The Breakdown Of The American Two Party System

The breakdown of the two party system began with the anti-authoritarian transformation of American society around 1960. Pseudo-liberal/communist politicians succeeded in infiltrating and taking over the Democratic party. This brought abut a shift in the American political mainstream to the left of center. Because of this shift, there was no longer a far left in American politics, only a far right. Republicans who were on the political right reacted to this shift by forming a party of their own, the Conservative party. Politics became ideologically polarized. The relationship between pseudo-liberals and conservatives became one of antagonistic opposition.

The anti-authoritarian transformation resulted in an explosion of social problems such as the breakdown of the authoritarian family with all of its catastrophic consequences. People were helpless to cope with this breakdown and many looked to politics for solutions. With no knowledge of the depths of humanities problems, politicians took over and posed as liberators caring for the public. This situation gave rise to socio-politics. But politicians can never provide answers to people’s social problems. In fact, it is their very helplessness that is a major part of people’s problems, their inability to deal with their personal and economic problems in a healthy manner.

Today, an increasing number of independent and responsible people are becoming fed up with politicians and the politics of both parties and their makeshift and self-serving solutions. According to a Harris poll, the number of people who called themselves Democrat or Republican declined in the past several decades. During the same time, the percentage of “independent” voters increased. Democrats dropped from 49% to 35% and Republicans dropped from 31% to 28% while independents rose from 20% to 28%.

The tragedy is that there is nowhere for dissatisfied voters to go. Desperate politicians keep coming up with the same outworn solutions by providing socialistic remedies to the dependent and helpless masses while the independent people’s disillusion with politics grows.

Nothing will change for the better until people start looking within themselves for the source of their problems and not to external sources such as politics. Then it will be possible for people to help themselves.