Parties in the United States

Hello all. This is my first post, and I hope to have many more like it. So, I assume a quick introduction is in order. I will be posting under the name of Weave as I do on all websites. Maybe you’ve seen me around, but most likely not seeing as how the internet is expansive. I’m currently a Junior in college and am deeply involved in political science. Over the course of many posts you will see where I stand on most issues and why I have such stances. But enough about me: let’s talk politics.

Today I would like to bring to attention a theory I’ve been working on for quite some time. There are more than two parties in the American political system. To clarify, I’m not talking about single issue parties such as the Abortion Party or the Light Party. Yes, I know that when a voter walks into the voting booth they have a choice of Democrat or Republican, but do those candidates truly represent what members of those parties believe in or are they members of smaller parties who feel that they need to have an R or a D stamped next to their name to stand a chance on the political battlefield? From what I have observed, the latter is nearer the truth. To further demonstrate this we're going to examine a list of what I believe are the political parties of America.


The Republican Party: We all know this party and how it has changed over the course of our history, but we will save that history for another discussion. We need to look at what this party is today. The Republican Party as we know it is an organization of people whose political ideals lean to the right but who have some left ideals as well. This party likes to talk about small government but when in office rarely lives up to that conviction. In most cases the Republicans will shrink power or spending in one area of government influence while taking more someplace else. The Republican Party under Reagan and G.W. Bush also tended to cut taxes but continue to spend money, exercising, as former president George Bush put it, “voodoo economics.” Morality is also a highly-publicized tenet of Republican candidates, intimating by donning said mantle that that characteristic is scarce in opponents. Ironically, extramarital affairs, financial skulduggery, and similar shenanigans are hardly absent from those same candidates.

The Democratic Party: Again I’m not here to give a history lesson on the Democratic Party. Today, the Democrats represent the left. Their philosophies of late revolve around using government to promote social change. This means a stronger central government with more power to make quick decisions. Democrats are also understood to rely more heavily on taxation than Republicans and to spend even more (though this is not by any means a universally applicable definition). Socially, Democratic candidates score points by telling the people that they will take care of them. The apparent removal or lightening of individual responsibility and effort citizens anticipate will come from electing Democrats have won members of the Democratic Party the label of “free thinkers” and “progressives.”

The Conservative Party: This is what I would consider to be the far right party in America. Many Conservatives are associated and associate with Republicans but feel like the Republican Party isn’t promoting small government and less intrusion enough and is too caught up in trying to pass bipartisan legislation. Conservatives typically espouse less spending, less taxing, and overall a less ubiquitous government presence and influence. When I came up with this theory I had no idea that someone running in New York’s 23rd congressional district would be running on a Conservative ticket. But, presto: Mr. Doug Hoffman has stepped up to the plate, and has received a great deal of publicity from conservative commentators as a result of his departure from views and practices seen in the mainstream Republican candidates.

The Socialist Party: A lot of people will disagree with me on this but I’m going to go ahead and say it. Though it is traditionally considered an economic distinction rather than a political one, real world application of socialist policy prevents a complete separation of those two arenas. There is an active Socialist Party in America that has hidden themselves under the title of Democrat to stand a better chance in getting elected. As it is still unpopular to be labeled (by oneself or otherwise) a Socialist, many have labeled themselves Democrats, but embrace more traditionally socialist policies such as wealth distribution, press control, and community activism funded on a federal level. What results is an inaccuracy in labeling that is similar to Conservatives calling themselves Republicans.

A lot of my professors disagree with this theory and give the counter-argument that the Republicans and Democrats have just become more polarized. I mainly disagree with this because there are still a lot of Rs and Ds who still champion their party’s issues with out adhering to the more polarizing policies. A good example of this would be the Democrats opposing Senator Baucus' healthcare plan. A true Democrat would never advocate a program that has the support of fewer than 50% of the the people they claim to represent. The excruciating taxation of "cadillac plans" and the assumption of corruption within corporate interests attached to the health care industry are more identifiable with Socialist than Democratic agenda. While it is true that Democrats are supporters of big government and other socialist political ideals, they aren’t typically supporters of Socialist economics, and therein lies enough of a departure to warrant a complete separation of the parties. That it is difficult to separate that policy from what we have come to expect from Democrats merely underlines the point of this article and the broad differences between poles within individual parties, let alone the political system as a whole. Furthermore, parties only appear more polarized because the some party members holding office tend to fall further right or left. People vote for these candidates and that makes the voter appear polarized when really the voter probably didn’t have another choice of candidate.

In the end while it may be a very long time before the emergence of these two parties I’ve mentioned or similar ones. They both exist, though, whether or not they know it, and they are both becoming prominent figures in American politics sooner or later. Thank you all for reading.