Two-Party System
What are political parties? Basically they are groups that want to gain political power and influence public policies. Political parties were created to represent the people of our nation and their ideas on public policies. Over time they have developed and become a big part of our democratic government. Our American political party system is based on a two-party system, meaning there are two major parties that dominate elections. Political parties are important to our nation because they help the voices of the governed to be heard. Political parties derived from the conflict over ratifying the Constitution. It was then, when the first two political parties were created. They were called the Federalists and Democratic Republicans. Today, our two major parties are the Democrats and the Republicans. Republicans usually tend to be more conservative while Democrats are more liberal. Our two-party system is important because it provides balance and keeps the nation from going to one extreme or the other. Although we have two major parties, third parties do exist. Third parties are known as minor parties, they are parties that play a small role in politics and elections but never win. There are different types of minor parties such as: Ideological parties, single-issue parties, economic protest parties, and splinter parties. For example, the Free Soil party was a single issue party which opposed the spread of slavery in the 1840s and 1850s. Even though these parties n ever win elections they still play a major role like: pulling votes away from the major parties (spoiler role), draw attention to controversial issues, and innovate solutions to problems. Third parties can be important because if any of the two major parties doesn’t fit a person’s ideas they will always have more options like third parties. Our political system is not perfect, but has worked throughout many years. Our two major parties have different views but