposing parties are presented with evidence that their ideologies show similar qualities, they are much more likely to accept the “opposing” party as an ally, and compromise on issues such as gun control and abortion. They are willing to accept the “outgroup” into the “ingroup”, and cooperate towards a more fair form of government (1).
Source: 2014 Political Polarization in the American Public, Pew Research Center
John Adams once 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.” Political polarization is at an all-time high, especially after the presidency of Donald Trump, the most divisive presidential candidate to date. Extremism is being pushed to the more extreme, and nonpartisan or disenfranchised voters are under more pressure to assimilate than ever before.
Understanding that conflict in a two party system only serves to benefit the elite and discourage individual voices is vital in understanding that such a system can change- only when we choose to see the similarities of us, as citizens, rather than differences highlighted by those in power who would like it to stay that way.
(1)https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/01461672231192384
Journalism 2.0 