It’s divisive, archaic, and shameful.
We have many labels for the two major political parties in the United States, each designed to maintain a clear separation:
Democrats vs. Republicans — Liberals vs. Conservatives — Blue vs. Red — Left vs. Right
Essentially, it’s Us vs. Them no matter which side you’re on. And this is the problem. It’s never Us and Them.
Having a two-party political system and voting process is divisive by its very nature, and the politicians themselves often help widen the gap. You are required to choose a side as each wants to beat the other. Sure, there are independent candidates, but having dominant parties makes it almost certain that they will never win an election.
How many of us lost friends or suffered fractured relationships during or after the Trump / Clinton presidential election? At the very least we probably participated in some heated social media debates. It’s likely that such fallout would have occurred even without the party element as we had the most polarizing candidate and eventual president of my lifetime. However, having only these two choices was definitely a contributing factor. If you didn’t like either option you were forced to choose who you considered to be the lesser of two evils.
Some may feel that we need a way to categorize people of similar beliefs and interests, and differentiate between those with an alternate perspective. So, if we didn’t have political parties, how would we do this? My question is, why do we need to? I get wanting to vote for officials who support your personal views and issues that are important to you, but this can be done without the perpetual box that is party affiliation.
I know folks who vote Republican or Democrat based solely on which side their family supported when they were growing up. People will go in and vote straight down the party line without much thought to who any of the candidates are or what they stand for. There is literally nothing that would make them break this alliance. The respective nominee could be the absolute worst possible option, a certified awful human being proven to be a liar, cheater, stealer and committer of various heinous acts and people will still vote for him or her because…
