This essay will explore various articles and books that focus on American politics. The different articles have various distinctions on how they view the American politics. They also point out the problem with the American politics that is making the practice not progress rather just lag behind or a repetition with every new member who is elected to congress of what the one before him had done. Ronald Brownstein in his book refers to this as a second civil war and calls it the polarization of the American government and not its citizens. Another article by Peter Beinant points out that the American citizens are tired and angry with Washington and do not want to hear of them and yet again they can’t wait to elect new people (Beinart). The paper will show how American politics is power oriented and lacks progression toward the right path. Power is the ability of a person to influence others into doing what he/she wants. Power is selfish and non progressive. For political progression, the politicians aim at changing things from what they are to a better situation and it is not personal oriented.
Introduction
Politics is a common term used in government or in state run institution. The term though can also be used in other institution except the government. These places include companies and even also businesses. Politics is a situation through which decisions or policies are made by a group of people on behalf of others. In America today the game of politics is still ongoing and the problems that are arising are that there is no progression in the politics. It always the same story of who will be the most powerful as compared to the one who left, or who will make America a more superpower in the world. They totally neglect the progression of the country and in how they conduct their politics. This paper will demonstrate the problem with American politics. It will mostly focus on how politicians are more interested to be powerful than to progress and in how they conduct their politics.
The problems in American politics are caused by political parties. Political parties are more interested to become more powerful that the other party rather than in serving the people. This is the case especially on the part of the senator. The election of senator to the congress should have remained in the hands of the state to appoint rather than electing them to the congress. This might have been seen as a progression toward democracy but it turned out wrong. Many senators are more committed to their political parties rather than to the state or to the people who elected them. They want to be more involved in making the party that they belong to more powerful than in serving the citizens of America. This is very selfish and it shows digressions of politics.
The other problem being brought about by the political parties is how they change the beliefs and principals of candidates. Political parties usually take stands on issues so that they can lure people to vote their candidate into presidency. These issues include abortion, terrorism and also gun control. A good example is Al Gore, who was against abortion and gun control turned against his beliefs because he wanted to fit well with the Democratic Party with which he was running with as senator. He did not change his mind because he reflected on the issues and thought maybe he should be lenient, no he did so because he simply wanted to fit in. political parties are more power oriented rather than progression, from the above instance if we were progressing then a party should have given Al gore the chance to run on their ticket regardless of what his principles were. The same case happened with Joe Lieberman, who ran as a candidate for the party even against the people of Connecticut wishes.
Political parties have become so power oriented that they no longer care about representing people in the particular states (Hutson 14). In fact the state members have no say in what candidate they want. Most parties rely on donations from well wishers into their campaign these donations are made by powerful people to the parties and this same people get to choose the candidate that they want to represent them. Good candidates that may represent the states well and bring about political progression are left out because they have no party to support them in the election. Politicians no longer work independently, in fact they act as frontiers for what the party needs and yet the people thought they were electing an individual to represent them but they end up electing the party.
For America to experience political progression it calls for a check on political parties, or rather maybe there should be introduction of more than two political parties so that the people are widely represented (Hutson). There have been formation of parties though and political interest groups. These groups are mainly against what is happening in Washington and what they would like to see changed. The tea democratic party is one such party .the other thing that we can do is return the power back to the states rather than to political parties or make amendments to the 17th amendment in the constitution maybe then we can lean toward progress rather than power.
Another root cause of political problem may be sprouting from the government intent purpose to control foreign governments so that they can demonstrate power. The government pays more attention to foreign countries than to its own citizens. Lately, the United States government has been involved in the Arab countries affairs for example, Libya. The American government has put some sanctions on the Libyan government. This has made it difficult for the Libyan government to solve its issues leading to a civil war. The American government wants to prove its political might all over the world. If it succeeds in Libya this shows that they are the most powerful and they can do everything. When they are doing this they are doing it at the expense of their citizens who are their back at home.
As a superpower the American government feels that it is obligated to interfere with other governments on private issues and yet what they are really doing is destroying their own political progression. For instance, they have spent a lot of money on the Iraq war where dozens of American soldiers have lost their lives fighting a war which is not their own but because they want prove they are powerful they have done it at their expense. Families for the soldiers who are back at home often have the pain of receiving their dead family members knowing that it could have been avoided if they did not try to interfere with other foreign countries political crises. Therefore, if the American government needs to have political progression in their country they need to stop interfering with other countries internal affairs because it will do more harm to them than good.
Due to the American government trying to prove its political power in the foreign countries it has lost some of its allies who could have been helpful in the creation of political progression in America. Due to the involvement of the American government in the affairs of other government especially the Muslim nations, like Egypt and Libya, the American government has lost some close ties that it had with other Muslim nations which could have led to political progression in their own country by having good relations like trade. This could improve America both economically and politically and make stronger than when it is trying to fight everybody in the world (Brownstein). Therefore, before the American government intends to interfere with other American countries they need to reconsider the friends they are going to lose and could be helpful to them in other ways for example, economically.
When the American government is trying to involve itself in other foreign countries affairs they lose a lot of money in the wars of other countries and yet the money could have been used in own countries to do other things. With the country being hit by recessions this means that most of its citizens are suffering with ether unemployment or high standards of living. For example, a lot of money has been lost in the army due to the government involve in Iraq. The money that is being used by the army to involve itself in the Iraq affairs could be used by the United States government to try and save its country from recessions (Brownstein). Therefore, if the American government requires gaining political progression, they need to consider the amount of money that they are wasting so that they can prove their political power or superiority.
One of the policies of the United States government as super power has to be fighting terrorism. Although they have a right to protect themselves from other terrorist attacks especially since the September eleventh attacks, the methods that they are using to fight these terrorists are not right. They are using a lot of force which is unnecessary and it is costing more than it is supposed. This is because it is happening at the expense of its citizens where they could spend that time and money developing other policies that will help the government both politically and economically. Additionally, the way they have concentrated in killing Osama, it has been like the obsession of every America president to prove that they are powerful. Due to this obsession, a lot of money is lost which could have been used in the creation of the economy of the country.
In the fight against the production of the nuclear weapons, American country has been so actively in the war against the production of nuclear weapons leading them straining their resources. They do this because if another country happened to have nuclear weapons they fear that they might become more powerful than them. Due to this the different politicians in America are so keen in protecting their superiority. For example, Iran has been producing nuclear weapons. This has led to the American government so worried that the Iranian government might want to become superior to them or use those weapons on attacking America. It is because of these fears that the American government has been using most of their resources in trying to stop the creation of the nuclear weapons at the expense of their country and yet these countries like Iran might be producing these weapons for self defense purposes.
The problems of politics are also greatly affecting the economy of the United States. There is so much politics present in the congress that causes delay in the progress of the economic recovery. The government is not making the right decisions and their efforts towards the recovery are not good. In fact other politicians have already foreseen an opportunity to use in their next campaign. Instead of helping the government deal with the problem that is affecting so many American citizens. This has always been common, because all that the politicians care about is to get power and not to help people or the country to progress. It would be good if the politicians tried to find out ways to control this route toward maybe another recession instead of just planning on how they will use the failure of the current presidency on solving this issue, so that they can lure voters to believe them and elect them to the white house so that they could solve the problems. This is not good politics and it’s not on the way to progression.
The other apparent problem in American politics is the way politicians already start planning for succession of office even before the term is done. In fact most of them start as early as after the new government has just been elected and when things start not to work with the current government they start searching for new candidates. Take an example of today; the republicans are already planning to use the democrats’ failure in office as their next campaign strategy. The fact that unemployment rates are increasing at an alarming rate and also the rise of fuel prices and the inability of the government to create job has created an opportunity for the opposition to penetrate to the white house. This is not good politics and it does not help the country to develop in the right direction, all that these politicians are thinking of at this point is to gain power and maybe after they are in power the same problems will also face them.
It’s time we all raised a flag on the politics of today in America before we all perish in its game or we just may never have any say in what should be done in our country. Politicians should also make sure they have a change of the way they conduct their politics and the policies they put in place and how this policies are affecting the citizens. Political progression is about letting the people have their say and also properly representing the needs of the people in the congress. Progression is about making people to be more interested in what politicians are doing rather than having people hate and dislike the politicians and wanting to have nothing to do with them or having to wait till they can replace them. Politicians should empathize with Senator Evan Bayh, who was strong enough to step down because he did not agree with what the congress stood for and its policies (Beinart). If we have more of these politicians then we are bound to have political progression.
Conclusion
To conclude, this paper has displayed how politics of the modern America are conducted and the problems that this politics have. It has also shown how politicians are more concerned for political power rather than for progression. The route for the problems is caused by the political parties themselves, especially on how they have managed to have more power over their candidates and on how they want the candidate to represent their policies and not those of the members of the state. The second display of political problems in the modern America today is how the government is more concerned with foreign countries at the expense of its own, mainly because they want to retain the position of them being world superpowers. The other problem is how their policies are causing economic problems for the citizens and the nature of politicians who are in the opposition to see an opportunity in the failure of the government and make it their campaign agenda. This problems in the politics of America need to be addressed so that we can achieve progression and to do this we have to shift from political power quest to benefiting the citizen and the country.
