Republican V. Democrat?

Are the political parties really as simple as Republican and Democrat?

The answer is No.

Like we have talked about in class the political spectrum is not as simple as just Republican and Democrat. There are so many variations of these two sides and some in the middle as well. However, one main problem with this is that when the political spectrum is so polarized, many people get sucked into ideals that they don't believe in. For example, if someone has more liberal ideals for one topic, they immediately put themselves as being a Democrat. Then if there is another issue that they maybe have more conservative feelings towards, they will either not voice their conservative beliefs or they will still side with the other Democrats. This is because they have been influenced by the polarization that if they have to choose one or the other.

Also, being in the middle ground has recently been more and more discouraged. For presidents, they are being encouraged to pick either a strong left or a strong left viewpoint and stick with it. With the voters and the presidents being so polarized, this also creates strong discontent for the opposing parties. They have resorted to attacking each other to get their own results. Then after they attack each other, they refuse to work with each other. This causes many backups in the government and they can't seem to compromise on anything really.

I'm not sure how we can depolarize our politics, or even if it is the best thing to do. All I do know is that this is happening, and it does have effects on our voters.

Source: https://www.people-press.org/2014/06/12/political-polarization-in-the-american-public/
https://www.people-press.org/2014/06/12/section-1-growing-ideological-consistency/pp-2014-06-12-polarization-1-01/