A Study On The New Development Of Political Polarization In Contemporary America

As the most powerful one of four major research areas in American politicalsciences,“American politics” has been committed to the study of the United Statespolitical life and its inherent laws since it’s birth. In1984, Keith Poole and HowardRosenthal started to notice about the evident polarization phenomenon that has beenappeared in contemporary American politics in the1970s. Through the study of thedistribution of seats in the U.S. Senate, they found that moderate politicians fromboth parties are disappearing, American politics has been polarized. Since then, moreand more American scholars began to focus on and study of the various phenomenaof U.S. politics polarization. Political polarization has become one of the mostimportant parts of the American political studies, research results are also quitefruitful. Research boom about the U.S. political polarization has not ended till now.In China, related research is still scarce, it is necessary for further in-depthexploration of the U.S. political polarization.Since Obama came into power, the U.S. political polarization continues to showold trend of the past few decades and continues to deepen. Political elite are highlypolarized, they demarcate themselves to Liberal and Conservative in the realm ofideology and to different political parties on policy issues, the political elite conductmisbehavior in the words and deeds in political activity. Polarization degree ofbipartisan voters continues to deepen.In the new period, U.S. political polarization is showing three new features.Firstly, the eruption of two social movements led to changes of bipartisan politicalelite and their further opposition. Secondly, political polarization converted to centerthe struggle on the economic and social welfare issues and focus on the Obamacare.Thirdly, political polarization is gradually deepening from the federal level to thestate level.In the new period, the reasons about the deepening of polarization are extremelycomplex and diverse, but I believe that since Obama took office, politicalpolarization not only has failed to ease but showed trend of further deepening, thedeeper reason lies in the unique U.S. electoral system and the system of checks andbalances. In the new historical period, their negative effects are amplified, leading tothe further deepening of political polarization.American political circles have realized that political polarization has disruptedthe normal operation of American politics. At the institutional level, some reform measures are being implemented. It remains to be seen whether those measures areeffective. The outlook of American political polarization is still not optimistic. Ibelieve that the both parties of the polarization should strengthen mutualcommunication, make adjustment and compromises to push U.S. domestic politicsback to normal.