​Joseph Daly

Political polarization is when an individual’s stance on a given issue is more likely to be strictly defined by their identification with a particular political party. Polarization with regards to political parties is similar. Party polarization is when two parties become ideologically controlled, meaning that they often take the opposite stance on certain issues, something that is seen in today’s political party system. Parties essentially become the opposite of one another, something that wasn’t always seen throughout our country’s history. Party polarization can cause complications in the legislative bodies of a government because the members’ different political parties don’t want to negotiate or compromise on issues relevant to their political platforms.

                Donna Waller, a retired professor emeritus from Santa Fe College, gave a speech on how the constitution related to party polarization. Waller spoke about James Madison’s “Federalist Paper No. 10” where Maddison expressed his theory of factions and how voters who are united with similar viewpoints or similar ideology could impose their will upon the people in a situation known as tyranny by the majority. To combat factions, Madison proposed various tactics like a large republic, so that people would have a harder time uniting with others, and staggered elections, so that one faction wouldn’t take over the entire government at once. Although Madison wasn’t referring to political parties when he said factions, they didn’t exist in the U.S back then, they certainly can be included under that category today. The original 44 framers of the constitution didn’t want a government controlled by factions because they knew the detrimental effects it could have on our government. Waller made a note of how our government, with its system of checks and balances, could be affected in a negative way as a result of polarized political parties. Gridlock is the result of polarized parties and this is something that we have seen more and more frequently. Laws that are beneficial for the country cannot get passed and in certain situations the government can come to a complete halt because of polarized political parties. Waller said that our government was designed to foster cooperation between lawmakers so that bills could get passed that make everyone happy. However, because political parties are fundamentally the opposite of one another they are not willing to cooperate on issues and this is creating gridlock in our government.