Two party politics

 

 

Let’s imagine that there is an issue in the national news that could possibly benefit from legislation.  The issue gets brought to a vote in an equally divided House or Senate, and it is defeated by a tie vote exactly 50% to 50%.  Democrats vote one way, republicans vote the other.  (Of course, the impasse is more severe in the Senate because many issues require a 60-40 supermajority to move forward.)

 

Is that how people really are?  Is that how they really think?  Every politician agrees exactly with their party’s position?  I don’t think so.  I imagine that individual positions, without the benefit of party politics, would be more like bell curves; the center of the bell curve being at least slightly off-center one way or the other for each party; and there would be some overlap.  Some republicans would agree with the democratic position and some democrats would agree with the republican position.  Each person left to their own conscience, a majority of the votes would fall one way or the other.  If something needed to get done, or undone, it could happen.

 

What a marvel of politics is the two-party system!  Absolute adherence to the party line stalling any change, even when the general public, the public these politicians purport to represent, would applaud a particular change.  How thrilled, or horrified, would the framers of our constitution be if they could see us now?