A major effect of political party organization in the United States has been a tremendous simplification of alternatives at the time of voting. Where no party organization exists, there is typically a large number of candidates, and the dispersion of votes for these candidates is wide. When parties dominate an election, characteristically the number of candidates is drastically limited, and the votes are highly concentrated. The U.S. Constitution provides that when no candidate receives a majority of the electoral votes the House elects the president from the five candidates who receive the largest vote in the electoral college. Widely read comic strips are among the more effective means of spreading propaganda.
Many readers feel themselves in the roles played by the most popular comic-strip heroes.
It is almost a truism that the survival of a state depends in the last resort on the loyalty of its citizens. Since ancient Athens had no royalty, no standing army, no bureaucracy, the continuance of the state and its institutions required the constant loyalty of its citizens. Any shock to the foundation of the the Athenian state was immediately felt from the base to the summit, since there were no intermediate elements to deaden the blow. All matter, which is to say all objects that occupy space, from the infinitesimal atom to the largest know planet or star, are in ceaseless relative motion. We do not perceive the rotation of the earth on its axis, or the movement of the tiny particles called protons and neutrons as they move about in the nucleus of an atom.