Exercise your right to vote or stop blaming the system
Based on recent pieces published in this paper, it’s clear there is a sentiment that partisanship is breaking the American government. While I agree that American politicians are increasingly more partisan, I disagree with the idea that this is linked to individuals pledging themselves to political parties and supporting their beliefs. Rather, this is a result of Americans squandering their civic duty to vote, especially in primary elections.
Political parties and partisan individuals have existed in the United States in every generation, and they are incredibly useful for advancing the beliefs of groups efficiently. To believe that Americans have generally agreed until the past few years is simply naive. Although some would prefer a political setting without them, the founders recognized that political parties, or as they called them, factions, would form. As James Madison wrote in Federalist No. 10, a collection of essays arguing for the ratification of the constitution, “Liberty is to faction what air is to fire, an aliment without which it instantly expires.”
In other words, unless you want to remove fundamental American freedoms, political parties are going to continue to exist as they always have. Although the parties change and evolve, as do the issues we encounter, they don’t appear to be going anywhere; nor should they.
In modern America, only one in five Americans believes that the U.S. Federal Government is functioning “very well.” These numbers are troublesome and have led many to simply call out individuals who choose to affiliate with a party. Extremely partisan politics is certainly a problem, but it is not the root of the problem. Rather, it is simply a symptom.
The roots of this partisanship problem can be traced back to the 1950s. Post World War II, the United States faced a unification that only war and tragedy seem to bring; included in this unification were the Democratic and Republican parties. At the time, this unification served as a very positive event, but the same cannot be said about its later effects.
What has ultimately led to extremely polarized politicians is a few decades of incredibly moderate parties with overlapping policies and programs. In the 1950 Edition of the American Political Science Review, it is stated that “If the two parties do not develop alternative programs that can be executed, the voter’s frustration and the mounting ambiguities of national policy might also set in motion more extreme tendencies to the political left and the political right.” Since that time, neither party put forward distinct programs for voters to support. This caused some voters to begin a search for candidates with more extreme views and tendencies and caused others to begin losing interest in exercising their right to vote.
There seems to be a consensus among political scientists that an advantage of the two-party system is its encouragement of moderate candidates that appeal to the broadest group of people. Unfortunately, in sync with the effects mentioned above, a continuously worsening primary election system has allowed a minority of extremely partisan individuals to choose the candidates for the general election.
Consider the 2016 election: in a nation with 231 Million eligible voters, during the primary elections, only 5.6% of eligible voters chose Donald Trump to represent the Republican Party in the general election, and only 6.7% of eligible voters chose Hillary Clinton for the Democratic Party.
It’s no wonder that, as far as polls show, Americans were incredibly unsatisfied with both major nominees. Pew Research Center even found that 55% of Americans were “not at all” satisfied with the final candidates. If Americans are increasingly not satisfied with the results of primaries, why are they not voting, and why are the candidates so extreme?
I would attribute this to primary elections. Is there a particular reason why Iowa and New Hampshire get to vote first and have such a significant role in the success of candidates? In short, there really is no clear reason why; they simply go first because that’s what was decided, even though they are incredibly unrepresentative of the entirety of the U.S. Despite this glaring issue, these primaries shake up the races of both parties and set the tone for the rest of the primaries across the nation.
Another major factor that allows extremely partisan candidates to be so successful in primaries is the format of these elections themselves. Take the Utah Republican Primary as an example. The party has chosen to use a Caucus system where voters spend hours voting for delegates that will choose the candidates for them. Many eligible voters simply don’t want to deal with the time that this takes and how unrepresentative it seems.
A study published by BYU affirms this, stating, “caucus attenders are ideologically quite extreme compared to their counterparts who voted in primaries.” This is concerning when reflecting on the fact that the first state to vote in the presidential primary (Iowa) uses a caucus system.
This primary system is not only broken for presidential elections; state and local elections are also quite imperfect. Consider Mitt Romney’s run for his current Senate position. (I use the Utah Republican party as an example due to their prevalence throughout this county and the state). The final results of the Utah Republican Caucus had Dr. Mike Kennedy with 50.88% of the delegate vote and Sen. Romney at 49.12% of the vote. Even though Romney lost the Utah Republican Caucus vote, he foresaw this happening and collected signatures to force a direct primary vote. This direct primary vote concluded with Sen. Romney captured 71.71% of the Republican vote, a substantially different number than he received in the caucus voting. As stated by local Fox 13 News, “Kennedy was a favorite of GOP hardliners who support the caucus/convention system only.”
In a government that is beginning to feel less connected from the people with every passing election, it can make everybody feel helpless, but if we want to start working towards a solution to this political mess, we need to exercise our right to vote, especially in primary elections. At this moment, perhaps it is best to reflect on the wisdom of the author of our Constitution. In Federalist 10, Madison wrote, “If a faction consists of less than a majority, relief is supplied by the republican principle, which enables the majority to defeat its sinister views by regular vote.”
If Americans continue to squander their right to vote, the condition of your city, state, and nation will not improve. Instead, a minority of extremely partisan individuals will continue to choose the politicians that shape our nation.
Zach Archibald is a Freshman at Utah State University majoring in Economics and Law & Constitutional Studies and is an opinion columnist for the Utah Statesman. He spends his free-time following current events, cheering for his favorite football teams (Go Aggies!), and reading his favorite books. He can be reached at zachary6648@gmail.com.