Everyone is Wondering About the President... What About the System that Chooses him/her

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With the 2020 elections coming right around the corner, everyone has questions, the main one being who will make the best president? But that brings up another question. How do we chose a president, and can this system be improved? As of now, we use a two-party system. Even though it works fine, it can be improved. The first step in doing so is looking at the pros and cons of our system. Here are 5 advantages and disadvantages of our system.

The Democratic and Republican parties

Advantages of a Two-Party System

1) A Two-Party System is Less Complicated for Voters

Imagine a voting ballot with the names of every candidate that wants to run for the presidency. That list would be miles long and would take hours to read. The two-party system ensures that this won’t happen. On ballots nowadays there are usually three options to chose from, the Democratic candidate, the Republican candidate, and a write-in candidate. This decreases the work needed for a voter and makes voting much easier.  


2) A Two-Party System Encourages Political Participation

As we all know, electrons in circuits are known to take the path of least resistance or the easiest path. The same is true for humans. It is human nature to not want to think too hard or do much work. This is why a two-party system encourages political participation. Since a two-party system is very organized and compact the voters will not have to do much work to find out about candidates and vote. On the other hand, with no political parties, information and candidates will be so disorganized and mixed up that people will not want to vote. 

Voting in the U.S as of now


3) A Two-Party System Helps Make Decisions Faster
In some cases, political parties help bring people together. They act like very strong friend groups when it comes to making decisions. Imagine that you are at a party where boys like to hang out with the boys and girls like to hang out with girls. Now imagine that the boys are one political party, and the girls are the other. If one girl brings up an idea, in most cases, all the girls will follow that girl, and all the boys will be against that idea. This is essentially what happens when decisions need to be made in government. All members of one political party will follow their own representative’s idea, and all members of the other party will reject that idea. Take the impeachment trials of Donald Trump for example. Only one Republican voted for President Trump to be impeached. Without political parties, it would take much longer for anything to get done.   

4) A Two-Party System Allows for the Average Person to Make a Change
By having political parties, people can work together with others who share certain beliefs and ideas. This creates a collective voice instead of an individual one, making it possible for more people to listen to the crowd. Even though the loudest individual will be heard the most, an average person will be able to make a difference. 

5) A Two-Party System Makes Organizing Elections Simpler
With the two-party political system, there are fewer people needed to contact and talk with. This makes it much easier to schedule and run events addressing the public. This, in turn, increases the chance for more debates which will raise awareness for major public issues that need to be addressed.
Democratic primary debate

Disadvantages of a Two-Party System

1) A Two-Party System Creates Bias Towards Candidates
Even before people hear about the political candidates they already have an incline towards the candidate of their party even if that candidate is ten times worse than the other candidate. Without political parties, voters can assess candidates without a preexisting bias. A political affiliation traps the voter’s mind into one way of thinking. 

2) A Two-Party System Makes it Very Hard for a Third Party Candidate to be Recognized
The whole system of voting in the U.S is based upon the Electoral College and Electoral votes. This means that if a candidate gets 51% of a particular state, they get all the votes. This makes it extremely tough for a third party that isn’t very well funded to even be recognized in the election itself. You don’t believe me? Just one name, Jill Stein. My guess is that you have never heard of her. She was the Green Party candidate for the 2016 presidential elections. Even though she had 1,193,964 popular votes, she didn’t get a single electoral vote. 
left to right: Qr code to an interview about the 2016 election, Jill Stein 2016 presidential campaign

3) The Two-Party System Limits Voters' Choices
When voting most people think that voting for a third party is a waste of their vote. In all fairness, they’re right. The system that we have right now makes it so that any third party vote is obsolete. Why, you ask? The electoral votes. To get electoral votes you need a majority in the state. This is why people don’t want to vote for a third party or independent candidate. People don’t believe that they can get a majority, and since everyone believes this, the third-party candidates won’t get anywhere in the election. 

4) A Two-Party System Encourages Herd Mentality
Political parties are essentially friend groups on steroids. If one powerful republican has an idea all the other republicans will agree to that idea even if they do not agree with it. This is because of peer pressure and the threat of not getting elected for office again. The herd mentality makes it so that so many voices are silenced. Everyone wants to stay in the game, and if they don’t follow an idea, they may get pushed out.  

5) A Two-Party System Makes it Very Hard for New Ideas to be Introduced
Since Democrats will most likely only vote for democratic ideas and vice versa great new ideas cannot be introduced. If a Republican has a great idea the Democrats will shut it down, and if a Democrat has a great idea the Republicans will shut it down. All these great ideas keep getting tossed away in order to create a compromise. 


Although no system is ever perfect, we can always strive for perfection. It may seem that the two-party political system is harmful to our country, but it does have benefits. The most notable of these benefits is that the system makes it easy to organize debates and elections. This is why implementing another democratic system will be so hard. It would take six months just to organize the candidates themselves. In theory, a newer revolutionized system sounds like a great idea, but when implemented the logistics would prove too much to handle. As we move closer and closer to election day, good luck on finding the lesser of the two evils.  

 - post by Krissh Bhargava

Comments

  1. AnonymousMarch 17, 2020 at 11:42 AM

    Hi Krissh! I liked your analysis on the United States' government system and how you chose to talk about both the pros and cons of having two main parties. I think your point about the two main party system allowing for more debates to discuss important issues is a good point and something I hadn't really thought of in the past. I wonder however what would be the result of having a three main party system instead of just a two main party system.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Krissh BhargavaMarch 18, 2020 at 8:41 PM

      Dear John! I would love to answer your question about having a three main party system. Although at first it seems like a good idea, it will still have the same issues as a two-party system, except that there will be more choices for voters to chose from. The same problems that occur in a two-party system will still occur in a three-party system as well. The only way to rid of these problems is to have tons of political parties, or no political parties. But doing this brings up even more problems than it solves.

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