0_Wizard
I am a democrat and I feel very proud because I that means I belong to one of the two major political parties in the USA.
The Democratic Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party (GOP).
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Democratic Party (United States)
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Democratic Party (United States)
The Democratic Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party (GOP). Tracing its heritage back to Thomas Jefferson and James Madison's Democratic-Republican Party, the modern-day Democratic Party was founded around 1828 by supporters of Andrew Jackson, making it the world's oldest political party. The Democrats' dominant worldview was once social conservatism and economic liberalism while populism was its leading characteristic in the rural South. In 1912, Theodore Roosevelt ran as a third-party candidate in the Progressive ("Bull Moose") Party, leading to a switch of political platforms between the Democratic and Republican Party and Woodrow Wilson being elected as the first fiscally progressive Democrat.
Two-party system
A two-party system is a party system where two major political parties dominate the government. One of the two parties typically holds a majority in the legislature and is usually referred to as the "majority" or "governing party" while the other is the "minority" or "opposition party". Around the world, the term has different senses. For example, in the United States, Jamaica, and Malta, the sense of "two party system" describes an arrangement in which all or nearly all elected officials belong to one of the only two major parties, and third parties rarely win any seats in the legislature. In such arrangements, two-party systems are thought to result from various factors like winner takes all election rules.
United States presidential election, 2008
The United States presidential election of 2008 was the 56th quadrennial presidential election. It was held on Tuesday, November 4, 2008. The Democratic ticket of Barack Obama, a Senator from Illinois, and Joe Biden, a long-time Senator from Delaware, defeated the Republican ticket of Senator John McCain of Arizona and Governor Sarah Palin of Alaska. Obama became the first African American ever to be elected as president, and Joe Biden became the first Catholic to ever be elected as vice president. The incumbent Republican president, George W. Bush, was ineligible to be elected to a third term due to the term limits established by the 22nd Amendment.
Political party
A political party is a group of people who come together to contest elections and hold power in the government. The party agrees on some proposed policies and programmes, with a view to promoting the collective good or furthering their supporters' interests. While there is some international commonality in the way political parties are recognized, and in how they operate, there are often many differences, and some are significant. Many political parties have an ideological core, but some do not, and many represent ideologies very different from their ideology at the time the party was founded. Many countries, such as Germany and India, have several significant political parties, and some nations have one-party systems, such as China and Cuba.
Politics of the United States
The United States is a federal republic in which the president, Congress, and federal courts share powers reserved to the national government according to its Constitution. The federal government shares sovereignty with the state governments. The executive branch is headed by the President and is formally independent of both the legislature and the judiciary. The cabinet serves as a set of advisers to the President. They include the Vice President and heads of the executive departments. Legislative power is vested in the two chambers of Congress, the Senate and the House of Representatives. The judicial branch (or judiciary), composed of the Supreme Court and lower federal courts, exercises judicial power.
Political parties in the United States
Political parties in the United States are mostly dominated by a two-party system, though the United States Constitution has always been silent on the issue of political parties since at the time it was signed in 1787 there were no parties in the nation—indeed, no nation in the world had voter-based political parties. The need to win popular support in a republic led to the American invention of voter-based political parties in the 1790s. Americans were especially innovative in devising new campaign techniques that linked public opinion with public policy through the party. Political scientists and historians have divided the development of America's two-party system into five eras.
Independent politician
An independent or nonpartisan politician is an individual politician not affiliated with any political party. There are numerous reasons why someone may stand for office as an independent. Some independent politicians may be associated with a political party, perhaps as former members of it, or else have views that align with it, but choose not to stand in its name, or are unable to do so because the party in question has selected another candidate. Others may belong to or support a political party at the national level but believe they should not formally represent it (and thus be subject to its policies) at another level.