The Worrying Psychology of America's Two-Party System
If there’s one thing Americans from across the political spectrum can agree on, it’s that the two-party system isn’t doing this country any favors. In fact, this persistent “Us and Them” mentality has been strangling the public of its rationality since the late 16th century. Our Founding Fathers were the first to warn us that a two-party system was not in the country’s best interests. John Adams said in a letter he penned in 1780, “There is nothing which I dread so much as a division of the republic into two great parties, each arranged under its leader... This, in my humble apprehension, is to be dreaded as the greatest political evil under our Constitution.” Adams was referring not to the U.S. Constitution, which would not be written until 1787, but to the ideologies and principles that ought to embody us as a nation and people. A nation with its head at war with its ankles would always sacrifice the health and harmony of its middle, and sitting hunched over all day is no good fo
