This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2017, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
From very early in its history, the United States has been plagued by a disease known as partisanship. Partisanship is defined as prejudice in favor of a particular political ideology; also known as bias, bigotry and intolerance (Thesaurus.com). From loyalists versus revolutionaries to Federalists versus Democratic-Republicans, now the fight is Democrats versus Republicans.
This grip political parties have on society must be loosened, if they are not, political parties are going to continue to hurt America.
Ineffective behavior of Congress is due to the constant tension between parties and their frustrating refusal to work together. When dealing with problems such as healthcare, the democrats say that the ACA is, overall, effective. The republicans believe it needs to be repealed. That is where the "discussion" ends. Politicians refuse to look across party lines for possible answers. Journalist Michael Coblenz says, "the ludicrous idea that every public policy problem has two, and only two, approaches. [It's] nonsense."
The main goal of political parties is to get their people elected so their specific policies can be put into place. Whatever happened to the time when the main goal of politicians was to help the American people and make America a better place? Is that time now gone?
The political arena is not the only place that this hold of political parties is evident, we the people are influenced by it as well. Many studies have concluded that people tend to move into communities with people who hold similar views as we do; it is who we associate ourselves with; and it is with whom we gossip about the opposing side. This effect is also known as group polarization. Group polarization is the constant build-up to extreme negative emotions against a group that doesn't agree with our opinions.
Two doctorate students, one at Princeton, the other at Stanford, collaborated on a thesis and found that, "In the contemporary American political environment, there is evidence of increasing hostility across party lines ... Among Americans who say they identify with a political party, negative views of the out party and its supporters have risen sharply since the 1980s."
As previously stated, having two major political parties limits the view point of policies and their problems. An example of this is straight-ticket voting. Hypothetically, let's say that a person always votes straight ticket Republican or Democrat but they didn't research and find that their candidate might not be the most honest person, or that they had a criminal record, or they didn't have effective political experience; would any of those reason make you question their fitness to serve, even if they did share your political beliefs? Would you vote for them if you knew?
Some people might still vote for them, some might look at a different candidate, some might not vote at all. Part of our responsibility as citizens is to research the candidates and policies and vote for the person who we think would do the best job for our communities and country.
In a big country like America, it's easy to feel like our votes don't count. But because we live in a republic, we do have power. The people have all of the power.
Just imagine, if everyone who didn't feel like their votes count, actually did vote, what changes could be made? What elections would be altered? How different would our country be? The only cure for a country going in the wrong direction is political education and a willingness for the people to act.
A.B. Neil is a psychology major attending Weber State University.