American Greatness: Past or Future? (Platforms of Democratic and Republican parties in 2020)

Abstract

The electoral platform of the Democratic Party is analyzed, which has received the characteristics of the "most progressive" in the entire American history. Its politicized nature is based on the demonization of the current Republican President Donald Trump. The Democratic program is designed to become a platform for uniting all anti-Trump forces, and as such it contains many deliberately impossible promises and slogans. Significant emphasis in the program is placed on reforming the American political system, which, according to the idea of the political strategists of the Democratic Party, is designed to exclude, in principle, the coming to power of politicians like Donald Trump, who represents the interests of the ruling US financial and economic elite. In the 21st century the American political system of checks and balances has become increasingly unresponsive to the pressing needs of American socio-economic development. Reforms and transformations in the economic and social spheres require a fairly long time horizon for their implementation. As the American political practice of the last 10-12 years shows, the implementation of the declared political course and the implementation of large-scale reforms and transformations are possible only if one of the two main political parties in the United States controls all power over its executive and legislative branches. The loss of control over one of the chambers of Congress simultaneously leads to the blocking of programs of long-term reforms and transformations, which turns into an increase in the intensity of internal political struggle, which most negatively affects the effectiveness of the functioning of state institutions in American society. In these conditions, the need for strengthening authoritarian principles in the US government system is objectively growing, designed to level off the blocking of reforms and transformations initiated by the party that controls the Executive branch of government. In addition, a paradigm is emerging in which a periodic change of the political guard in Washington, embedded in the very idea of a bipartisan liberal democratic system, turns into a sharp increase in destructive principles in the activities of the state, when the political party that came to power as a result of the Presidential election perceives its mandate simply in the form of a program of almost complete dismantling of the legacy left by the previous administration. This political "zero-sum game" leads to quite destructive foreign policy consequences that directly affect the ideological and socio-economic positions of the United States in the international arena.