Political Parties in America

The ACE Project defines a political party as, "an organized group of people with at least roughly similar political aims and opinions, that seeks to influence public policy by getting its candidates elected to public office." Political Parties in America are often seen as the core elements of American politics as they tend to decide which elected officials get into office and carry out the party's ideological policies.  Parties have had key functions in democracy since the founding of America as they link the governmental institutions with different communities with roughly similar political and social views.

A political party's key roles but are not exclusive to:

• Representing groups of interest. 
• Mobilizing citizens to participate in political decisions. (Ex. elections)
• Then transforming these opinions into real policies. 
• Socializing and educating voters in the key functioning of the political and electoral system (often times in favor of their party)
• Recruiting candidates for public office. 

Historically, America has been ruled by a two-party system. The two parties consisting of the Democratic Party and the Republican Party. The Democratic party is marketed towards those living an urban lifestyle with a heavy emphasis on social justice and heavy government regulation while the Republican party is more catered to those living a rural independent lifestyle and focus on keeping government influence at a minimum.

*Look below for a more detailed look at each parties respective views.*

One topic of discussion in recent time has been which party being more equipped for economic sustainability in America. Looking at the image below, you can see that while Republican presidents were in office, America's public debt went up significantly more while Republican Presidents were in office than when Democratic presidents were.

Provided by Buisness Insider

But just how accurate are these numbers? A deceiving part of American politics is the idea that while a president is in control, they get to write in new laws and taxes. But in reality, it's the Congress that decides where federal spending goes. More specifically the House of Representatives. Looking at who was in control of the House during the times of the highest accumulated debt, you can see the Democratic party has accumulated a significant amount of debt while in power. In comparison to the Republican Party while in control of the house, the Democratic party has raised 471% more. But this is an unfair representation as over the past two decades government spending has overall increased for both parties. 

Looking at the rising amount of national debt since 2000 occurring under both Republican and Democratic leadership in the House and the presidency, I can come to the conclusion that the Republican party is more equipped to run the government with economic sustainability in mind. This is because while Barack Obama was in Office, the Democratic Party accumulated roughly $500 billion more debt than while the Republican party was in control of the house.