The Political Party System

A political party is a group of people who seek to win elections and hold public office in order to shape government policy and programs. George Washington warned the nation against creating political parties in his famous “Farewell Address”. He feared political parties would divide the country and weaken support of the Constitution (Doc 4). The first major political parties, the Federalists and the Republicans, were created during the term of President George Washington. Despite President Washington’s warning, the rise of the two political parties, in the years after his term was inevitable. The Federalists were in favor of a strong central government, while the anti-federalists opposed most their ideas. Over time, the gradual development

Such parties may claim to be trying to answer rampant demands or solve serious problems, but their true intentions are to take the power away from the people and place it in the hands of men who don’t deserve it. In the words of Washington, he states: "However [political parties] may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion.” In this quote Washington explains how both parties (Democratic and Federalist) may love their country, but also about how he feared that having separate parties may leave the people loving their parties, more than our country. Ironically, when George Washington became President of the United States in 1789 during his first term, there were no political parties, and looking at today’s society, things have changed. George Washington was clearly very aware of the destructive nature of Political Parties and the harm that it could do to our country, but we have not learned from our mistakes to this day***** add something else/switch

A political party is defined as a group of people who come together to contest elections and hold power in the government. They agree on policies and programs for the society with a view to promote their supporters' interests. In democracies, political parties are elected by the electorate to run a government. The United States is a considered a two-party system, with its two most powerful parties being the Republican Party and the Democratic Party.

Generally speaking, anyone who lives in the United States of America knows that there are two main political parties—the Republicans and the Democrats. Having two main parties has its advantages and, of course, its disadvantages. For example, in By the People James E. Monroe and Rogan Kersh (301) point out having this type of system creates “predictability and stability.” However, they also declare (301) it can “lead to a gridlock.” This is not a new concept either as there has been a divide since the beginning of both parties. The two parties more often than not disagree on various issues, while rarely agreeing on what is best for the country.

We have Republicans and we have Democrats, and we have thousands of interest groups that tend to side with one of the two parties. Without these political parties, for example if we had stayed with what the Founders wanted, we would most likely have some sort of anarchy where nothing ever got done. Like what was said in the article How American Politics Went Insane by Jonathan Rauch “If the Constitution were all we had, politicians would be incapable of getting organized to accomplish even routine tasks. Every day, for every bill or compromise, they would have to start from scratch, rounding up hundreds of individual politicians and answering to thousands of squabbling constituencies and millions of voters. By itself, the Constitution is a recipe for chaos.” It is hard to imagine a country now without political parties, but we can hypothesize about what the effects might be. Political parties serve a few purposes in our country: they select candidates, they educate the masses who will be voting for those candidates, they help to construct policies that citizens care about, and they assist in the checks and balances of the party that holds power. The United States has approximately 319 million citizens, it would obviously be impossible to satisfy the wishes and needs of every single person, and with that large of a population, political parties to me seem like the best way to adjudicate for everyone. The Founders did believe in checks and balances, which are essential in a government like ours today. Currently, we have a President and party that is Republican and they do and say many things I disagree with, but because of our party system, I know that there are people in our government who are on my side and will stop them before it gets out of

The two-party system needs to be changed or completely abolished, because it offers limited ideas and opinions to run the country. The two parties have their own perspectives on issues such as gun control or abortion; Craig Goodman of the University of Houston claims he“doesn’t think it’s very democratic. Why should you exclude someone because they are a small number, and they don’t get to express themselves?” (Cargo 1). The two-party does not allow the middle ground or smaller parties to really have a say (Mathias 4).  Most voters only know the leading independent and the two party nominees. Kate Cargo describes “the two-party system leaves voter with low-quality ideas and frankly, low-quality candidates” (Cargo 1) while the third party candidate could have a great compromise on a hot issue, it will never see the light of day. While the two-party system does allow people to have easy access to the opinions of the parties on these issues, it does not make up for the limited options we have. As a country we need to have as many options as possible even if they are extreme. Accessibility is important, but it should never limit our options.

John Adams, one of the founding fathers, wrote that “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” (“Quote by John Adams”). The Two-Party system has been around since the start of America. The Two-Party system is a system that has two parties that the government, or America in this case, has that lead the government or America. At the current time, the two parties are the Republican and Democrat parties. It was created with the idea that everyone can be represented within either of the parties. Even though it does create some representation of the people, the two-party system does not create an equal policy in society because it does not allow people to get far if they are not within either of the two parties, does not allow the idea of having more than two parties, and because it doesn't represent everyone.

The 2016 elections are underway and citizens are wondering: why is there a Democratic and Republican party? What caused them to split up? Political parties are people who make an alliance with other people so, they can work together to win elections and have a say in the government. This is important to know because when you grow up and be able to vote you need to know the difference between democratic and republican.

The parties formed after the Constitution was adopted as the need to systematically search for and encourage popular support became apparent. The structure of a party allows a group of like-minded politicians to mold popular support in the favor of the candidate of their choice where alone they could only accomplish the creation of multiple less organized and therefore less politically potent factions. The nature of the political system already in place gave no value to coming in second or third in elections at any level of government, leading to the natural growth of two strong parties who battle for supremacy at every election (July 22). The winner takes all, and the opposition spends their time getting ready to try again as they wait for their next chance. Once the two parties, Democrat and Republican, were firmly settled in to the system they affected legislation to give themselves automatic ballot access and state funding, making election that much harder for other parties and thereby ensuring that it remained a two party system (July 22).

There have been many different political parties since the beginning of the American political system. A political party is made up of a group of people that share common goals and ideals, and these people work together to help elect people to offices that share these goals to represent them. Political parties work to try to control the government and their ultimate goal is to win as many elections and to gain as many offices as possible.

Since the administration of George Washington two political parties have dominated the United States political system, but they have not always been the same two parties. The first two parties were the Federalists and Anti-Federalists. Federalists were those who supported a strong federal government and the Anti-Federalists were those who did not. The leaders of the Federalists were Alexander Hamilton and John Adams. Both were from the Northeast where the Federalist line of thinking was strongest. Thomas Jefferson became the leader of the Anti-Federalists. These two groups really did not considered themselves parties. The founders feared parties because they thought of them as factions.

One of these systems, the American political parties, is another key system that has become broken in its own functions. Both parties have been in America almost since the beginning of our young Government. Both parties are always at odds with each other and never seem to agree on anything. Both only agree on one thing though, and it’s that of America’s wellness. The problem now and days is that you can’t see them actually trying to make any positive difference. The constant bickering and fighting between these parties stops many positive changes from happening. And now we have to deal with internal fighting within these parties.

When I walked in the room the television was blaring and there was a huge fight on the news. Their was a lot of screaming and arguing. The shocking thing was that it wasn’t some crazy teenagers fighting over their favorite sports team, it was the politicians of the United States. I constantly watch the news and I see Democrats and Republicans fight instead of work together. Government officials are supposed to collaborate to form bills and vote with the intention of helping the country. Instead they vote based on their political party. Although people think that political parties are helpful at establishing the views of the person running for office, it is actually hurting the country and making the government inefficient. A two party system

Today whenever you turn on the television, read a newspaper, or scroll through social media, you are bound to witness the same one thing – election season. This year of 2016 brings the time for Americans to elect a new President for the United States of America. While every American certainly has their own opinion on who is the best fit for the presidency spot, one thing is for certain; the elected president will either be of the Democrat Party or the Republican Party. The Democrat and Republican parties are the two largest political parties of the United States, and between the two of them, have won every presidential election since 1852. While Republican and Democrat parties do share similar goals, it is quite minor when compared to the substantial amount of differences between the two parties’ ideology pertaining to economic, domestic, foreign, and social issues. It is very important that one is informed of the differences as well as the similarities, of the two political parties, in order to make an educated choice come election time, when choosing the party and candidate that best represents your beliefs.

Even though it is not written in the U.S. Constitution for the United States to have political parties, a country having a multi-political party system is good. What it is supposed to do, in its truest sense, is keep the parties honest. A one-party system was attempted in the Confederate States after they seceded from the Union and it was a disaster. In the Confederate party, there were no competing interests. Whatever was decided by the party leaders, everyone had to go along with, whether the party leaders were right or wrong. The dominance of the new political party should create a multi-party system where the different parties are forced to compete with each other on who can make America