“United we stand, divided we fall”.

A phrase used by Patrick Henry in 1799 lets Americans know

that as long as the United states of America remains united, we will prosper. Now the United States has
become divided politically and the consequences could be disastrous. The two main political parties will
do whatever it takes to keep the votes in their favor even if that means sacrificing the goal to achieve a
common good.

In PBS NewsHour’s video “Midterm races showcase widening political divide”, political editor
Domenico Montanaro explains that the two parties in Congress during the 1940s had more of a mixed
vote. During this time America was engaged in World War II so Congress worked together to ensure
America’s victory. Montanaro then goes on to explain that the two parties in Congress started to vote
more based on their party’s interest during the 1960s. Then after the “Republican Revolution”
(Montanaro) in the 1990s the parties voted almost completely in their party’s favor, leaving only few to
vote based on what the country needs. Then in 2014 the Pew Research Center released an extensive
study that supported Montanaro’s report. The study even extended all the way to 2012 and found that
“the median (middle) Republican is now more conservative than nearly all Democrats (94%), and the
median Democrat is more liberal than 92% of Republicans” (Pew Research Center). The parties have
become so divide that “36% of Republicans and Republican leaners say that Democratic policies
threaten the nation, while 27% of Democrats and Democratic leaners view GOP policies in equally stark
terms” (Pew Research Center). These statistics show that the two parties have grown so self-centered
that they view the other party as a threat and will refuse to work with them even in a national crisis such
as the government shut down that could have been prevented in December of 2018. Peter Grier of the
Cristian Science Monitor found that people that disliked the Fox News outlet have called it “’state TV’ for
the Trump era” (Grier). They disagree with Fox News so instead of just disliking it they publicly accuse
the news station of creating propaganda supporting the Trump administration in order to sway the
public’s opinion of the news station and disregard it as a reliable news source.

To Summarize, the two political parties that occupy Congress have strayed away from working
for the good of the people and to achieve a common good. They have started to focus more on gaining
more power for their party. If Congress can not become more unified then when a national crisis occurs,
such as another Great Depression, they could hurt the country because they will be focus too heavily on
using the situation to gain more power.