American Political Party System Essay

The American political party system has been a jigsaw puzzle since its inception July 2, 1776. America is a political system of two main parties: the republicans and the democrats. Although there are other parties that exist republicans and democrats are the only two that win positions in office. To establish the two party system means when there are splinter parties that are rarely parties created claiming neither democrat or republican but rather fractions of the original party. For example there are Conservative, Libertarian, and Progressive wings of both the democratic and republican parties. The topic then begs the question why do political parties splinter and is the result for the betterment of humanity/the country? It is human nature to form groups when the members are similar; animals are grouped by air, water, and land, food is grouped my origin and ingredients, religion is grouped by belief etc; therefore, it is only natural for people to do the same within the political world. People are drawn together by similar beliefs and that is how different parties originate. The parties can splinter several different ways. A popular view is that political parties splinter when one party is turned against itself. This has happened all through out history. A popular example is the election of 1912
between Taft and Roosevelt when the Republican party split and created the Progressive party. Around the same time in the early nineteen-hundreds the Socialist party experienced extreme division. During World War I the political leaders started to face disagreement between members resulting in several leaders breaking off to form the Social Democratic League. After the Russian Revolution in 1919 the Socialist Party underwent more stress as three more groups broke away taking the parties power with them. The Socialist Party never recovered and slowly dissolved. Splits that involve pulling members with them can be detrimental to a party and like the Socialist Party they can be nearly impossible to recover from. Unlike division between members and leaders another way splinter parties originate is because a candidate may break away from his/her original party because he/she believes he/she has a better chance of winning a seat under a different “ticket”. In the election of 2016, it was suggested that if Donald Trump did not win the Republican ticket he would run as an Independent. This would have been considered a split because the republican vote would have been split between two parties. These splits may seem abrupt because it is not necessarily when there is strife within the group rather it is a decision independence of the party members. Because of the decision being independent it is easier for the party to recover from and meld back together again. Fractions in parties can occur with little to do with the members in the party. On occasion the split can be caused by outside forces. After World War II, the drama from communism outside of America caused the American Communist party to die. The people saw what communist could stand for and they did not want that to be a part of America. Another possibility is if a new strong party emerges, the party can potentially take the voters from other parties, forcing the old parties to be suffocated by the new party of power. Splinter groups also form when two parties merge to create a new party. Similar to in the twentieth century when the Social Democratic Party of America merged with the "Rochester" group to create The Socialist Party of America. In fact a few years earlier the Rochester group left the Socialist Labor Party in 1899 to form a group with a new morals. It was the radical people of the Socialist Labor Party that realized they did not support their party and had the drive the create a new party. Often radicals is just what a people need to leave what is comfortable and start something new. (alexander) In the nineteenth century the First International political group was formed. The members had nothing to bind them together so when a dispute broke out it was the different sides that were created that caused bonding between members and eventually the Socialist Labor Party to be created. As time went on quarrels continued to happen and the group evolved from one party to another. Political Party breaks are not always distinct in some cased they slowly mold from one split to another seamlessly. Robert J.
Alexander, the author of “Splinter Groups in American Radical Politics”, argued that the reason Democrats and Republicans do not have set morals is because “such ideas are alien to the American tradition. Almost since political parties first evolved in the United States, ideas of party orthodoxy have been notoriously lax. There is little or no Democratic or Republican "orthodoxy" on anything. There are almost as many "factions" in each party as there are members” (Alexander 307) Nothing about that statement declares unity and it is because, like Mr. Alexander stated, there are more factions within Democratic and Republican party than
members.