Political Ideology in America

George Washington once warned against the creation of a two-party system in the United States, fearing it would lead to all sorts of political problems. Now, if we should listen to the advice of a dead slave owning guy from centuries ago is debatable. However, we cannot deny that political polarization in the U.S. at the moment is at an all time high. But why is it like this?

Our answer can be found with the advent of further and further right Republican leadership, and a new generation of further and further left Democratic leadership that refuses to put up with sub par treatment by the other party. The Republican and Democratic parties have always been different - there’s a reason why they both exist - but the differences in the past were not, to put it plainly, quite always so bold. While the differences between the two parties now may seem to have come out of nowhere, they have in fact been building for a long time. Since the Civil War, and to some extent since before that, party differences have to some degree come down to who each one qualifies as a person. Now, the party names have switched since this time, and those against slavery in the time of the Civil War were often still quite racist, but the point is that once we moved past the basic issues of how to run a country, deciding who was allowed to fully participate created a divide. As we move forward through time, we see this with women’s movements, the civil rights movement, disability rights movements, the LGBTQ+ rights movement, and more. While both parties could be equally hostile towards these marginalized groups at first, the Democratic party is the one who is and was more likely to eventually adopt their cause.

Now, the Democratic party is far from perfect. In fact, one could argue that it is currently in itself splitting into a moderate, “old guard” group, and a more radical progressive group. This has only furthered political polarization, as these two groups disagree on how much to disagree with the Republican party, which has also split, though less noticeably, into moderate and radical factions. This is all to say that political polarization in the U.S. comes down to who each party believes is worthy of full rights and privileges as an American, as well as what those rights and privileges entail. The far left believes that everyone should be provided for to the fullest extent possible, while the far right believes that only the white, wealthy, cisgender, heterosexual, and able-bodied men should have these things.

I don’t have a solution for how we solve this cleavage. But a good first step would be for all Americans to realize that the right does not care about them if it is not convenient to do so, and that even the moderate left will only do what is necessary to fend off the right. We all need to realize that we are worthy of having our needs met, of having the right to be ourselves, even if the system says otherwise.