by Ken Grossberger, PhD

In the United States we have two political parties, but two major groups each within each of those two parties. The Republicans still have the mainstream, traditional GOPers, and also the Freedom Caucus-Trump nationalist types. The Democrats have their own mainstream, left of center group plus the progressive left wing. There are a scattered number of liberal Republicans (e.g., Sen. Susan Collins) and conservative Democrats (e.g., Joe Manchin) in Congress. Each party is thus divided, and therefore the country is divided. In Lincoln’s famous speech in 1858 he warned of such political divisions and feared for the country: “it will become all one thing, or all the other.” His way of saying be careful what you ask for.

Where does this leave voting Americans? There are still many who are unenrolled (note: we register to vote but enroll in a party) in a major party or have cast their lot with minor parties. The independent and minor party voters make up almost 40 percent of the electorate. But a Pew Research Center survey (2019) suggests that even among independents, most lean to one major party or another (see Political Independents: Who They Are, What They Think – Pew Research Center), but choose to remain officially unaligned.  Why is this?

We may infer an inherent distrust of the two major parties among many independents as both have displayed a good deal of corruption in recent years. The duplicity and animated rhetoric test the tolerance of even the most loyal members outside the base of each party. The language is abhorrent, and the ethics are scandalous. Its win at any cost: say anything, do anything, just get and maintain power. Once in power each side investigates the other and weaponizes government institutions, the media and public policy, on a massive search and destroy mission of their opponents. They just can’t stand each other, and the American public suffers from an overload of bitter, vindictive rhetoric designed to damage each member of the other side to the maximum extent possible. Lincoln warned, in the same speech, of a such a “battle” in the political arena raging “under the constant hot fire of a disciplined, proud, and pampered enemy…”

Thus the two major political parties divide America as they themselves are also divided. It becomes a free-for-all in a rule or ruin atmosphere and a vulgar display of exactly how the founders did not want our government to work (“of the people, by the people….). The hot topics exacerbate the fight: abortion, the border, inflation, the Russia-Ukraine war, the Israel-Hamas war, and others. Each side leverages virtually anything to force the hand of, or better, to bury the other side. The outright lying is ridiculous and the media on both sides have become wholly owned subsidiaries of their political masters. Each party forces a different reality that excludes the other, and that reality is further parsed by the division within each party. And there is no end in sight as we are eight months away from the general election. There are many reasonable people in politics, yet the current conversation is dominated by shallow thinking, paranoid types like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Marjorie Taylor Green.

The electorate needs to better educate itself on the issues as well as the candidates. The test for those who choose to vote is to resist the party label, to see beyond the ideological divide, and to vote for reason, thoughtfulness, and a better chance for a decent future.