Political Parties

As we have all heard time and time again, George Washington in his Farewell Address after two terms as President of the United States said to the young nation that political parties and the polarization of the political process would be detrimental to the progress of the country.  Despite this advice, political parties developed in the country, and they started to tear people apart, as expected.

However, even though this sounds like it's a bad thing and in light of recent events it seems as though political parties have done nothing but hurt the nation, we should consider the fact that it was probably impossible for political parties to not take root.

People love to identify with a group of other people.  The fact that we are social creatures that want to be able to come together under one common cause is a huge factor in the formation of political parties.  Very rare is the person that just goes out on their own and does something without the support of others when it comes to politics.  They usually want to go in with some sort of following before they do anything because without it, they have no power.

The Republican and Democratic parties that we know today started out as groups of people who had similar ideals who were going to try to push for certain things to get passed through Congress and the rest of the government, while trying to block other things.  People made alliances, tried to make strategic moves, do certain things to intimidate, charm, or trick the other side into making a mistake or doing things the way they wanted and just like that, the political process of today was formed.

There is nothing in the Constitution about primaries or any sort of nomination process for someone to run for President.  Legally, someone can just meet the qualifications that are spelled out in the Constitution and they can decide one day that they want to run for President.  Third party candidates usually take this route and they try to gain a following through grassroots organizations or small groups of people that have a passion for certain things.  Third party candidates can also come from failed primary elections, and they can end up running for a third party if they don't make it past the primary stage.

Sadly, third parties don't usually have a good chance of winning elections.  As we all know, a third party has never won a presidential election, and there have only been a few of them who have won seats in the Senate and House over the years, but they usually don't last long.  Independents and Libertarians are the third parties that have seen some moderate success over the years because they seem to identify with  most of the general public.  The general public just isn't as informed about these candidates due to the fact that they aren't allowed to participate in the debates.

In short, I believe that third parties need to play a bigger role in the government so that we can be more democratic and can start to appeal to those who don't vote because the two party system doesn't cater to their needs.