Two Sides

From what I've written so far about parties, you can see that, while parties have evolved throughout American history, we always seem to settle back into a two-party system after major parties come and go. I'm reminded of something a political science professor of mine said in class: There are two parties, not because there are two sides to every issue, but because there are two sides to every office, the inside and the outside. What he meant by that was that one of the primary functions of each party in a two-party system is to watch over the other one, critiquing its policies, and exposing its scandals. The fact that there is another faction of politicians waiting to take over, if so mandated by the voters, serves to control the excesses of the party in power. Many of us are critical of the tendency for this to degenerate into "gotcha politics". But in light of the abuses of one-party regimes, who face no opposition within their political system to their outrageous behavior, and are even able (up to a point) to prevent the populace from knowing about it, the abuses within a two-party system are easily the lesser of evils.

When I heard that statement about "two sides to every issue" over 30 years ago, the major American parties were less ideologically aligned than is currently the case. Conservative Democrats and liberal Republicans each formed a much larger minority faction within their parties than they do now. So, in 2008, the parties are based, to a somewhat larger extent, on there being two sides to every issue. But the "two sides to every office" concept still holds. My Republican Party found that out, in no uncertain terms, in the 2006 congressional elections.