USA Parties, Ideology and Politics

USA Parties, Ideology and Politics

Politics in the United States have operated under a two-party system for virtually all of the country's history. For elective offices at all levels, state-administered primary elections are held to choose the major party nominees for subsequent general elections. Since the general election of 1856, the two dominant parties have been the Democratic Party, founded in 1824 (though its roots trace back to 1792), and the Republican Party, founded in 1854. Since the Civil War, only one third-party presidential candidate—former president Theodore Roosevelt, running as a Progressive in 1912—has won as much as 20% of the popular vote.

Within American political culture, the Republican Party is considered "center-right" or conservative and the Democratic Party is considered "center-left" or liberal. The two ideologies competing within the political mainstream are modern liberalism and modern conservatism. The former is distinguished through its belief in Positive liberty, holding that freedom requires the opportunity to live life as one would chose. Consequently liberalism seeks the universal provision of all three generations of human rights, including for example, freedom of speech, property ownership, education, health care and a clean environment - all of which are seen as prerequisites for liberty and human development. Modern conservatism is a hybrid of classical liberalism, which promotes Negative liberty, holding that liberty is nothing more than the absence of direct coercion by other individuals, and social conservatism, which emphasizes hierarchy and authority. It consequently often rejects state efforts to secure second and third generation rights, seeing the state's rightful role almost exclusively limited to securing first generation rights and the social hierarchy necessary for the maintain order. While modern liberalism was the dominant ideology on domestic policy throughout the mid 20th century, during a period often dubbed the "Keynesian consensus," it has been engaged in a fierce battle with modern conservatism, since the latter's rise in the late 1970s, leading to a sharp resurgence in political polarization. The states of the Northeast and West Coast and some of the Great Lakes states, known as "blue states" in political parlance, are relatively liberal-leaning. The "red states" of the South and the Rocky Mountains lean conservative.

The incumbent president, Republican George W. Bush, is the 43rd president in the country's history. All U.S. presidents to date have been white men. If Democrat Barack Obama wins the forthcoming presidential election, he will become the first African-American president. Following the 2006 midterm elections, the Democratic Party controls both the House and the Senate. Every member of the U.S. Congress is a Democrat or a Republican except two independent members of the Senate—one a former Democratic incumbent, the other a self-described socialist. An overwhelming majority of state and local officials are also either Democrats or Republicans.

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