Third Party Viewpoints

667 Words3 Pages

Along with the information that most people consume comes a disregard for third party candidates in major elections. In the history of the United States, the Republican and Democratic parties have dominated the election polls. Asking the average American when the last time a third party candidate won the presidential election was will often result in a usual “I don’t know.” In fact, while third party candidates have gained some traction in the race and gained a few electoral college votes, none have ever fully won presidency since the two party system’s establishment (Gonchar par. 1). Obviously, a party cannot win an election just because it hasn’t served a term. Likewise, two parties should not keep switching back and forth just because that’s …show more content…

They spawn from the ideas of Federalism: birthing the Democratic Party, and Anti-Federalism: birthing the Republican party. Federalism is for a unified state, seeking the interest of the whole, while Anti-Federalism is for a division of power among many states identifying as a whole (Hamilton et al). Regardless of original intention, both sides have set viewpoints on many social issues, often being opposite of one another. With so much focus on these two parties, one may think it is silly to mix viewpoints. That creates the problem of conformity. Someone might side one way on an issue purely because it is proposed by the party which they side with, even if they do not agree with it. People often conform to one side of the two party system without acknowledging third parties. Elected officials especially conform and obey their political party and financial contributors before acknowledging the citizens who are the ones they should be serving first (Williams et al. 11a). Because of the aforementioned lack of interest in attaining knowledge of politics, many people will not look into third