Was the apparent failure of the American political system to address the industrial conflicts and

racial tensions of the Gilded Age a result of the two parties' poor leadership and narrow self-

interest, or was it simply the natural inability of a previous agrarian, local, democratic nation to

face up to a modern, national industrial economy? Explain why

Apparent failure of the American political system to address the industrial conflicts and racial tensions of the Gilded Age a result of the two parties' poor leadership and narrow self - interest.

Explanation:

The Gilded Age was a period of contradiction and dynamism in the life of the United States, usually chronologically attributed to the last third of the 19th century.

During the presidential campaign of 1884, none of the parties had a program of action. At the same time, the withdrawal from the party of independent Republicans who were not satisfied with the course of the civil service reform implementation, as well as the attack on the personal qualities of presidential candidates, made the political propaganda action particularly acute.

The 1890s brought an ever-growing conflict into American society. In relation to the beginning of the decade (including the midterm elections of 1890 and the presidential election of 1892), one can speak of a latent change in the consciousness of ordinary Americans, their dissatisfaction with the rapidly carried out industrialization and monopolization and the emergence of an influential third party on the left flank. Moreover, the range and scale of the radicalization of public sentiment has expanded significantly compared with the second half of the 1870s: it was not only and not so much the Midwest, but the entire territory west of the Mississippi River and the states of the South.

After the presidential election of 1892, in connection with the beginning of the unprecedentedly deep and painful Depression of 1893-1897, social ill-being took a dangerous character for society and the state. In politics, there was not just concentrating on one problem - monetary - but turning it into a mania, a panacea for all ills for some and a fatal experiment for others.