Commentary: Partisanship-plagued U.S. elections by no means "exemplary democracy"

With the highly contentious U.S. presidential election just around the corner, the Republicans and Democrats have rolled up their sleeves to give each other the final blows, in hopes that their respective candidate would prevail.

This year's presidential race drama between Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump and his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton, smeared with corruption charges, scandals and personal attacks, has shown that America's Donkey and Elephant have chosen to fight with each other in pursuit of votes and interests.

The gunpowder can be smelled at both parties' National Conventions. Instead of focusing on party policies and agenda at the convention, Republicans and Democrats indulged themselves in thrusting personal attacks at each other's presidential nominees.

Offensive remarks such as "Dangerous Donald" and "Hillary for Prison" could be seen everywhere at both parties' conventions.

At the White House and the Congress, the Republicans and the Democrats were supposed to be counter-balancing yet cooperative partners. However, in recent years, the two major parties have become increasingly incompatible like water and oil, and American politics has slumped into a vicious circle of "I will oppose whatever you raise".

During a trip to Springfield this February, outgoing U.S. President Barack Obama admitted his failure to narrow the partisan divide he had vowed to do during his presidential campaign.

In the city where he had announced his candidacy, Obama said: "The tone of our politics hasn't gotten better since I was inaugurated. In fact, it's gotten worse."

Since the Republicans became the majority party in the U.S. Congress in the mid-term election in 2014, things had turned worse. Partisan divide haunted the Congress more unscrupulously, and determined its non-capability.

Not to speak of state affairs, some trifles would also sparkle the cross-fire between the two struggling parties. For instance, the federal government controlled by the Democrats and the Republican-dominated states argued in May about the issue of the transgender students using bathrooms.

Though the term of this Congress would expire in Jan. 2017, it has been labelled as the least efficient since 1947 by Gallup last month, registering a poor 18 percent approval rating.

Francis Fukuyama, a renowned political scholar, attributed this to the deep dysfunctions of contemporary American politics.

The deadly party fight has revealed to the public not the merit of seeking common ground while reserving differences, but an ugly picture of disagreement just for the sake of disagreement, even smearing at each other.

As a consequence, the federal government was once shut down, and public policy and welfare lay victimized by the internal fight. This summer, America was attacked by the Zika virus. However, the emergency fund was long overdue as the White House and the Congress were busy dealing with the fight between the two parties.

America has always been branding itself as the model of Western democracy. However, partisanship has plagued the American election and made it descend to "vote politics", resulting in social split and polarization.

During this year's presidential race, more and more Americans have begun to question the political system they once were proud of, and cherished a disappointing attitude towards the two nominees.

In a Xinhua opinion poll on twitter, 43 percent of the respondents think Trump's and Clinton's performances "never" match the so-called "exemplary democracy".

Sixty-two percent of the interviewees think the 2016 U.S. election is "downright embarrassing", and the campaign is "smearing the country's global image". Endi