Political parties

The United States has two major national political parties, the Democratic Party and the Republican Party. Although the parties contest presidential elections every four years and have national party organizations, between elections they are often little more than loose alliances of state and local party organizations. Other parties have occasionally challenged the Democrats and Republicans. Since the Republican Party’s rise to major party status in the 1850s, however, minor parties have had only limited electoral success, generally restricted either to influencing the platforms of the major parties or to siphoning off enough votes from a major party to deprive that party of victory in a presidential election. In the 1912 election, for example, former Republican president Theodore Roosevelt challenged Republican President William Howard Taft, splitting the votes of Republicans and allowing Democrat Woodrow Wilson to win the presidency with only 42 percent of the vote, and the 2.7 percent of the vote won by Green Party nominee Ralph Nader in 2000 may have tipped the presidency toward Republican George W. Bush by attracting votes that otherwise would have been cast for Democrat Al Gore.

There are several reasons for the failure of minor parties and the resilience of America’s two-party system. In order to win a national election, a party must appeal to a broad base of voters and a wide spectrum of interests. The two major parties have tended to adopt centrist political programs, and sometimes there are only minor differences between them on major issues, especially those related to foreign affairs. Each party has both conservative and liberal wings, and on some issues (e.g., affirmative action) conservative Democrats have more in common with conservative Republicans than with liberal Democrats. The country’s “winner-take-all” plurality system, in contrast to the proportional representation used in many other countries (whereby a party, for example, that won 5 percent of the vote would be entitled to roughly 5 percent of the seats in the legislature), has penalized minor parties by requiring them to win a plurality of the vote in individual districts in order to gain representation. The Democratic and Republican Party candidates are automatically placed on the general election ballot, while minor parties often have to expend considerable resources collecting enough signatures from registered voters to secure a position on the ballot. Finally, the cost of campaigns, particularly presidential campaigns, often discourages minor parties. Since the 1970s, presidential campaigns (primaries and caucuses, national conventions, and general elections) have been publicly funded through a tax checkoff system, whereby taxpayers can designate whether a portion of their federal taxes (in the early 21st century, $3 for an individual and $6 for a married couple) should be allocated to the presidential campaign fund. Whereas the Democratic and Republican presidential candidates receive full federal financing (nearly $75 million in 2004) for the general election, a minor party is eligible for a portion of the federal funds only if its candidate surpassed 5 percent in the prior presidential election (all parties with at least 25 percent of the national vote in the prior presidential election are entitled to equal funds). A new party contesting the presidential election is entitled to federal funds after the election if it received at least 5 percent of the national vote.

Both the Democratic and Republican parties have undergone significant ideological transformations throughout their histories. The modern Democratic Party traditionally supports organized labour, minorities, and progressive reforms. Nationally, it generally espouses a liberal political philosophy, supporting greater governmental intervention in the economy and less governmental regulation of the private lives of citizens. It also generally supports higher taxes (particularly on the wealthy) to finance social welfare benefits that provide assistance to the elderly, the poor, the unemployed, and children. By contrast, the national Republican Party supports limited government regulation of the economy, lower taxes, and more conservative (traditional) social policies. In 2009 the Tea Party movement, a conservative populist social and political movement, emerged and attracted mostly disaffected Republicans.

At the state level, political parties reflect the diversity of the population. Democrats in the Southern states are generally more conservative than Democrats in New England or the Pacific Coast states; likewise, Republicans in New England or the mid-Atlantic states also generally adopt more liberal positions than Republicans in the South or the mountain states of the West. Large urban centres are more likely to support the Democratic Party, whereas rural areas, small cities, and suburban areas tend more often to vote Republican. Some states have traditionally given majorities to one particular party. For example, because of the legacy of the Civil War and its aftermath, the Democratic Party dominated the 11 Southern states of the former Confederacy until the mid-20th century. Since the 1960s, however, the South and the mountain states of the West have heavily favoured the Republican Party; in other areas, such as New England, the mid-Atlantic, and the Pacific Coast, support for the Democratic Party is strong. Compare, for example, the 1960 and presidential elections.

By the early 21st century, political pundits were routinely dividing the United States into red and blue states, whose assigned colours not only indicated which political party was locally dominant but also signified the supposed prevalence of a set of social and cultural values. According to the received wisdom, the red states—generally located in the South, West, and Lower Midwest—were Republican, conservative, God-fearing, “pro-life” (on the issue of abortion), small-town and suburban, opposed to big government and same-sex marriage, and enamoured of NASCAR. The blue states—found mostly on the coasts, in the Northeast, and in the Upper Midwest—were similarly reductively characterized as Democratic, liberal, secular, politically correct, “pro-choice” (on abortion), urban, and connoisseurs of wine, cheese, and latte.

Both the Democratic and Republican parties select their candidates for office through primary elections. Traditionally, individuals worked their way up through the party organization, belonging to a neighbourhood party club, helping to raise funds, getting out the vote, watching the polls, and gradually rising to become a candidate for local, state, and—depending on chance, talent, political expediency, and a host of other factors—higher office. Because American elections are now more heavily candidate-centred rather than party-centred and are less susceptible to control by party bosses, wealthy candidates have often been able to circumvent the traditional party organization to win their party’s nomination.

National security

The September 11 attacks of 2001 precipitated the creation of the Department of Homeland Security, which is charged with protecting the United States against terrorist attacks. The legislation establishing the department—the largest government reorganization in 50 years—consolidated much of the country’s security infrastructure, integrating the functions of more than 20 agencies under Homeland Security. The department’s substantive responsibilities are divided into four directorates: border and transportation security, emergency preparedness, information analysis and infrastructure protection, and science and technology. The Secret Service, which protects the president, vice president, and other designated individuals, is also under the department’s jurisdiction.

The country’s military forces consist of the U.S. Army, Navy (including the Marine Corps), and Air Force, under the umbrella of the Department of Defense, which is headquartered in the Pentagon building in Arlington county, Virginia. (A related force, the Coast Guard, is under the jurisdiction of the Department of Homeland Security.) Conscription was ended in 1973, and since that time the United States has maintained a wholly volunteer military force; since 1980, however, all male citizens (as well as immigrant alien males) between 18 and 25 years of age have been required to register for selective service in case a draft is necessary during a crisis. The armed services also maintain reserve forces that may be called upon in time of war. Each state has a National Guard consisting of reserve groups subject to call at any time by the governor of the state.

Because a large portion of the military budget, which generally constitutes about 15 to 20 percent of government expenditures, is spent on matériel and research and development, military programs have considerable economic and political impact. The influence of the military also extends to other countries through a variety of multilateral and bilateral treaties and organizations (e.g., the North Atlantic Treaty Organization) for mutual defense and military assistance. The United States has military bases in Africa, Asia, Europe, and Latin America.

The National Security Act of 1947 created a coordinated command for security and intelligence-gathering activities. The act established the National Security Council (NSC) and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the latter under the authority of the NSC and responsible for foreign intelligence. The National Security Agency, an agency of the Department of Defense, is responsible for cryptographic and communications intelligence. The Department of Homeland Security analyzes information gathered by the CIA and its domestic counterpart, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), to assess threat levels against the United States.

Domestic law enforcement

Traditionally, law enforcement in the United States has been concentrated in the hands of local police officials, though the number of federal law-enforcement officers began to increase in the late 20th century. The bulk of the work is performed by police and detectives in the cities and by sheriffs and constables in rural areas. Many state governments also have law-enforcement agencies, and all of them have highway-patrol systems for enforcing traffic law.

The investigation of crimes that come under federal jurisdiction (e.g., those committed in more than one state) is the responsibility of the FBI, which also provides assistance with fingerprint identification and technical laboratory services to state and local law-enforcement agencies. In addition, certain federal agencies—such as the Drug Enforcement Administration of the Department of Justice and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms of the Department of the Treasury—are empowered to enforce specific federal laws.