Polarization in American politics

Term paper Topic: What factors in China and the U.S. contribute to the trade deficits
August 2, 2020
Sociology Paper
August 2, 2020

Polarization in American politics

Unlike Europe where politics are more party oriented, American politics are such that the ideologies and the policies carry the order of the day. The voters in America are more influential on the leaders behavior since they tend to focus more on the leader action, not the party one is in. In turn, the leaders legislative behavior is affected since they care how the voters view them. The character of candidates matters so much when they are voting in congress since they are in the knowledge that the voters judge them according to their deeds. As candidates find themselves wanting to please their candidates in the congress, the resultant is an increase in polarization. It mostly happens in politically competitive districts where each party candidate has a chance of winning, whereby the candidates find themselves faithful to the voters ideologies in expenses of their parties (Davidson 76). However, it is evident that in constituencies that the candidate had a majority in terms of the party representation, their decision in terms of legislative action is not always based on the voters view (Gelman 218).In a way, the rules of the congress has a great effect other on decrease of polarization. The reason for this is because of the fact that they require that the members vote as a party in making of major policies, as well as selection of committees leaders. The parties therefore have to ensure they are in agreement in most of this decision since a decision like selection of the committed chairman lasts for six years before they get to vote again. A good example of a scenario that polarization was overcame and cohesion held was the voting against the Clinton budget of 1993, where the whole house voted against it (Wilson 333).Polarization has led to uncertainty in American politics as passing of polices has turned out to be experimental. The meaning of this is that policies passing are dependent on the views of each and every member, and unless subjected to voting there is no knowledge to know where it is going. The views of the voters are much emphasized in the voting process. Since polarization is mostly brought about by individuals sharing different views in reference to their voters, any policy passed therefore means that it carries the interest of the voters with it (Fiorina 44). Polarization also has a contribution on the political stalemate in the country, where some policies are not able to pass due to the fact that there exists division of views between the members elect. There is also the issue of extreme decisions that are being made in that some of the decisions reached at are so deferent than if they were made by a single individual.Polarization has led to a gridlock when making of government policy, the fact for a policy to be passed it has to have a two third majority from the congress means that the president veto is restricted up to 33%, and if it does not exceed that percentage the congress verdict takes the day. Polarization has also led to the president being cautious in making the decision since the congress has control over the decision he makes about the nation (Theriault 63). On the bid to control the policy making process, the government and other parties have responded by creating an environment where they pursue more party-partisan to ensure that the small parties are not involved in passing of policies (Eilperin 104).