Critique of the US Two-Party System

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Amid the United States presidential elections scheduled this year, a large segment of voters is in a doldrum. They are disgruntled with the Democratic Party’s unconditional support of Israel’s genocide in Gaza. However, this segment of the population is equally pessimistic regarding a policy shift from the Republican Party that has historically maintained, an even more ardent support for Israel; leading to a dilemma regarding who to vote for in this two-party system.

A survey by NBC News indicates that most of the population favors neither Trump nor Biden in the 2024 presidential race. Nonetheless, it seems as if this entrenched two-party system will never be effectively challenged in the future. This situation renders American democracy in a downward spiral vis-a-vis an accurate reflection of the general will and the social contract.

The two-party system, rooted in the American political arena, is at the crux of its recent democratic backsliding. The repercussions of a two-party system include extreme political polarization, partisanship manifested by government shutdowns, a split Congress, and political gridlocks.

An electoral system where only two major parties have a fair chance of winning elections at the local, state, and federal levels is a two-party system. In this political setup, third parties seldom have a chance to gain significant political space in the political process.

No sooner than the first decade of its independence from the British Monarchy, the party system came to dominate politics in America against the founding fathers’ wishes. George Washington, America’s first president, warned against forming political parties due to the inextricable fallouts of partisanship and polarization. Nevertheless, the federalists and anti-federalists—political factions wooing divergent systems—emerged on the national political landscape.

The Democratic and Republican Parties dominate the contemporary US political landscape.

The Republican Party was founded in 1854 by anti-slavery factions before the American Civil War. Contemporary Republicans are conservatives, mostly Evangelical........

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