Two-party system in the U.S.

In the context of politics, the phrase "two-party system" describes a system in which two broadly based political parties regularly compete for power within a government. The drafters of the United States Constitution distrusted political parties, considering them dangerous "factions" and the root of the political corruption in England that had led to the eventual settlement and formation of the United States. Despite this caution, parties began to develop in the United States shortly after the Revolutionary War during the debates over whether to ratify the Constitution, and US politics soon settled into a two-party system. Since the Civil War, the two major parties have been the Democrats and the Republicans.

US election laws, which employ a winner-take-all approach, promote and perpetuate the existence of two major parties rather than many small powerful parties. Many see the United States’ two-party system as a source of the nation’s long-term political stability. Because each major party includes many diverse interest groups from all over the nation, the parties must appeal to "middle of the road" voters in order to win elections. The major parties also maintain power by adopting the ideas of the smaller parties, commonly referred to as third parties, that also fit within their ideals.

Critics of the two-party system argue that the middle-of-the-road approach is more about the parties’ self-interest than the country’s welfare and causes the political process to stagnate, while any real differences between the two parties become negligible. Gallup polls suggest that many Americans are increasingly supportive of the idea of a strong third party taking part in government in order to break the gridlock between the two major parties.

Understanding the Discussion

Divided Government: When control of the federal government is divided between the two major parties; e.g., if the Republicans control the presidency and the Democrats control one or both houses of Congress.

Independents: People who have no formal affiliation with a political party. They are considered important factors in national elections, representing "swing votes" that could go to either party.

Major Party: One of the two leading parties in US politics, most recently the Democratic Party and the Republican Party. The major parties enjoy substantial benefits derived under federal election law, including taxpayer-subsidized matching funds.

Third Party: A smaller party, usually with limited or no influence at the national level, although some third parties have achieved substantial national success.

Two-Party System: A system in which two national political parties regularly compete for control of government.

History

The founding fathers of the United States had a deep distrust of political parties, stemming from the American colonists’ experiences with the British Parliament. In Britain, control of the government regularly passed between the two major parties, the Tories and the Whigs. Generally, the Tories tended to represent the interests of the monarchy and the nobility, while the Whigs drew their support from the middle classes and wanted more local authority. The colonists distrusted both sides as "corrupt factions" that were mostly interested in their own power; they wanted to choose leaders based on their character rather than on party membership.

James Madison, often called the "father of the Constitution," took a more moderate approach concerning political parties, recognizing their potential dangers but understanding that factions would always exist in a nation of so many different types of people with so many varying interests. This, he believed, would be particularly true in a large country. Madison argued that the Constitution’s system of checks and balances would prevent any one group from dominating the others.

Political factions began to appear in the 1780s during the debate concerning the ratification of the Constitution. Those who supported the Constitution were known as Federalists, because they sought a strong federal government rather than the loose confederacy of states that had existed under the original Articles of Confederation, while the group opposed to the Constitution became known as Anti-Federalists. These two groups were not political parties in the modern sense but simply represented strongly differing points of view. This changed in the 1790s, after the adoption of the Constitution.

The first real political parties were the Federalists, who supported a strong central government and improved relations with Great Britain, and the Democratic-Republicans, who favored more state control and better relations with France. The Federalists controlled the government until the presidential election of 1800, when Democratic-Republican leader Thomas Jefferson defeated the Federalist candidate, sitting president John Adams.

The Democratic-Republicans dominated politics until the 1820s, when the party fell apart in disagreement over the policies and leadership style of President Andrew Jackson. Those who supported Jackson became known simply as Democrats, while many of his opponents banded together as Whigs. Between them, the Democrats and the Whigs dominated politics until the late 1840s, when the two-party system splintered over the issue of slavery. The current Republican Party, established in 1856 to oppose the extension of slavery into the territories, became a major party in 1860 with the election of Republican candidate Abraham Lincoln as president.

The practical implication of the Union victory in the Civil War was that Republicans preponderated in national politics for the next several decades, although Democrats remained strong both in the former Confederacy and in Northern industrial cities. Both major parties developed powerful political organizations, known as "machines," which controlled politics from the local to the national level. Despite this extensive control, or perhaps because of it, many smaller parties formed during the late nineteenth century. Some third parties focused on single issues, such as the prohibition of alcohol or the use of paper money, while others promoted the interests of groups, such as industrial workers or farmers, who felt unrepresented by the major parties. While these smaller parties failed to successfully elect many of their candidates, their ideas often influenced the Republicans and Democrats, especially with regard to the adoption of social legislation.

The two-party system remained intact throughout the twentieth century, notwithstanding occasional third-party showings. Political commentators have argued that these third-party candidates were often election "spoilers," dividing one party’s vote and, consequently, giving the other party a majority. In 1912, former Republican president Theodore Roosevelt ran on the ticket of a third party he had created, the Progressive Party, against incumbent Republican president William Howard Taft and Democratic candidate Woodrow Wilson. Although Roosevelt won more electoral votes than Taft, the split in the Republican vote helped Wilson win the election. Similarly, H. Ross Perot’s strong independent campaign in the 1992 presidential election is considered to have taken votes from incumbent Republican president George H. W. Bush’s reelection bid, consequently aiding in the victory of Democratic candidate Bill Clinton; and, following the 2000 presidential election, many in the Democratic Party criticized Green Party candidate Ralph Nader for allegedly splitting the Democratic vote, resulting in an extremely close election that was eventually called in favor of Republican candidate George W. Bush over Democrat Al Gore.

From World War II until the mid-1990s, the United States often had a "divided government," in which one party (historically the Democrats) controlled Congress and the other party (historically the Republicans) controlled the White House. The Republicans briefly gained control of the House of Representatives in the 1950s but did not do so again until the 1994 "Republican Revolution" during the Clinton administration, led by Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich and other conservatives. The Republicans maintained control of Congress for twelve years (and, starting in 2001, control of the White House as well), albeit with increasingly narrow margins, until the Democrats regained control of both the House and the Senate in the 2006 elections. The national elections of 2008 were the first time since 1994 that the Democrats gained control of the presidency as well as both houses of Congress; however, the Republicans retook control of the House in 2010 and the Senate in 2014.

Political Parties Today

The Democrats and the Republicans continue to dominate US politics as they have since the Civil War. Many Americans, however, say that they are dissatisfied with the current two-party system, arguing that there is little tangible difference between the parties and that politicians are more interested in staying in office than in making real changes. Individual voters as well as smaller political parties have expressed discontent with how the major parties gerrymander, or reshape congressional districts to their advantage, and how the US Federal Election Commission sets the rules governing presidential debates to favor the two major parties to the exclusion of third parties.

Several third parties have achieved levels of prominence in the early twenty-first century. The most prominent among them include the Libertarian Party, which promotes civil liberties, free markets, and limited government; the Green Party, which supports environmentalism, social justice, and nonviolence; and the Constitution Party (formerly the US Taxpayers’ Party), which advocates an emphasis on Christianity, personal financial freedom, and strict interpretation of the Constitution. The Reform Party, which H. Ross Perot founded in 1995, achieved substantial success in local and state elections in the late 1990s, but it has subsequently declined in popularity, due in large part to infighting.

Following the poor showing of Texas representative Ron Paul in the Republican primary for the 2008 presidential election, a faction known as the "Tea Party movement" began to form within the Republican Party, focusing largely on issues such as limited government, reduced taxation, and opposition to immigration reform. However, despite using the "Party" label, adherents have shown little inclination to break away and establish an official political party separate from the Republicans.

Polling data from the Gallup consulting company suggests that many Americans are increasingly favorable to the idea of having a strong third-party presence in national politics in order to shake up the two major parties and make new voices heard within the American political system.

The 2016 US presidential election provided another example of how third-party candidates can influence results, even without being serious contenders in the race. Votes for the Green Party's Jill Stein and the Libertarian Party's Gary Johnson contributed to what proved to be an extremely narrow margin of victory for Republican Donald Trump over Democrat Hillary Clinton. In key swing states like Florida, and even traditionally more Democratic states like Michigan, hundreds of thousands of third-party votes surpassed the amount of votes by which Trump led Clinton, leading many analysts to suggest that this played a significant role in Trump's electoral college upset victory (he lost the overall popular vote considerably). Many pundits further argued that third-party votes were largely "protest votes," cast more to register dissatisfaction with the two mainstream candidates than out of a real hope of victory.

These essays and any opinions, information or representations contained therein are the creation of the particular author and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of EBSCO Information Services.

Bibliography

Books

Disch, Lisa Jane. The Tyranny of the Two-Party System. Irvington: Columbia UP, 2002. Print.

Gould, Lewis L. The Most Exclusive Club: A History of the Modern United States Senate. New York: Basic, 2005. Print.

Hillsman, Bill. Run the Other Way: Fixing the Two-Party System, One Campaign at a Time. New York: Simon, 2004. Print.

Remini, Robert V. The House: The History of the House of Representatives. New York: Harper, 2006. Print.

Periodicals

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Chideya, Farai. "For America’s Poor, It’s Clear a Two-Party System is No Longer Enough." Guardian. Guardian News and Media, 8 Nov. 2014. Web. 17 Feb. 2016.

Coy, Kristen S. "In Re Nader: Challenging the Duopoly of American Politics One Individual Signature at a Time."Widener Law Journal 15.2 (2006): 389–407. Academic Search Premier. Web. 15 June 2009.

Foster, Ezola. "What’s So Bad about Our Two-Party System?" National Minority Politics 7.10 (1995): 14. Academic Search Premier. Web. 15 June 2009.

Hindman, Matthew Dean, and Bernard Tamas. "The U.S. Has More Third-Party Candidates than It’s Seen in a Century. Why?" Washington Post. Washington Post, 31 Aug. 2016. Web. 29 Sept. 2016.

Huffington, Arianna. "Two-Party System Hurting America." Newsday. Newsday, 16 Feb. 2011. Web. 28 Nov. 2012.

Jaffe, Alexandra. "By the Numbers: Third-Party Candidates Had an Outsize Impact on Election." NBC News, 9 Nov. 2016, http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/2016-election-day/third-party-candidates-having-outsize-impact-election-n680921. Accessed 6 Jan. 2017.

Rothschild, Matthew. "The Third-Party Dilemma."Progressive Sept. 2012: 17–20. Points of View Reference Center. Web. 28 Nov. 2012.

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Saad, Lydia. "Support Up for Divided Government and Major Third Party." Gallup. Gallup, 14 Sept. 2006. Web. 14 Jan. 2007ar.