Partisan Antipathy And Political Polarization In America: The Two-Party System In Perspective

Abstract

The U.S. political system rests on the two-party system that has been in place since the 1790s.The current system has hinged on the Democratic-Republican duopoly since the 1850s. Recently, however, partisan antipathy increased among Republicans and Democrats, which complicated the political life and negatively affected the performance of the federal government and political institutions. This article discusses the features of partisan antipathy and political polarization, and the future of the current bipartisan system. To achieve this, this paper followed a descriptive approach in which the facts are well described and analyzed by bringing to light their main characteristics to reach conclusions that help understand them. The findings showed that the U.S. two-party system is clearly divided and the two parties are clearly distinct with no overlap between them, which threatens the good performance and functioning of the federal government and political institutions, suggesting replacing it with a multiparty system.