Divided Government

A very interesting concept is that of divided government and the roll it has played in U.S. politics. As many would say that the victors of these midterm elections were the Republican Party others would say the actual victor is divided government. In the last two decades a strong pattern of divided government has emerged in our political system. This new pattern is because the public desires and prefers divided government as they have clear reason to. The definition of is when one party controls the White House and the other controls either or both chambers of Congress. Washington has been split between the parties for more than 21 of the past 30 years The middle four of President George W. Bush’s eight years represented the longest stint of unified government in that span most likely due to the unity of the country after 9/11.

What is also very interesting to me is how when divided government is absent and one of the two party’s has complete control of the U.S. government, controlling the Whitehouse and the Congress, its popularity collapses and the voters bring in the other party. This phenomenon seems to of come up quite recently as back in the day during the Great Depression up until the Ronald Reagan years, the public had no problem with keeping Democrats in charge of Congress and the White House at numerous times. However during those times the leaders of those days were diverse in their thoughts and opinions. Not everyone in the Republican Party thought the exact same thing and voted the same way and same went for the Democratic Party. However today, the parties have been separated along ideological lines. The result is that the system behaves very differently when one party is in control than when they share, a very interesting phenomenon as well.