American Partisanship

America is strongly based on a bipartisan system of government. Ever since the declaration of our independence, there have been two or more main schools of thought on how the government should be run. And, typically, each American has his or her own (strong) viewpoint on which party is superior.

I myself, being brought up in a southern Christian home, was naturally brought up conservative in all aspects of politics. But the more I learn about politics, the less I like about conservatism, liberalism, libertarianism, and all other political ideologies. Clearly, there is not one correct way to run our American democratic republic. Each party has held the presidency for more than a decade, and each party has held a super-majority for a time. And yet neither party was able to convince enough Americans to let them hold their advantage for long.

You may say that this is because corruption creeps into any political system which holds power for too long (and you'd probably be right), but I think the issue is deeper. Not only is neither party correct about how to run the nation, but no one is ever going to figure it out. I'm a devout pessimist when it comes to politics: I believe that sinful, broken mankind is never going to figure out how to rule itself.

But don't get me wrong, I like America's bipartisan system. The steady swing back and forth between the parties helps to even out each party's own weaknesses and evens out the flow of the political system. History has many examples of dramatic flops when a nation swings too violently towards one end of the political spectrum or the other. As long as our bipartisan system holds, I expect the demise of America to be steady, though inevitable.