The American people are unrepresented and unhappy.
With the 2016 election almost a year behind us, America is in the most unstable state since the Civil Rights movement. Just in my lifetime, civil unrest has increased -and it’s not just an opinion. It’s a fact. Since I was born in 1996, there have been at least 60 instances of political and civil unrest within the border of the United States. They’ve disproportionately happened since 2010. Out of the 60 incidents of political unrest within my lifetime, thirty-two have happened in the last seven years. Only four of these happened from 1996 to 2000 with only 11 happening in the entire decade of the 90’s. 16 happened from 2000 to 2009. If the increase in the number of incidents of civil unrest isn’t a sign that people are unhappy with the current state of our nation, I don’t know what is.
But why? Why, over the last twenty-one years, has civil unrest increased so quickly? Well, minorities feel unheard. Small business owners feel unheard. The unheard people are becoming more vocal. We could blame it all on the Trump administration, but if we exclude the incidents that happened since his election, there are still 22 incidents of civil unrest since 2010. That’s still eight more incidents of unrest in the last seven years than there was in the previous decade. So let me propose to you a somewhat unpopular opinion in this day and age: neither the Trump, nor the Obama, nor the Bush administrations are to blame for America’s civil unrest. Granted, this doesn’t take into a couple of factors outside the American political scheme, namely terrorism and its effects on national unrest. But at the end of the day, it increasingly seems that America’s two-party political system is to blame for the people’s rising unhappiness.
The two-party system has failed the American people. People feel unheard both within the nation’s greater government and within their own parties. The “Bernie Sanders” Democrats felt that Clinton didn’t do enough to help less fortunate people, whereas a number of Republicans despised the idea of most of last year’s Republican candidates in office. We have no party for centralists, only for staunch liberals or staunch Republicans. The parties that represent people with ideas that vary from those two norms have no chance of election to higher office. The Libertarian Party and the Green Party have the most votes after the Democrats and the Republicans – and neither came near the 15% in the polls that was needed to be invited to televised debates and even present their ideas to the greater portion of the American people. Often, people who vote Democratic or Republican are still unhappy with many party policies. This causes the people to feel unheard in their own government. And the solution to that is a multi-party system.
I spent the summer working on a political campaign in New Zealand, and seeing the multi-party system in action confirmed my belief that America’s two-party system is what causes the people to feel underrepresented. New Zealand is a country similar to the United States – first world, a mix of cities, suburbs and agriculture land, diverse terrain, and with an overall successful economy – and the only major difference is their political system. Even then, the Prime Minister functions similarly to the President, and Parliament functions similarly to Congress. The real difference lies in their multi-party system. In the debates I sat in on, there were typically no less than six parties present – NZ First, National, Labour, Green, Maori, and TOP. Their policies overlap a little between parties on conservation, cannabis legalization, immigration, and so on. But each party provided subtle differences while still sticking to the core values of their party. So how does their government work with so many differing opinions in Parliament?
Compromise.
Yes, compromise, the thing that seems to so readily elude American politicians. With six parties with varying degrees of influence in Parliament, there is no scramble for a clear majority. There simply isn’t one. The two biggest parties, Labour and National, remain close enough in the polls that the party with the majority must still compromise with the smaller parties to gain a majority. This system better represents all the people, because all the people feel that their voice is being heard and influencing policy even within the smaller parties. The last major riots or protests in New Zealand happened in 1995, 1983 and 1984, the first a peaceful protest over French nuclear testing in the Pacific, the latter two riots over an American warship coming to New Zealand without declaring if it carried nuclear material into the non-nuclear country, and the second sparked by a power outage at a summer concert. Similarly, within the UK, a country which also has a multi-party system, there were 8 riots in the 90’s, 8 in the 2000’s, and 8 since 2010.
The statistics don’t lie. The American people are unhappy, and it shows in the increase of incidents of civil unrest within the country. A multi-party system could create an environment where more people felt that their voices were being heard in their government, and, if America follows trends set by other multi-party political systems, would create a decrease in civil unrest. A multi-party system would create a government system with an overall more central political leaning. Compromise would be a necessity between political parties, not an afterthought that comes in a scramble to pass a particular bill or law. America cannot continue on the path it is on. Yes, politics and beliefs are divisive, and they should be. But continuing on a path where the only two notable political parties hate each other and refuse to compromise on anything, even government budgets, and would rather see a sixteen-day long government shutdown than compromise will ultimately result in a failing nation filled with hate and unrest. A multi-party system may not and probably will not fix the deep-seated problems within our country. But the two-party system has already failed the American people, and a multi-party system may be the way to begin healing our nation in a way that allows all Americans to feel heard.
Photo by roya ann miller on Unsplash
US Statistics on Civil Unrest:
List of Incidents of Civil Unrest in the United States: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_incidents_of_civil_unrest_in_the_United_States
Chart of Three Decades of Racial Unrest across America: https://www.forbes.com/sites/niallmccarthy/2014/08/22/chart-over-three-decades-of-racial-unrest-across-america-the-cities-with-the-most-devastating-race-riots/#d0415d26156c
New Zealand Statistics on Unrest:
Moruroa Protest (1995) https://www.nzgeo.com/stories/moruroa-protest/
Queen Street Concert (1984): https://nzhistory.govt.nz/keyword/riots
Protest at the USS Texas Visit: (1983): https://nzhistory.govt.nz/keyword/riots
UK Statistics on Unrest:
List of Riots: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_riots#1990.E2.80.93200