Question

In Federalist #10, James Madison gave voice to the Framers’ antipathy for political parties by warning of the dangers of “faction.” Today, however, we have a party system which has featured the same two parties for 160 years. Is today’s party system beneficial for American democracy, or is it harmful? Why?

Answer 1

The problem with the two-party system is that it would narrow the mind-set of the people to two ideologies that would repeatedly play a major role in the life and political thinking of the people. When there is no scope for another political ideology, people would become very closed minded and would ignore any other models that are even better than the present system. Any such notion of another party would be suppressed by the two major parties thus it would only limit the options the voters would have if there were many parties. This would lead to the same style of government without any scope for change because the same two parties would come to power.

Thank you for your question. Please rate if you like the answer.