Reading Materials: https://openstax.org/books/american-government-2e/…

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/…

Please choose one of the following questions and react to it:

1. Would the US be better off with a viable third party running candidates in the 2022 congressional elections or the 2024 presidential election? Why? What would these candidates stand for? If not, why would it be bad (or not impactful) to have viable third party candidates?

2. How much power should the voters in a party have over who the presidential nominee is for that party? How much power should party elites have? Do you think party elites should have had more or less power in deciding the nominee in 2016 and 2020 (for both Democrats and Republicans)?

3. Do you think that increasing partisan polarization is harmful for the United States? Why? If not, why not?

Reply to two other posts, at least 30 words for each. I’ll show you the posts that need to be replied after I have your post.

Please reply to the following two post.

Post 1:

From my perspective, increasing partisan polarization is bad for America in many ways. First of all, in the short term, party polarization will aggravate the existing political contradictions in society and reduce the efficiency of the government. The government will spend a lot of time and energy discussing basic policies rather than formulating new ones in response to social conditions. This will erode the public’s trust in the government. Second, in the long run, the excessive polarization of parties will to some extent lead to the fragmentation of the country. The existence of multiple parties has its own benefits for the United States: it creates a relatively democratic and less authoritarian government. But excessive partisanship would mean a lot of political fighting in the government, a lot of instability, a lot of confusion in dealing with things like diplomacy.

Post 2:

I do think that partisan polarization is harmful for the United States. This is not exclusive to the United States, but it is to the world in general. Polarization of any sort is harmful to the society. It leading to extremely opposing views that can brew violence for no reason. Hate crimes are bound to increase and institutional discrimination can be a major cause of worry. In the United States we have seen years of struggle against racism and economic hierarchy. Further polarization would mean giving free-pass to people to continue to create a hierarchical division and discriminate with no barrier. This will result in the loss of constitutional values and humanity in general, creating a society or terror and animosity beyond measure.