Growing up, I often questioned why I had to identify with Republicans or Democrats.
I grew up with concerns relating to and expressing need for social change while having hardened beliefs on free markets and conservative business model ideology. I always felt like I was in the middle of the Democratic-Republican divide, and the more I talked with friends, I noticed them feeling the same way. As we grew up, it was a decision we all made to identify with one party over the other to ensure our vote would be heard, but we persistently found ourselves in “the middle” of the popularized American political spectrum.
A frightening trend has seized our progressive ability to problem solve in the two-party system of the U.S. today. The historical significance of political parties originated from constituents’ desire to have a voice in Congress, but the alarming trend is one that silences a grave population of voters.
Constituents are entrapped between adhering to the discourse of the Democrats versus the Republicans. With this two-party system, we have fundamentally reset our political progressiveness under a rule of game theory. We have only two plausible players: independents and other third party members that choose to be outside of the Democratic Party, and Republican nominees who are essentially throwing away their chance to be heard at the national level of modern American democracy.
American democracy has brainwashed our society into viewing the two-party system as the most progressive and proportionally representative way of governance, but this is simply not true. Only 32 out of the 195 governments in the world, or 20 percent, use the two-party system. Since the 1980s, about 30 to 35 percent of the voting population in the country has identified as independent. In 2017, the registration of independents went up to an all-time high of 42 percent; so far in 2018, that number has increased past 43 percent.
The following quotes were pulled from a letter sent to my residence in Athens this past month. The letter was from the Republican National Committee addressed to registered Republican party members as a request for funds to use in the coming midterms.
It started off with a prewritten pledge of support for the president that was intended to be signed by the registered party member: “Please know that I am 100% behind you in these critical times when it is extremely vital that we all stand together against the Democrats, the mainstream media and other powerful foes who are determined to derail your presidency and destroy you personally.”
The bottom of the letter contained a prewritten section addressed to Melania Trump to receive the allocated funds: “...to help ensure that the (Republican National Committee) will have the critical funds available in the months ahead to fight for President Trump’s agenda against the non-stop attacks by the Democrats and the mainstream media.”
This pugnacious and quarrelsome language employed by the Republican Committee makes a substantive effort to subconsciously suggest that modern politics are a war, and the enemies are here with us on our very soil.
Messages like these are pushing our policymaking ability away from respectful debate and incentivizing the blame game, which is historically one of the least progressive modes of debate. Recent congressional applications of this occurrence are most vividly denoted by the increasing trend of government shutdowns. That occurs when Congress or the president fail to pass or sign appropriations. Those are the direct result of the blame game, when no one will take responsibility for what is happening and prefer to argue over the cause of the issue instead of handling the issue head on.
The first ever U.S. government shutdown was in 1980, with six other shutdowns occurring between then and 2000. In 2013, there was a shutdown that lasted 16 days. So far in 2018, there have been two shutdowns.
There is no way to eliminate lobbying or the incentive for interest groups to team up in order to sway ballots for presidents and policy issues in a certain direction. A multiparty system forces weaker groups to attempt to form winning coalitions with more popular groups. This strategy still allows for lobbying and influence to take place, but it would be more spread out and carried out between a multitude of parties, resulting in the overall corporate influence and corruption to ultimately become dissipated within the political structure.
The two-party system fundamentally lacks the comprehensive ability to be representative of the American population. Until this inherent discrepancy is addressed at the national level, the underproduction and lack of efficiency of our policymaking and presidential leadership will persist unchecked.
The two-party system undermines progressive debate, proliferates corporate influence and corruption, and exemplifies the inefficiencies of having all aspects of public debate allocated within one arena to occur between only two viable players.
Nick Shook is a senior studying political science pre-law at Ohio University. Please note that the views and opinions of the columnists do not reflect those of The Post. Do you agree? Let Nick know by emailing him at ns258814@ohio.edu.
