Party Polarization Examples

From their earliest formation, political parties have been a controversial aspect that have both strengthened and weakened the United States. It has a massive effect on voters, congress, and policymaking in the government. Party polarization is the prominent division that exists between parties, most noticeably Democrats and Republicans, because of the extreme differences of the ideological beliefs of the opposing parties. In the past, many individuals considered themselves “mixed” and did not associate themselves with just one side. According to www.pewresearch.org, “the share of Americans who express consistently conservative or consistently liberal opinions has doubled over the past two decades”. Every year less and less people consider

themselves mixed between two or more political parties and more people are strongly associating themselves with their party than ever before in American history. Increasing party polarization causes many problems for the government. With party members determined to stand behind their own beliefs, it becomes difficult for the two parties to find common ground. The evident discord between Congress members then leads to polarization amongst voters and visa versa. The causes to political polarization are
The earliest leaders of America were aware of the detrimental problems that political parties could cause and did not want these factions to affect American politics.

This being known, upon George Washington’s retirement in 1796, he warned Americans to avoid political parties at all costs. In his Farewell Address he said “The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism" (http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/washing.asp). He claimed the adherence to one side would lead to inter-political conflict, which would divide the nation and possibly give rise to forms of dictatorship. Despite his warnings, political associations in the young United States began to divide even before the Constitution was signed. In those first stages, the two political parties were The Federalists and the Anti-Federalists. Alexander Hamilton was one of the early representatives of what became known as the Federalists. The people in this party were strong supporters of a strong central government. Thomas Jefferson and James Madison believed that the individual states deserved more power than the federal government, which should be weak. These people began to be appropriately known as Anti-Federalists, or the Democratic-Republicans. Thus, the first political parties were

formed.
The most prevalent explanation for the increase in party polarization in Congress focuses on electoral change. The most often identified perpetrator is the one-sided shift of the white South. As southern whites, particularly conservatives have grown increasingly Republican, conservative southern Democrats have disappeared from Congress. This has left behind a more uniformly liberal Democratic union. Meanwhile, Republicans who were nearly nonexistent in the South in the 1950s, now hold a majority of southern congressional seats. Southern Republicans tend to be even more conservative than their non-southern counterparts and have also constituted most of the very-conservative GOP leadership in recent years.