Political Parties of the US
Introduction
The United States is commonly classified as a representative democracy. What is that?
In a literal sense, democracy means government by the people. The word democracy originated in two Greek roots?demos, meaning “the populace” or “the common people”; and kratia, meaning “rule.” Of course, in large, populous nations, government by all the people is impractical at the national level. It would be impossible for the more than 246 million Americans to vote on every important issue that comes before Congress. Consequently, democracies are generally maintained through a mode of participation known as representative democracy, in which certain individuals are selected to speak for the people.
The United States is commonly classified as a representative democracy, since Americans elect members of Congress and state legislatures to handle the task of writing laws.
Unlike monarchies, oligarchies, and dictatorships, the democratic form of government implies an opposition which is tolerated or, indeed, encouraged to exist. In the United States, there are two major political parties?the Democrats and Republicans?as well as various minor parties. Sociologists use the term political party to refer to an organization whose purposes are to promote candidates for elected office, advance an ideology as reflected in positions on political issues, win elections, and exercise power.
So in my report I would like to tell you history of American donkey and elephant. Also I used to think that there are no politic parties in the USA except Democrats and Republicans but that was mistake I changed due to that report.
THE TWO MAJOR PARTIES:
The Democratic Party (DNC) today
After the 2002 elections, Democrats control several key governorships (including PA, MI, IL, VA, NJ, NC and WA) and many state legislatures – but lost control of the US House in 1994, narrowly lost control of the US Senate again in 2002 (but they still hold enough seats to block much legislation), and lost control of the White House in the 2000 elections. While prominent Democrats run the wide gamut from the near democratic-socialist left (Barbara Lee, Dennis Kucinich and the Congressional Progressive Caucus) and traditional liberals (Hillary Clinton, Nancy Pelosi and Ted Kennedy) to the center-right (Joe Lieberman, the Congressional Blue Dog Coalition and the New Democrat Network) to the GOP-style conservative right (Ralph Hall and Gene Taylor), most fall somewhere into the pragmatic Democratic Leadership Council’s “centrist” moderate-to-liberal style (Evan Bayh, Dick Gephardt, Tom Daschle).
Brief History of
