liberals had recently begun supporting issues such as feminism, environmentalism, and gay rights. Republicans on the other hand, who had historically been the party of wealth, added the paranoid southern whites (who were so terrified of the big black man that they had given their allegiance to the party they had fought so long and hard against to maintain the right to control involuntary servitude), and many northern ethnic groups. They stood up to represent many social issues, such as right to life and family values, racial issues such as opposition to integration and affirmative action, (which ironically was an about face from the stance taken in order to garner outside economic support from Britain in order to win the Civil War), and patriotic issues such as flag burning and support for high defense spending. The Federal Government became split with domestic policy department giving allegiance to the democrats and the military siding with Republicans.
             These splits among the populous remained substantially even. Neither party has been able to gain an absolute majority of the electorate. From the 1960's until the early 1990's Republicans were usually in charge of the executive and Democrats the legislative branches respectfully. During the Clinton era, the Democrats took control of the White House and the Republicans took control of Congress. For the last one-third of the twentieth century our government has been divided and has become the norm. Neither party has been able to break free of the system in order to control the system for any extended period of time.
             This period of political dormancy has had its effect upon voter turn-out. Once the parties hit a stalemate, they moved the arena of conflict into government itself. Grass-roots parties became weaker. These parties were usually charged with mobilizing the voters to get to the polls. As government began the arena, the partisan conflict became enthral...