Despite the existence of dozens of third parties, the United States government is dominated by two parties – the Democrats and the Republicans. With this in mind, Democrats and Republicans have the greatest influence in pushing their party’s agendas and passing legislation they find favorable. Compromise is necessary; however, this has become difficult as the two polarized parties struggle to find common ground in their political ideologies.
Political polarization can be simply defined as the widening gap between liberal Democrats and conservative Republicans as each group grows more ideologically consistent with its own party. According to a recent study by the Pew Research Center, Americans became increasingly politically polarized between 1994 and 2014. For example, in 1994, only 10% of Americans identified as consistently liberal or conservative. This had doubled to 21% in 2014. Today, the average Democrat is more liberal than 92% of Republicans; similarly, the average Republican is more conservative than 94% of Democrats.
Care must be taken to avoid oversimplification of this political phenomenon. Political polarization does not have one direct cause; rather, it is a culmination of several factors that intricately overlap. In my …show more content…
As noted in a 2011 Forbes report, Democrats are inclined to receive updates from sources like MSNBC and The New York Times, whereas Republicans tend to glean updates from sources including Fox News and The Wall Street Journal. The article comments that “each half of the country lives within its own echo chamber.” As each party limits itself to sources biased towards their party, they solidify their own ideologies and remove their exposure to arguments of the opposing party. Because of this, both parties are becoming less capable of understanding the reasoning and viewpoints of the other, resulting in greater
Political polarization can be simply defined as the widening gap between liberal Democrats and conservative Republicans as each group grows more ideologically consistent with its own party. According to a recent study by the Pew Research Center, Americans became increasingly politically polarized between 1994 and 2014. For example, in 1994, only 10% of Americans identified as consistently liberal or conservative. This had doubled to 21% in 2014. Today, the average Democrat is more liberal than 92% of Republicans; similarly, the average Republican is more conservative than 94% of Democrats.
Care must be taken to avoid oversimplification of this political phenomenon. Political polarization does not have one direct cause; rather, it is a culmination of several factors that intricately overlap. In my …show more content…
As noted in a 2011 Forbes report, Democrats are inclined to receive updates from sources like MSNBC and The New York Times, whereas Republicans tend to glean updates from sources including Fox News and The Wall Street Journal. The article comments that “each half of the country lives within its own echo chamber.” As each party limits itself to sources biased towards their party, they solidify their own ideologies and remove their exposure to arguments of the opposing party. Because of this, both parties are becoming less capable of understanding the reasoning and viewpoints of the other, resulting in greater