Political America can well be described in one word: frustrating. Politics, over the second half of the 20th century has taken a turn for the worse. It has reached a level of inefficiency where many argue it has become ineffective. What many people fail to realize, however, is that our government is slow by design. Fragmented government, the separation of powers, and political factionalism are all basic infrastructural elements of our government that exist for the sole purpose of decelerating the political process in order to make it more deliberate and more democratic. Unfortunately, because of the level of citizen frustration, the political system itself is often called into question, and cited as the source of the government's troubles. While it is always easy to "blame the system," many would be surprised to learn that the real source of trouble lies not within the federal infrastructure, but within the apathetic stance many Americans have taken on politics.

The design of the federal system is intentional. To try to change the government in order to increase efficiency would be foolish. The Constitution's framers made the government inefficient primarily because they had grown

Recently however, the process has tended to shift from slow to standstill. With today's fast-paced lifestyle, this shift has caused outrage and frustration, driving many people not only to blame the process, but also to try to change it. One must, however, consider the ramifications that modifying the system would have. Making the system more efficient would, as the framers realized, be a very dangerous move. If other factors which contribute to the gridlock, can be eliminated the U.S. political process can be expedited while still maintaining the safeguarded system described in the Constitution.

One such factor is the increasing role that ultra-partisan politics has in Washington. Recently, a decline in the integrity of political parties has led to a massive decline in politics in general. As cited by Meg Greenfield in the Washington Post, national parties have changed from constituency based organizations to "individual money-raising machines." In order to increase revenues, parties have become much more monetarily manipulated. The major side effect of this is that benefactors are dictating party politics, party goals are more rigid and have become litmus tests of member loyalty, and room for political compromise (the way the framers envisioned the system working) is diminishing. Over the past five years, several incidents stick out as testaments to the evils of intense partisan politics: in 199

Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 955
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)