America Explained: Politics, elections, and our uniquely flawed democracy

At last, the election of 2012 is complete. President Barack Obama has been elected to a second term in office, and the two branches of Congress have each received some new members. In this election, the flaws of our democratic process were especially apparent. This post briefly tells how the American political system works, as well as how it doesn’t work.

In 1775, the colonists of North America rebelled against their British overseers. The end result was an independent country called the United States of America. Originally comprised of 13 colonies, represented by the stripes on our flag, the country today includes 50 states, represented by the stars. Immediately after independence, a constitution called The Articles of Confederation was instituted. This established the country as a Confederacy, where power rested mostly with the individual states, rather than a centralized power. After about 10 years, the absence of a strong central power was problematic, and so a second constitution, which we call “The Constitution,” was ratified. This strengthened the central government, and empowered the presidential position, which George Washington first held for two consecutive 4 year terms.

In our current government, there are three branches at the national level, including the Congress, which proposes laws, the President, who ratifies or vetoes the proposed laws, and the Supreme Court, which handles disputes over the implementation of laws. This three branch system is based on the idea of “checks and balances,” meaning that each branch limits the powers of another, making dictatorship impossible. In addition, each of the 50 states has its own government, led by a governor who ratifies laws proposed by a legislature. National laws apply everywhere, but state laws change in each state.

The biggest difference between American politics and other democratic systems is that we don’t have a parliament where several parties are represented. We have a two-party system, where political leaders either belong to the Democratic Party or to the Republican Party. We have lots of other political parties too, but 95% of American politicians belong to the big two parties. The Republican and Democratic Parties have undergone many changes throughout history. Today, Republicans are the conservative party and Democrats are the liberal party, generally. Democrats favor social policies that help the poor, in exchange for higher taxes rendered on the population. Republicans want a smaller government that does not perform these functions, in exchange for lower taxes. The Republican Party is more overtly religious than the Democratic Party. This is opposite of the Middle East and other places, where the conservative religious parties are more inclined toward social policies.

Our elections have always been scandalous and have involved foul play. Propaganda is as American as apple pie. Just ask our second and third presidents John Adams and Thomas Jefferson. The election between them was filled with slander and lies. In the modern era, though, the influence of money is especially powerful. Our Supreme Court recently ruled in a case (referred to as “Citizens United”) that companies and corporations are, like people, entitled to Free Speech. Therefore, it is unconstitutional to limit the amount of money corporations can give to political candidates for elections.

What essentially happens is that political campaigns become so expensive, including the billions of dollars overall that are spent on TV commercials, that the majority of a politician’s time is not spent on  government duties, but on raising money for his or her upcoming election campaign. The intentions that political leaders have for bettering their state or the country are hindered by other promises and obligations made to the people giving them money for the election. Do you think Climate Change legislation will ever be a priority of oil company executives, who donate billions of dollars each election cycle? Also, if one reads the Affordable Care Act (aptly called ObamaCare) closely, there is a provision that fully excludes pharmaceutical companies from compliance on certain measures. I wonder, who asked for that?

On this issue, there is one misconception held in parts of the Muslim World that must be addressed: The Israel Lobby. There is an idea that supporters of Israel in the United States donate overwhelming amounts of money to political campaigns, and this is  one of the reasons behind the inextricable U.S.-Israel relationship. In fact, that’s largely true. HOWEVER, the majority of Israel’s supporters in the U.S. are not Jewish. They’re Christians, and they’re Republicans.

Support for Israel is a strong tenet of the Republican Party. That’s why Israel’s security is mentioned in every Republican debate, while Obama, who is a Democrat, has never even visited the country. In the U.S., around 80% of Jewish voters support Democratic candidates who don’t overtly support Israel.

The trouble with American politics, is that the overwhelming amounts of money involved sometimes blur the lines between paranoia and rationality. Is U.S. military policy tied into the manufacturing of arms and the extraction of natural resources. Of course. Is this the only cause? Probably not. But when government policies are obviously beholden to the wishes of some campaign money donor, it is reasonable to question its merits, and whether its intentions are for the good of the country, or the money donor.

About the author

Ethan Lazuk

Born in Montana in 1989, I attended high school in Phoenix, Arizona, and college at Northern Arizona University and The University of Connecticut, before finally coming to The University of Montana, from which I recently earned a Bachelor's degree in Central and Southwest Asian Studies. I currently live in Washington D.C.


Although American English is my first language, I also have an intermediate/advanced knowledge of Modern Standard Arabic, with some Lebanese and Gulf vocabulary, as well as a basic knowledge of Farsi-Persian. My academic areas of interest include Cultural Anthropology, Islamic Studies, and Environmental and Human Geography. While my research interests include pre-Islamic religions and socio-political structures from the Middle Eastern and Central Asian regions; the formative years of Islam and the subsequent developments of alternative interpretations, or madhabs; intra-communal and inter-religious relationships in a pre-colonial context; the effects of colonial encounters on indigenous community structures and socio-religious ideologies; Orientalist versus indigenous historical narratives and interpretations; and political Islam and modern-day social movements, especially in response to Western foreign policy. In 2010, I was a summer intern with the Department of Defense, working on Ft. McNair Army Base in the Near East South Asia Center for Strategic Studies. Additionally, I have traveled in Istanbul, Turkey, and lived for three months in Tbilisi, Republic of Georgia.


I am a third-generation American of Polish descent. My great-grandparents fled Eastern Europe during the Bolshevik Revolution and entered the United States through Ellis Island. Today, my parents and sister live in Colorado, where they are surrounded by the beautiful Rocky Mountains. I am also happily married to the love of my life named Dania. Originally from al-Madinah, Saudi Arabia, she came to the United States two years ago as an exchange student. She is a practicing Muslim. But I am a searcher who finds beauty in all religions, and therefore I do not belong to any one religion in particular. But her and I having different religious beliefs has not negatively affected our marriage. In fact, it has brought us closer together. We respectfully embrace our differences, while cherishing our infinite similarities. If being in an inter-faith marriage has taught me one thing, it is that religious differences are not a cause for division, but for collaboration.

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