Dear MEL Topic Readers,
Can we have democracy without political parties?
In elections, do you vote for the candidate or the party? Which opinions are more important to you or closer to yours, the candidates or the political party’s? In the US, while the gap between Democratic and Republican parties has been narrowing in national elections, there has been a steady increase in the share of US voters who claim no affiliation with either party. In fact, that share has risen to 38%, larger than the share of voters who identified with either party.
In a modern democracy, a political party is a group of persons organized to acquire and exercise political power. Party members usually have similar ideas about politics, and parties may promote specific ideological or policy goals. It is common for democratic elections to feature competitions between liberal, conservative, and socialist parties along with communism, nationalism, and religious parties.
Recently, issues like LGBTQ, abortion, racial and gender discrimination, immigration, environment, and even vegetarianism have become more important agendas than conventional political ideologies or priorities, and more people have become less supportive of traditional parties. Furthermore, those parties themselves have been arguing the legitimacy of the election and the opponent lately, which seems to have made themselves disreputable. Also, direct approaches like crowdfunding and tweets seem to have been giving opportunities for independent candidates who may not belong to the mainstream of the party. Maybe the time for a neo-modern political system to emerge.
Enjoy reading the article and think about what the national elections will be like in the next decade.
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20210607-can-we-have-democracy-without-political-parties
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