West Kazakhstan University Mahambet Utemisov

THE US POLITICAL SYSTEM

By: Bulakbaeva Aknur YA-29

Checked by: Mukashev B.A

Uralsk 2023
Political Parties

The United States has two major national political parties, the Democratic Party
and the Republican Party. Although the parties contest presidential elections every
four years and have national party organizations, between elections they are often
little more than loose alliances of state and local party organizations. Other parties
have occasionally challenged the Democrats and Republicans. Since the
Republican Party’s rise to major party status in the 1850s, however, minor parties
have had only limited electoral success, generally restricted either to influencing
the platforms of the major parties or to siphoning off enough votes from a major
party to deprive that party of victory in a presidential election. In the 1912 election,
for example, former Republican president Theodore Roosevelt challenged
Republican President William Howard Taft, splitting the votes of Republicans and
allowing Democrat Woodrow Wilson to win the presidency with only 42 percent
of the vote, and the 2.7 percent of the vote won by Green Party nominee Ralph
Nader in 2000 may have tipped the presidency toward Republican George W. Bush
by attracting votes that otherwise would have been cast for Democrat Al Gore.

There are several reasons for the failure of minor parties and the resilience of
America’s two-party system. In order to win a national election, a party must
appeal to a broad base of voters and a wide spectrum of interests. The two major
parties have tended to adopt centrist political programs, and sometimes there are
only minor differences between them on major issues, especially those related to
foreign affairs. Each party has both conservative and liberal wings, and on some
issues (e.g., affirmative action) conservative Democrats have more in common
with conservative Republicans than with liberal Democrats. The country’s
“winner-take-all” plurality system, in contrast to the proportional representation
used in many other countries (whereby a party, for example, that won 5 percent of
the vote would be entitled to roughly 5 percent of the seats in the legislature), has
penalized minor parties by requiring them to win a plurality of the vote in
individual districts in order to gain representation. The Democratic and Republican
Party candidates are automatically placed on the general election ballot, while
minor parties often have to expend considerable resources collecting enough
signatures from registered voters to secure a position on the ballot. Finally, the cost
of campaigns, particularly presidential campaigns, often discourages minor parties.
Since the 1970s, presidential campaigns (primaries and caucuses, national
conventions, and general elections) have been publicly funded through a tax
checkoff system, whereby taxpayers can designate whether a portion of their
federal taxes (in the early 21st century, $3 for an individual and $6 for a married
couple) should be allocated to the presidential campaign fund. Whereas the
Democratic and Republican presidential candidates receive full federal financing
(nearly $75 million in 2004) for the general election, a minor party is eligible for a
portion of the federal funds only if its candidate surpassed 5 percent in the prior
presidential election (all parties with at least 25 percent of the national vote in the
prior presidential election are entitled to equal funds). A new party contesting the
presidential election is entitled to federal funds after the election if it received at
least 5 percent of the national vote.

Both the Democratic and Republican parties have undergone significant

ideological transformations throughout their histories. The modern Democratic
Party traditionally supports organized labour, minorities, and progressive reforms.
Nationally, it generally espouses a liberal political philosophy, supporting greater
governmental intervention in the economy and less governmental regulation of the
private lives of citizens. It also generally supports higher taxes (particularly on the
wealthy) to finance social welfare benefits that provide assistance to the elderly,
the poor, the unemployed, and children. By contrast, the national Republican Party
supports limited government regulation of the economy, lower taxes, and more
conservative (traditional) social policies. In 2009 the Tea Party movement, a
conservative populist social and political movement, emerged and attracted mostly
disaffected Republicans.

At the state level, political parties reflect the diversity of the population. Democrats
in the Southern states are generally more conservative than Democrats in New
England or the Pacific Coast states; likewise, Republicans in New England or the
mid-Atlantic states also generally adopt more liberal positions than Republicans in
the South or the mountain states of the West. Large urban centres are more likely
to support the Democratic Party, whereas rural areas, small cities, and suburban
areas tend more often to vote Republican. Some states have traditionally given
majorities to one particular party. For example, because of the legacy of the Civil
War and its aftermath, the Democratic Party dominated the 11 Southern states of
the former Confederacy until the mid-20th century. Since the 1960s, however, the
South and the mountain states of the West have heavily favoured the Republican
Party; in other areas, such as New England, the mid-Atlantic, and the Pacific
Coast, support for the Democratic Party is strong. Compare, for example, the 1960
and presidential elections.

By the early 21st century, political pundits were routinely dividing the United
States into red and blue states, whose assigned colours not only indicated which
political party was locally dominant but also signified the supposed prevalence of a
set of social and cultural values. According to the received wisdom, the red states
—generally located in the South, West, and Lower Midwest—were Republican,
conservative, God-fearing, “pro-life” (on the issue of abortion), small-town and
suburban, opposed to big government and same-sex marriage, and enamoured of
NASCAR. The blue states—found mostly on the coasts, in the Northeast, and in
the Upper Midwest—were similarly reductively characterized as Democratic,
liberal, secular, politically correct, “pro-choice” (on abortion), urban, and
connoisseurs of wine, cheese, and latte.

Both the Democratic and Republican parties select their candidates for office
through primary elections. Traditionally, individuals worked their way up through
the party organization, belonging to a neighbourhood party club, helping to raise
funds, getting out the vote, watching the polls, and gradually rising to become a
candidate for local, state, and—depending on chance, talent, political expediency,
and a host of other factors—higher office. Because American elections are now
more heavily candidate-centred rather than party-centred and are less susceptible to
control by party bosses, wealthy candidates have often been able to circumvent the
traditional party organization to win their party’s nomination.

Security

National security

The September 11 attacks of 2001 precipitated the creation of the Department of

Homeland Security, which is charged with protecting the United States against
terrorist attacks. The legislation establishing the department—the largest
government reorganization in 50 years—consolidated much of the country’s
security infrastructure, integrating the functions of more than 20 agencies under
Homeland Security. The department’s substantive responsibilities are divided into
four directorates: border and transportation security, emergency preparedness,
information analysis and infrastructure protection, and science and technology. The
Secret Service, which protects the president, vice president, and other designated
individuals, is also under the department’s jurisdiction.

The country’s military forces consist of the U.S. Army, Navy (including the
Marine Corps), and Air Force, under the umbrella of the Department of Defense,
which is headquartered in the Pentagon building in Arlington county, Virginia. (A
related force, the Coast Guard, is under the jurisdiction of the Department of
Homeland Security.) Conscription was ended in 1973, and since that time the
United States has maintained a wholly volunteer military force; since 1980,
however, all male citizens (as well as immigrant alien males) between 18 and 25
years of age have been required to register for selective service in case a draft is
necessary during a crisis. The armed services also maintain reserve forces that may
be called upon in time of war. Each state has a National Guard consisting of
reserve groups subject to call at any time by the governor of the state.

Because a large portion of the military budget, which generally constitutes about
15 to 20 percent of government expenditures, is spent on matériel and research and
development, military programs have considerable economic and political impact.
The influence of the military also extends to other countries through a variety of
multilateral and bilateral treaties and organizations (e.g., the North Atlantic Treaty
Organization) for mutual defense and military assistance. The United States has
military bases in Africa, Asia, Europe, and Latin America.

Health and welfare

Despite the country’s enormous wealth, poverty remains a reality for many people
in the United States, though programs such as Social Security and Medicare have
significantly reduced the poverty rate among senior citizens. In the early 21st
century, more than one-tenth of the general population—and about one-sixth of
children under 18 years of age—lived in poverty. About half the poor live in
homes in which the head of the household is a full- or part-time wage earner. Of
the others living in poverty, many are too old to work or are disabled, and a large
percentage are mothers of young children. The states provide assistance to the poor
in varying amounts, and the United States Department of Agriculture subsidizes
the distribution of low-cost food and food stamps to the poor through the state and
local governments. Unemployment assistance, provided for by the 1935 Social
Security Act, is funded through worker and employer contributions.

ncreasing public concern with poverty and welfare led to new federal legislation
beginning in the 1960s, especially the Great Society programs of the presidential
administration of Lyndon B. Johnson. Work, training, and rehabilitation programs
were established in 1964 for welfare recipients. Between 1964 and 1969 the Office
of Economic Opportunity began a number of programs, including the Head Start
program for preschool children, the Neighborhood Youth Corps, and the Teacher
Corps. Responding to allegations of abuse in the country’s welfare system and
charges that it encouraged dependency, the federal government introduced reforms
in 1996 , including limiting long-term benefits, requiring recipients to find work,
and devolving much of the decision making to the states