Questions about America's political system
There are two things that puzzle me about America's political system. The first is the fact they have precisely two parties: The Democrats, The Republicans and that's it. I know of no other country on the planet with two parties to choose from, no more and no less. The dictatorships obviously have only one party and in countries where there's democracy but the government has a stranglehold on the media there may be several parties but its still effectively a one party system but normally where there is a proper democracy with a free press and media you have several parties to chose from. The UK is an example of the latter and its the same for practically every other country in Europe and the western world in general from what I've observed. The point is in these countries you have more than two parties to choose from.
Every democratic country in the world it seems to be the case except for the USA.
Does anyone know why there doesn't seem to be a third party there? Why isn't there a party to the left of the Democrats or a party to the right of the Republicans to choose from for Americans disillusioned with those two parties? I know they had the Tea Party but from what I could tell they were/are just a rebellious wing of the Republican party. I don't think they were actually a separate independent party though feel free anyone to correct me on that. Every other democracy seems to have a green party so where's the American Green party? Why aren't there even separatist SNP type parties? There are some states with a strong identity like Texas where I bet a separatist party would do well.
Maybe I'm wrong and all these alternative parties exist and if so I stand to be corrected but I never hear of them, neither for national nor state government elections.
It just seems odd to me that even now in the 21st century the most powerful democracy still doesn't have a third party to choose from, if I am right about that.
The second thing that puzzles me is that system they have of the party in opposition apparently not having a leader. Maybe I just have too much of a British view on democracy but usually the opposition parties have a leader to set policies and hold the president or PM or whoever to account with weekly debates in the parliament. Isn't that what happens in most democracies around the world? Its not just in the UK, is it? I know in the US the opposition hold the President to account but where's their leader during all this? Why do they wait til the next presidential elections to elect a new leader to challenge the president? Surely the challenger should be there right from the beginning of the president's term to lead his/her party to challenge and scrutinise every decision the president makes like they do here?
Any Americans reading this who can answer any of these questions will be greatly appreciated but I'll welcome any thoughts on this from any posters, American or not.
Every democratic country in the world it seems to be the case except for the USA.
Does anyone know why there doesn't seem to be a third party there? Why isn't there a party to the left of the Democrats or a party to the right of the Republicans to choose from for Americans disillusioned with those two parties? I know they had the Tea Party but from what I could tell they were/are just a rebellious wing of the Republican party. I don't think they were actually a separate independent party though feel free anyone to correct me on that. Every other democracy seems to have a green party so where's the American Green party? Why aren't there even separatist SNP type parties? There are some states with a strong identity like Texas where I bet a separatist party would do well.
Maybe I'm wrong and all these alternative parties exist and if so I stand to be corrected but I never hear of them, neither for national nor state government elections.
It just seems odd to me that even now in the 21st century the most powerful democracy still doesn't have a third party to choose from, if I am right about that.
The second thing that puzzles me is that system they have of the party in opposition apparently not having a leader. Maybe I just have too much of a British view on democracy but usually the opposition parties have a leader to set policies and hold the president or PM or whoever to account with weekly debates in the parliament. Isn't that what happens in most democracies around the world? Its not just in the UK, is it? I know in the US the opposition hold the President to account but where's their leader during all this? Why do they wait til the next presidential elections to elect a new leader to challenge the president? Surely the challenger should be there right from the beginning of the president's term to lead his/her party to challenge and scrutinise every decision the president makes like they do here?
Any Americans reading this who can answer any of these questions will be greatly appreciated but I'll welcome any thoughts on this from any posters, American or not.
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Comments
See here.
As for the opposition leaders, the senate has a majority leader and a minority leader. They are as close as the US gets to our system. See here.
On the right there is the libertarian party but there are also libertarians inside the Republican party like Rand Paul.
There is an Alaskan independence party but they haven't had much success.
There is no "leader of the opposition" as such as the United States is not a Parliamentary system, with a federal system and separation of powers there is no position directly in opposition to the president. John Boehner is currently the most senior republican as speaker of the house of Representatives but won't be running for president so is not truly considered party leader.
Google, Green Party of the USA and you'll see they exist, or Alaskan Independence Party they exist too.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_party_%28United_States%29 here's a list on Wikipedia.
The majority and minority both have leaders, in the House of Representatives the majority leader is the Speaker of the House, the minority leader is called the Minority Leader. In the Senate they are referred to as the Majority and Minority Leaders. Because we have three branches of government, Executive, Legislative, and Judicial, and separation of powers, the Executive is not really answerable to the Legislative. However, it's not absolute, but that's details.
Mainly the reason you don't see similarities to Parliament is because your Parliament exercises both legislative and executive powers, while our Congress doesn't. Party leadership can change any time it wants it doesn't have to wait for an election. We don't have anything like question time, and the President is free to pursue any agenda he chooses, and has some pretty substantial abilities to draft and enact executive orders, with or without input from Congress (excepting for the checks and balances which is part of the separation of powers and was meant to protect us from a tyrannical leader who might come to power.)
Yep and Ross Perot certainly didn't harm Bill Clinton in the 1990s by hoovering up disaffected Republican votes. So while not electorally successful third party candidates do exist and can influence the outcome of US elections.
Being a senator is much more prestigious as there are only 100 of them and have six year terms. While senators often run for president congressmen rarely do.
I'll add to this for clarification, being a republic the US legislative representatives are based on 2 per state (senate) and population of each state (house of representatives). Therefore there can never be more/less than 100 senators at any time unless a new state is added/subtracted. Since the numbers of the House of Representatives is based on state population, these can be amended accordingly. This is why California has 53 delegates while North Dakota only has 1. Then you also have representatives from the five US territories (Puerto Rico, Guam, Northern Marianas, United States Virgin Islands and American Samoa).
But when people are called "Congressmen" doesn't that just apply to people elected to sit in the House Of Representatives?
Also just to check, I take it Capitol Hill is the area where both houses of Congress are? Just like Westminster is the place where the British legislature chambers are?
You are correct on both accounts. Congress is the House of Representatives half of the legislature and are referred to as congressmen. The Senate is the 2nd half of the legislature and are referred to as senators.
Capitol Hill is actually a neighborhood block in Washington DC. The Capitol Building (along with the Senate and House office buildings, the Supreme Court building, the Library of Congress, the Marine Barracks, the Washington Navy Yard, and Congressional Cemetery) reside in Capitol Hill and as you could guess most of the big players in Washington reside there. When you hear someone refer to Capitol Hill they are probably referring to politicians but it is actually just a historic neighborhood.
Thanks for the info but doesn't the term Congress include the Senate as well?
Yes it does.
However it seems that it has become standard practice to refer to a member of the House of Representatives as a Congressman/woman rather than their official title which is Representative.
Also, note that third party candidates do occasionally succeed in areas other than the Presidency - Bernie Sanders, a Senator from Vermont although affiliated with the Democrats stands and is elected as an Independent who describes himself as a "Democratic Socialist".
Thanks for the clarification. There does seem to be quite a few overlaps in the political terminology here but having said that, strictly speaking Members of the house of lords are also known as MP's but are never called that are they?
Size matters .You need (lots of) money and support to win, but you also need it nationally.
The alternative to two , rather artificial , large parties in the US would be a complete mess of state, racial, religious, regional, and ideological parties - the UK sytem plus umpteen Plaids, races, religions and kooks. It doesn't work now withjust parties gridlocked. If you had a 1001 views represented, t would work even less well - and would probably be less representative.
Probably because they have no Congressmen/women elected to the Federal House of Representatives nor the Federal Senate. I don't know if they have some elected in the individual states. If they do, they should try and build on that.
In the 2000 election between Al Gore and George W Bush though, there was some news reporting about a 3rd independent candidate splitting the vote in Florida in which the election result was decided upon and then some I think is fair to say as it went all the way to the USA Supreme Court in who won that election. The news coverage seemed to be saying that if that 3rd candidate was not standing, Al Gore almost certainly would have won and Gore did get around 500 thousand more popular votes than Bush too.
I can think of one who has done that in reverse! Howard Dean, I think he ran in 2004 to be the democratic candidate, blew it along the way but then went onto become the Chairman of the Democratic party which is probably the highest, most senior position party wise I would have thought.
Its because of the seperation of powers set up is why both Obama and Clinton have not been able to do much as President as Presidents can only get their programme implemented if the 2 houses of congress pass the programmes. Obama's party lost control of the congress just after 2 years of his presidency and haven't regained full control since and Bill Clinton also lost control of the Congress in 1994 too.
George W Bush was very lucky as his party, the Republicans had control of the Congress for most of the first 6 years of his presidency which is why he got so much of what he wanted and looked/acted much more powerful than Obama has. Obama showed what he could do though when he did have full control and that was pass the Affordable Health Care law though.
Is your system similar to any other country with a President as head of state or is it pretty much unique to America as far as you know?
Don't forget the Supreme Court which acts as the third branch of American Government. Its first duty is to protect the US Constitution and as such it can smack down any law it considers to be in conflict with the constitution.