American political parties

Part 1. The History of American Political Parties

Warm-up

Culture quiz. Fill in the blanks and answer the multiple choice questions below.

1. The two main political parties are_________ .

1. the Socialist and the Democratic parties

2. the Democratic and the Republican parties

3. he Liberal and the Democratic parties

2. The smaller political parties are usually called _____________ parties.

3. Why was George Washington opposed to political parties?

1. He believed that political parties would spend too much money.

2. He feared that they would divide the nation and kindle animosity.

3. He knew that France's political parties were corrupt.

4. He thought that political parties would prevent women from gaining the right to vote.

4. The symbols of the Democratic and the Republican parties are________ .

5. The primary goal of a major U.S. political party is to:

1. gain control of government by electing its candidates to office.

2. draw attention to a particular issue.

3. increase voter turnout.

4. share in the spoils of office.

6. Democrats and Republicans have endured as the two major U.S. parties primarily due to:

1. their ability to adapt to changing circumstances.

2. he stability of their ideologies.

3. the lack of good third-party candidates.

4. a high degree of party discipline.

Pronunciation

Watch the pronunciation of the following words and word combinations.

• semblance

• repository

• assumption

• suffrage

• nullification

• enfranchised

• fundamentally

• unambiguous

• realignment

Reading

Read the text and trace the development of the party system through its four periods.

George Washington and many others among the Revolutionary leaders were generally critical of parties. They feared that parties representing narrow interests rather than the general interest of all the people could take over the government. Despite this, the first semblance of national political parties in the United States appeared during the debate over ratifying the Constitution and parties began to form shortly after the Constitution went into effect. The first was formed in the 1790-s by George Washington’s Secretary of the Treasury, Alexander Hamilton and took the name “Federalist”. Hamilton, a conservative at heart, pushed policies that promoted: a national Bank of the United States as a repository for the federal treasury; the assumption of state debts by the federal government as a way of tying the upper-class and the states to the new central government; a protective tariff to keep the infant industries of the United States on firm footing; an overwhelmingly strong federal government based on the strengthening power of the Constitution's elastic clause.

Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and others formed a party in Congress to oppose the Hamilton program of protective tariffs, which they believed hurt the economic interests of many groups in American society. They called their faction Republican, though the Federalists tried to discredit them by calling them Democratic Republicans (the term democratic was a term of derision, not praise in those times).

Jefferson was an idealist. He dreamed of expanding suffrage to the working-class yeoman farmer, the backbone of Jefferson's view of the United States. He therefore supported such beliefs as: the doctrine of nullification, the idea that the states had the right to nullify a federal statute within their own borders; the paying-off of the national debt to free "future generations from its yoke"; an agrarian-based economy to avoid the "corruption" of industry; a weak central government under the 10th Amendment. The Federalists and the Democratic Republicans also were divided sharply on foreign policy. The Federalists, being close to New England and New York merchant and banking interests, favored a policy of trade and good relations with Great Britain. The split between the two parties was widened by their bitter debate over the stance to be taken on the new revolutionary government in France, with Jefferson and the Democratic Republicans favorable to it, and the Federalists hostile. The Federalists were in existence only a short time because of disagreement of the leaders, John Adams and Alexander Hamilton. After the dismantling of the Federalists in the aftermath of the War of 1812, the first two-party system had evolved into a one-party or no-party system, generally known as the “Era of Good Feelings”.

The relative calm of the Era of Good Feelings lasted several years. But, during that time, the old institutions governing American politics began to fade away, opening up a power vacuum for new political parties to be formed. In 1828 the Democratic Republican Party split into the Democrats and the Whigs. The Democrats and the Whigs were parties of a very different sort from those in the first party system. Instead of being loosely organized groups of local dignitaries and public officials, the parties that emerged in the 1830-s were well-organized parties with sharply contrasting programs. Differences between the Democrats and the Whigs were often based on disagreements among various business and economic interests. The Whigs favored a protective tariff, a national bank, and a federal program of internal improvements (roads, canals). The Democrats under the leadership of Andrew Jackson opposed all three. The Democrats wanted the states to have more power and the Whigs wanted a stronger federal government.

From the Civil War to 1896 Republicans and Democrats found themselves roughly balanced in national politics. Between 1876 and 1896 the Democrats managed to control presidency for 8 of 20 years, the Senate for 6 years, the House of Representatives for 14 years. Each party had a strong regional flavor. The Democratic party was primarily a white southern party, though Catholics and many workers in northern urban areas supported it as well. The GOP (another name for the Republican party, meaning “Grand Old Party”) became a party of business, the middle class, and newly enfranchised blacks.

The late 19-th century was a time of very rapid transformation of the American economy and society, with massive disruptions in the fabric of everyday life. Farmers and workers were especially hard hit, they responded with social protest movements. Workers turned to the strike weapon, while farmers responded by forming third parties (the Greenback party, the People’s party, the Populist party). The Republicans dominated in American politics until the Great Depression and the election of 1932. Between 1896 and 1932, the Republicans won control of both houses of Congress in 15 out of 18 elections, and of the presidency in 7 out of 9.

The Great Depression, the New Deal party system, and the leadership of President Franklin D. Roosevelt fundamentally changed the conception of the proper role of the federal government, the groups aligned with each of the two parties. Elections returns make clear the fundamental shift in party dominance. During the 40 years from 1932 through 1972, the Democrats won 7 out of 11 presidential elections, enjoyed control of the Senate and the House of Representatives for all but 4 years, and prevailed in a substantial majority of governorship and state legislatures across the nation.

The 1936 election was one of those rare campaigns in which the issues were fairly clearcut and the choices between the parties and the presidential candidates were unambiguous. The election was a referendum on the New Deal, Roosevelt’s program to end the Great Depression. The Democrats’ campaign asked the American people to endorse or to reject a new conception of the role of the government: an activist role, in which government would assume broad new economic and social responsibilities. The Republican party position was that the free market economy should be left to work its way out of temporary problems and that relief for the poor and the unemployed should be left mainly to the states and private charity. The 1936 campaign was a heated one, because great issues were at stake.

A Post–New-Deal party system. After R.Reagan’s victories in 1980 and 1984 many people thought that the USA might be in the midst of another major realignment and transition to a new party system, dominated by the Republican party. But in 1992 and 1996 presidential elections Democrats won. The two-party system works, it is not stagnant.

Scanning

1. Answer the following questions.

1. Did the Founding Fathers want a two party system of government? What did they actually think?

2. When did the first semblance of national political parties appear?

3. What were the first American parties? Who were their leaders?

4. What were the major ideological differences between the Federalists and the Democratic Republicans?

5. What period in American history is called the “Era of Good Feelings”?

6. What two parties did the Democratic Republican Party split into?

7. Why were the Democrats and the Whigs parties of a very different sort from those in the first party system?

8. What were the main differences between the Democrats and the Whigs?

9. What political situation was there in the late 19-th century?

10. What was the New Deal party system?

11. What is the modern political party system in the United States?

2. Trace the history of the major political parties by constructing either a timeline or a flow chart. Include famous leaders and events that shaped both parties.

Word Study

1. Find in the text the English equivalents for the words below. Use them in the sentences of your own.

• подобие партий

• чрезвычайно сильное федеральное правительство

• расширить права голоса

• суть, основа

• распад партии

• последствия

• слабо организованные группы

• массовые сбои

• поддерживать, присоединяться

• находиться под угрозой

• преобразование

2. Explain the meaning of the following words and phrases.

• a protective tariff

• the doctrine of nullification

• a power vacuum

• a federal program of internal improvements

• to control presidency

• keep smth on firm footing

• to turn to the strike weapon

• Elections returns

3. Use the words in the sentences of your own.

4. Match the words in the left-hand column with their synonyms:

1.unambiguous	a. approve
2.evolve	b. static
3.endorse	c. depot
4. faction	d. tangible
5. stagnant	e. develop
6. a repository	f. party

Speaking

Make up a summary of the text in 180-200 words.

Part 2. The US Political Parties Today

Warm-up

Discuss the following questions in groups. Share your ideas with your groupmates.

1. Why are there two dominant parties in the U.S.?

2. Do other countries have a two-party system?

3. What other modern political parties are there in the U.S.?

Pronunciation

Watch the pronunciation of the following words and word combinations.

• barometer

• trigger a cycle

• formidable financial barrier

• garner

• decline

• interference

• strengthen

• persistence

• entirely

• irreconcilable

Reading

Read the text and explain why the U.S. has a two-party system.

Political parties serve four essential functions and in serving these functions, the parties allow the United States to approach the ideal of democracy more closely. The first and most important function of an American party is to organize elections by nominating candidates and seeking office. The second function is to build coalitions by attracting group support. Thirdly, parties work to simplify political choices. Finally, they organize government and policy making, attempting to use the institutions of government to reflect the will of the voters.

Today, the Republican and Democratic parties are the two main political parties in the United States. Most elected officials serving as president, congressional representative, state governor or state legislator are members of one of these parties. In a November 2006 Gallup Poll (a leading barometer of public opinion operated by the Gallop Organization), approximately 59 percent of Americans identified themselves as either Republicans or Democrats.

Compared to political parties in other democratic nations, political parties in the United States tend to have relatively low internal unity and lack strict adherence to an ideology or set of policy goals. Generally, Republicans have tended to support limiting federal powers and protecting the authority of state and local governments, to take a conservative approach to taxation and spending, and to oppose government interference with free enterprise. In contrast, Democrats have tended to take a more expansive view of the powers of the federal government, to support raising and spending money to address social ills on a national basis, and to favor federal regulation as a tool to improve business practices.

Scholars do not entirely agree on why the two-party system should be a feature of American political life, but two kinds of explanations are of major importance. The first has to do with the system of elections, the second with the distribution of public opinion.

Elections at every level of government are based on plurality, winner-take-all method. The plurality system means that in all elections for representative, senator, governor and president, and in almost all elections for state legislator, mayor and city councillor, the winner is that person who gets the most votes, even if they do not constitute a majority of the votes. Winner-take-all rules trigger a cycle that leads to and strengthens a system of few (two in the U.S.) political parties. Since elections are won by the single candidate who garners the most votes, third party candidates have a serious disadvantage.

The second kind of explanation for the persistence of two parties is to be found in the opinions of the voters. The American two-party system results in part from the relative absence of irreconcilable differences within the American electorate about basic social, economic, and political institutions. Most of the time most citizens have agreed enough to permit them to come together into two broad coalitions. The other key factor is the huge influence of money in the American electoral system. Since effectively a candidate can spend any amount he can raise (not allowed in many other countries) and since one can buy broadcasting time (again not allowed in many countries), candidates of any other party face a formidable financial barrier to entry.

Despite broad political influence of the Democratic and Republican parties, the so-called “third” parties and independent candidates remain a feature of American politics. Most third parties have tended to flourish for a single election and then die, fade, or be absorbed into one of the major parties. There is evidence that third parties can have a major impact on election outcomes. For example, a third-party candidate might draw votes away from the candidate of the party more closely aligned with to the position of the third-party candidate, thus enabling the other party to win the election – often without receiving a majority of the vote.

Although once powerful, America's political parties now seem to be in a state of decline. More and more, Americans express their dislike of the two-party system and the small range of choice which it allows. Numerous polls taken in recent years indicate that Americans are hungry for a third party to rival the Republicans and Democrats. The parties are moving closer together on a wide variety of issues, and people no longer feel that the parties give them two distinct choices on election day.

Scanning