Political Parties (a Political Issue)
The United States Constitution does not mention political parties. Our founding fathers had feared that political factions would tear the nation apart. They wanted to avoid the political divisions that had torn England apart in the bloody civil wars of the 17th century. They saw political parties as corrupt relics of the British monarchical system and wanted to discard them in favor of a truly democratic government.
Therefore, the candidates for our first elections all ran as individuals (independents). With some exceptions, anyone who was able to vote could run for political office. In most states, that generally meant white males over 21 years of age. Some states also limited voting rights to property owners. To run for President, our Constitution also required that someone would also need to have been born in the United States and be over 35 years of age.
In most of our elections, past and present, we have used a Plurality Voting method. With this method, we would vote for our preferred candidate and the candidate that received the most votes would be declared the winner. If only two candidates ran, then one candidate would need to get a majority of the votes. If more than one candidate ran, then the winner would simply need to receive more votes than any other candidate. In this case, a candidate could win with far less than a majority of the votes. For instance, if 10 candidates ran, it is theoretically possible for one of them to win with just a bit more than 10 percent of the votes.
In our earliest elections, dozens of candidates often ran for some offices. This made it difficult for some voters to decide who to vote for. In addition, with so many candidates, several similar candidates would often split the vote in such a way that a single fringe candidate would end up with the most votes. Then, since a Plurality Voting method only required a candidate to get more votes than each of the other candidates got, even when those votes totaled far less than a majority of the votes, this fringe candidate would be declared the winner.
People wanted to prevent these fringe candidates from winning. Therefore, in the 1790’s, despite our founding fathers’ warnings about political parties and without anyone really looking for a better solution, the first political parties were organized. The idea behind having these political parties was that like-minded individuals could select one of the similar candidates that they thought would better represent their views and positions on the issues than the fringe candidates. Then, by combining and concentrating their resources and votes behind this candidate they could have a better chance of electing their preferred candidate.
At first, a lot of different political parties were formed and were often successful in selecting and electing candidates who were preferred by their members. For a long time, these political parties stayed mainly local, state or regional. Over the years, many different political parties came and went. Then, those political parties that had more members and had more money and more resources were better able to get their candidates elected and were able to grow larger.
In the 1820's and 1830's, the political landscape was quite complicated with various local, state and regional political parties. Various factions within and coalitions between the political parties and differences between those political parties and other groups began to reshape the political landscape.
In the 1824 presidential election, none of the 4 candidates, who were all affiliated with the Democratic Republicans Party, got a majority in the popular vote or in the electoral college vote. Although Andrew Jackson got the most popular and electoral votes, the House of Representatives elected John Quincy Adams. Andrew Jackson denounced this election as a "corrupt bargain" between Adams and the Speaker of the House and then started to assemble a new coalition that included the new Democratic Party and various other groups.
In the 1828 presidential election, Andrew Jackson won with his new coalition. This resulted in the Democratic Republicans Party splitting apart with those favoring Jackson going over to the Democratic Party, and the rest forming the short-lived National Republicans Party (not related to the current Republican Party).
The Democratic Party then became the first well-organized and tightly controlled national political party. With the support of the Democratic Party, Jackson supported the idea of limited government and opposed special interests, new government programs and the banking system. This led to a polarization of the voters between those who supported and those who opposed Jackson’s policies. Those who were opposed to Jackson’s policies formed the Whig Party.
By the early 1850's, the major political parties were the Whig Party and the Democratic Party. By this time, the issue of slavery had taken center stage and led to a shift in the political landscape. The Whig Party had felt that the issue of slavery in the new territories should be left up to the people instead of Congress. However, the voters seemed to disagree with this approach, and that seems to have led to the Whig Party’s devastating loss in the 1852 election and their eventual demise as a political party.
Many of the former members of the Whig Party then joined the anti-slavery Republican Party, which emerged as a third party in 1854. The Republican Party took on many of the policies of the Whig Party, except they opposed slavery in the new territories. With the election of Abraham Lincoln in 1860, the Republican Party became a major political party.
Eventually, mainly due to the advantages of the money and resources that a larger political party could provide, the political landscape would eventually become dominated by two major political parties. These two major political parties have since then been the Republican Party and the Democratic Party. However, these political parties have changed a lot over the years. To understand how and why they have changed we need to understand the concept of political factions and how they influence the views, positions and policies of political parties.
As a political party grows larger, the less likely its members will all completely agree on even our currently most important dozen or so issues, let alone all our hundreds of other issues. Although those of us with similar views on some issues may be more likely to have similar views on many other issues as well, we are still unlikely to agree on a lot of those other issues. Then, this can lead many likeminded individuals within a political party to form factions to try to shift the party's views, positions and policies on those other issues in their direction. This fracturing of the political party can also make it harder for many people to identify with the views, positions and policies of the political party, which can then limit its continued growth.
In most countries, voters have a choice between many different political parties and can usually find one that best represents their views and positions on most issues. If not, they can easily start a new political party that does. However, in the United States, we have just two major political parties that so dominate the political landscape that other political parties are hard to start and have little chance to get many candidates elected. Therefore, most voters and candidates who want to try to push their agenda will need to join one of our two major political parties and then may join one of its factions or create a new faction.
At some given point in time, a majority of the members of a given political party or at least its largest faction may generally have agreed on their views, positions and policies related to our most important dozen or so issues. However, over time, some issues will lose importance, and others will gain importance. Although a political party and its factions may have been generally in agreement with their views, positions and policies for our previously most important issues, they may not be in as much agreement on their views, positions and policies for our newly most important issues.
As our most important issues change, divisions may form within a party's current factions, since its members may not be in as much agreement on their views, positions and policies for those other issues. This may lead to some factions growing or shrinking, some factions splitting, and some new factions forming. As each faction becomes stronger or weaker, its influence over the political party’s platform either grows or shrinks. The one or more factions that are now the strongest may be able to mold their political party's views, positions and policies on the most important issues, which could change them from what they were before.
As a party's positions and policies change, the party can lose members who do not agree with those changes and may gain new members who are in more agreement with those changes. As a political party loses and gains members, its composition can change. That is, it could end up with more members that want and push for additional changes to its views, positions and policies. These additional changes can lead to more individuals leaving and joining the political party, and to even more changes to its views, positions and policies.
Over time, the changes in what issues are most important to us, our views and positions on those issues and the changes in the composition of a political party could transform that party into something completely different from what it was before. On the other hand, two opposing factions within a political party could grow until they tear that party apart. This has happened in the past, and there have been some recent threats by some to do it again. However, the two major political parties have become so powerful and entrenched that it would be extremely hard for any new political party to gain the needed traction to succeed, which makes a split unlikely at this time.
We can use a made up and somewhat outlandish example to illustrate how factions work without getting into any controversy over our current political parties. Let's look at some political parties that exist in Hat world, where everyone must wear a hat in public, but where individuals disagree over what type of hat they should be required to wear.
The citizens of Hat world disagree over the best hat color, brim size, brim shape, crown height, crown shape, and what trim and decorations should be allowed. Many of the individuals that have the strongest and most extreme views on what types of hats they want individuals to wear have joined the two largest political parties. These are the Simply Elegant (SE) party and the Brashly Bold (BB) party.
Each of these two parties has a platform defining what they think hats should look like. Each platform is very different from the other party's platform. In addition, although the members of each party generally agree with other members of their party much more than they do with the members of the other party, they do disagree somewhat with their party's platform and have divided into different factions that are each trying to change their platform. With hat color being the current primary concern for individuals, a hat’s color is each party’s main platform plank and is what mainly divides its members into factions.
In general, the Simply Elegant (SE) party believes that hats should be simple and elegant. In general, they prefer hats having simple colors like white, black or some tasteful shade of gray, and to have simple brims and crowns, short crowns and little if any trim or decorations. The three main factions have split the members between those who prefer white hats, those who prefer black hats and those that prefer gray hats, but other minor factions also exist. If the largest faction wanted black hats, then the party platform might say the party was for black hats, which most of its members still prefer over bright colors.
In general, the Brashly Bold (BB) party believes that hats should be brash and bold. In general, they prefer hats to have bright colors like blue, red, and green, and to have fancy brims and crowns, tall crowns and lots of trimming and decorations. The three main factions have split the members between those who prefer blue hats, those who prefer red hats and those that prefer green hats, but other minor factions also exist. If the largest faction wanted red hats, then the party platform might say the party was for red hats, which most of its members still prefer over simple colors.
When multiple candidates from either party run for office, they would need to compete in a primary. The most determined members of each party would most likely show up to vote in their primary. That is, the ones who were the most ardent about wanting their preferred hat color and other hat features imposed on everyone, starting with their own party members. Therefore, the winner in each party's primary would most likely be the candidate whose hat preferences most closely matched those of the most determined members of their party.
Given that party members generally prefer the hat color and other features being advanced by their party over those of the other party, they would most likely vote in the general election for their party's candidate. Even if that candidate's preferred hat features were not exactly what they wanted. Those individuals who did not belong to either of these parties would most likely be left to choose between two sets of hat features that they did not really like. Then, if they voted, they might simply vote for the candidate who preferred the hat features they liked a bit better or the ones they disliked the least.
Then, if the Simply Elegant (SE) party won the most seats, then they would most likely try to change the law to require black hats, since hat color was the biggest concern for most voters. Since the black hat faction was the biggest, it would have helped to elect more of their candidates, which should then give it the largest share of their party's representatives. These representatives would be party members who wanted black hats and ones who simply needed the primary votes of the black hat faction to get reelected. Therefore, most of the party's members would most likely vote for black hats, even the ones who did not really want black hats.
The Simply Elegant (SE) party may also claim they had a mandate to change all the other hat features. However, it is less clear how successful they would be with these other hat features, since they were not as big a concern for the voters. However, whatever changes they were able to make might result in a backlash from all the voters who did not want those changes.
Over time, voters' hat priorities may change. Maybe brim width will become more important. Maybe the Simply Elegant (SE) party had passed a law to restrict brim widths to less than one inch, and voters now wanted wider brims. If so, the wider brim faction of the party might grow and dominate the party, which might result in more wider brim candidates winning primaries and wider brims becoming part of a new party platform. If these wider brim candidates also preferred white hats, then that might also become part of a new party platform.
As more time goes by, some Simply Elegant (SE) party members might decide that feathers were elegant, and their faction was able to grow large enough to add that to their platform, along with an appropriate trim to hold the feather. Some members might also decide that certain crown shapes were more elegant than the simple ones, and their faction was able to grow large enough to add that to their platform.
As time continued to pass, some factions might grow and new factions might form and continue making changes to the party's platform. At some point, the party has changed so much that it no longer resembles what it once was. On the other hand, some factions may grow so far apart that they split the party. The party members that preferred simple hats might form a new Simple Hat (SH) party, and the party members who preferred elegant hats might form or rename the existing party as the Elegant Hat (EH) party.
Although this hat example is contrived, it does illustrate some things that have happened and could still happen with our real political parties. We will see some of that in the next subsection that goes a little more into the history of the political parties in the United States. In later sections, I will talk about how a new electoral process, and some other changes, could have made life better for the inhabitants of Hat World. That is, give them a way to allow them to have more say and choice in the features that they could have in their hats.
The Democratic and Republican parties present a perfect example of how political factions can change what a party stands for. If you look at the positions and supporters of these parties prior to 1932, the descriptions will sound a lot like what they would be today, except they would have been switched. Back then, the Democratic party was conservative and believed in a small government and states' rights and opposed industrial modernization. At the same time, the Republican party was liberal and believed in high tariffs, more government programs to help the people and supported industrial modernization.
Although the political views, positions and policies of the Democratic and Republican parties had already started to shift, the Great Depression from 1929 through 1939, and the Democrats' New Deal programs of 1933 through 1939 accelerated this shift. This resulted in the Democratic Party becoming the party of big government. With this change, the supporters, positions and policies of both political parties continued to shift. By about 1976, the parties had basically swapped views, positions and policies on most issues.
Recently, there have been many shifts taking place in both the Republican and Democratic parties. The Republican party has abandoned many of their previous polices and embraced a lot of polices that were held by the Democratic party. This has led to an overall increase in the party’s membership with a lot of new members, but with some members who did not believe in the changes then leaving the party. In response, the Democratic party is now going through some turmoil as its members are now trying to redefine their political party.
Another change that has occurred in our political parties is a shift towards having more members with more extreme views and positions on the issues and more extreme policies. Basically, when our earliest political parties were formed their main goal was to prevent the fringe or extreme candidates from winning and to elect candidates who were more aligned with their more moderate and more mainstream views. Although this initially mostly worked, the people with more extreme views were the ones who were more highly motivated to get involved in politics so they could force their views on everyone else. Therefore, these extremists have increasingly come to dominate and then to take over our political parties.
With our mostly two-party political system, the push towards these extremes has become amplified. When one of these political parties pushes our government in one direction the other political party becomes more motivated to push our government in the other direction. The further one political party pushes our government one way the more the other tries to push our government further the other way. In fact, we could easily lay blame on the current majority political party pushing our government too far in one direction for the backlash that is causing the other political party to try to push our government too far in the other direction.
A big factor that has led to our mostly two-party political system is that we have a winner-take-all system. In some other countries, citizens vote for a political party, and representatives are selected based on what percentage of the vote each party got. Therefore, even a small political party could often get enough votes overall to have some representation. In addition, the political parties in these countries that have views, positions and policies that are more in line with the majority would have an advantage in getting more of their members elected.
To get elected in our winner-take-all system, a single candidate needs to be elected in each district. This system gives larger political parties a decided advantage due to their greater membership, money and other resources. In fact, in many states the dominant political party can virtually shut out those who are affiliated with any other political party or who are unaffiliated from having any representation in their government.
Today, in the United States, only the Democratic Party and the Republican Party are recognized in all 50 states. There are dozens of other political parties, but they are only recognized in some states. Only a few of these political parties are recognized in more than a few states and mostly have only been able to get just a few of their members elected in local elections. In addition, each year some of these political parties may gain or lose recognition. Currently, the Libertarian Party is recognized in about 30 states, the Green Party is recognized in about 20 states, and the Constitution Party is recognized in about 10 states.
However, many factions still exist in both of our major political parties and continue to shift their party's views, positions and policies on the issues. Nevertheless, for the most part, the benefits of size have continued to win out over the disagreements that party members have had over the issues. For the members of these political parties, the general attitude may be that it is better to get someone elected who is at least close to their views and positions on the major issues than to risk letting someone further from their views and positions get elected. This is despite the more extreme views, positions and policies that these political parties have.
In fact, unless someone is independently wealthy or already well known, it is difficult to get elected to a political office without the resources of one of the major political parties. Therefore, most individuals who run for political office belong to one of these two political parties, even if they do not agree with a lot of that political parity's views, positions and policies on a lot of the issues and even if they are well known or wealthy.
When it comes to getting involved in the political process, the political parties have left many of us with limited choices. We can go with whichever one of the two large political parties that most closely corresponds with our views, go with a third party that may better embody our views, but may have little chance of winning, or try to influence things from the sidelines as independents or as members of one or more special interest groups.
Is there a way to improve the current situation or is there a better alternative? Yes, but to see what we can do, we should first take a little closer look at a few more aspects of our current situation.
Today, the members of our two largest political parties seem to be trying to force us into believing in a False Delema fallacy. That is, they want us to limit our choices of who to vote for to the candidates from just their two political parties. In many places our two largest political parties are even actively trying to make it very difficult for any other political party to be recognized. In many locations, one or the other of these two political parties has even essentially succeeded in limiting our choice to just a candidate from their political party.
One reason that these political parties will try to limit our choices is that their members on average have more extreme views, positions and policies on the issues than most of us. In addition, since they would each like to impose their views on all of us, they each prefer to limit our choices to their candidates. However, although they may be able to do that in some locations, they have not been able to do that everywhere. Nevertheless, what they have been able to do is to limit us mostly to their two political parties. This way, they prevent most of us from voting for candidates from another political party or an independent with whom more of us might agree with and prefer.
Another reason for these two large political parties wanting to limit our choices is that it makes it much easier for them to create gerrymandered districts that will allow one of them to so dominate these districts that their candidates can run unopposed. When a political party’s candidates can run unopposed, then the members of their political party can decide who will be elected instead of allowing all the voters to have a say, which means they can better ensure that the person elected will support their more extreme views, positions and policies.
Even when there is a candidate from the opposing political party, they may find it much easier for their candidate to draw a sharper contrast between their views, positions and polies with those of their opposition. With the candidates from these two political parties having more extreme and diametrically opposing views, positions and polies, it is much easier for each candidate to paint the other candidate in a more negative light than it would be to do with multiple opposing candidates where some of them may have views, positions and policies that are less extreme, more similar to theirs or more similar to more of their constituents.
Since most competitive elections limit voters to just two choices, those candidates can more easily show a sharp contrast between themselves and their party and the other candidates and their party. Many voters may then need to identify with one of the candidates or their respective party or be forced to go with the candidate or political party that they like just a bit better or dislike least or sit out the election when they are not given any other good choices.
With multiple choices, candidates could not draw such a sharp contrast with all the other candidates and might need to have more views, positions and policies in line with more of the voters to get elected. With more candidates, voters would be able to select a candidate from a political party that they can better identify with, which may not be a candidate from one of the two current major political parties. Since more of us have less extreme and more moderate or centralist views than those of our two current major political parties, we might be able to vote for and to elect less extreme and more moderate or centralist candidates from less extreme and more moderate or centralist political parties.
However, for third party or independent candidates to stand a chance of being elected they need to overcome some big misconceptions about them. First, our two major political parties are trying to push their False Delema fallacy to make us believe that candidates from their political parties are our only real choices. They want us to believe that other candidates have little or no chance of winning, so that we will think we would be wasting our votes on them. Then, too many of us end up believing this False Delema fallacy and we do not vote for any third party or independent candidates. Of course, when these other candidates lose because we did not vote for them this then becomes a type of self-fulfilling prophecy.
Our political parties are also trying to force many other fallacies on us. These include Hasty Generalization and Strawman fallacies. In some ways, these two fallacies are quite similar. In both cases, members of one political party want to paint the other political party and its members as something that they are not. In one case, a political party wants us to make a Hasty Generalization about how bad the other political party and all its members are based on one or a few examples of extra extreme or morally challenged members. In the other case, they want to twist some views, positions or policies of the other political party or its members into what they are not so that they can more easily attack them.
For instance, some people have called for defunding the police, have called for expelling citizens based on their race, have committed corrupt acts, have denigrated, abused or raped women, have done or said many other things that most of us would consider wrong or simply have called for policy changes that are unpopular. When someone of a major political party has done one or more of these things, members of the other major political party will try to force us into making a Hasty Generalization and believe that all the members of their political party have or will do the same.
Even if a member of a major political party has not done or said something that would be considered bad, members of the other major political party will try to twist what was done or said into something bad. For instance, a representative may have voted against a bill for one reason, but members of the other major political party will claim the representative voted against it for a different reason. With them misrepresenting why the representative voted against the bill, they can create a strawman version of the representative who they may be able to more successfully attack. Another way some people misrepresent others is by taking something they have said or done out of context which allows them to create strawmen versions of these others that they can attack.
First off, some members of both major political parties have or will do or say something wrong or have an unpopular view, position or policy. On the flip side, some members of both major political parties have or will do or say something good or have a popular view, position or policy. Neither of these things make all members, views, positions or policies of their political party good or bad and trying to manipulate us into believing so is dishonest and wrong. All we can say is that the actions, views, positions or policies of the given person are good or bad irrespective of their political party.
Secondly, misrepresenting what someone does or says is also dishonest and wrong even if that person is a member of a different political party. If someone cannot be honest about what someone does or says then that person should just keep quiet. If they go ahead and try to twist or to misrepresent what someone has said or done, then it behooves the rest of us to call them out on what they are trying to do even if we are members of their political party.
Given the state of our political parties, how do those of us who want to get involved in our political system decide what political affiliation, if any, we will have? For some of us, the choice may seem simple because our views and positions align so much better with one of the political parties than they do with any of the others. However, for most of us, I believe the choice is much more difficult given the more extreme views, positions and policies of most of our political parties.
However, I believe our choice would be much easier in a better political environment where we are represented by more individuals who are better aligned with the views, positions and policies preferred by more of us, their constituents. I will lay out what we need for this better political environment in what follows. In the meantime, the following are a few things that we must currently consider when deciding what political affiliation, if any, we might choose.
To start with, we need to take stock of our views, positions and policies on the issues that we care about. Once we know how we stand on these issues, we need to look at where each of the political parties stand on these issues. We may get lucky and find that one of the political parties is a good match or at least a much better match than any of the other political parties. On the other hand, we might not find a good or even close match. If so, we could stay completely unaffiliated, get involved with various causes or with one or more special interest groups, or even try to start our own political party or to change an existing political party.
Given that only two of our political parties are large enough to have any significant effect on what our government does and how it operates, we also need to consider whether our chosen political affiliation can have any significant impact on our political system. This is especially important if we want to run as a candidate for political office. Therefore, we might need to decide whether it is better to affiliate with a political party that we are better aligned with or one that would have more political clout.
When we do affiliate with a political party, we will most likely find that we do not agree with all the views, positions and policies of that political party. We then need to decide whether to ignore them or to work to change the political party’s views, positions and policies on those things that we do not agree with. To do that we would need to find others who agreed with us or to convince others to agree with us. However, if we want to run for political office, we may find it difficult to change the political party’s views, positions and policies without possibly alienating too many other members and ruining our chances of having our political party support us.
Since it is often difficult for us individually to get our opinions heard, special interest groups can sometimes be a good way to help provide some of us with a bigger voice. A special interest group (also called an advocacy group, lobbying group, or pressure group) is made up of likeminded individuals who combine and concentrate their resources to influence and to steer public policy and legislative action on one or more issues towards their point of view.
On the other hand, some special interest groups create problems for our political system, since they will often resort to buying influence, to pressuring our representatives or to using misleading or false advertising instead of really discussing the issues.
Interestingly, political parties and special interest groups have a lot in common. They only seem to have a couple of real differences between them. In addition, those differences only seem to have any real significance when we talk about our two largest political parties.
The first important difference is that a special interest group is usually set up only to deal with a single or a few related issues, whereas our two large political parties, like all political parties, must deal with a wide range of issues. Even so, our political parties often try to drive the debate towards those few issues where they feel that their views are more popular with the voters and then try to downplay or to ignore many of the other issues.
The other important difference is that the members of special interest groups are separate from the government but often try to control members of the government through campaign donations or other means, whereas the members of a political party will try to take over control of the government from within. For our two largest political parties, one of their main goals seems to be to become the dominant or ruling party, so, theoretically, they will be able to more easily enact legislation that will further their agenda.
We usually consider our form of government to include being a Majoritarian Democracy. That is, we expect that the majority will decide how our government will work and what it will do. In general, more of us would likely be happier with our government when the majority controls how our government operates and gets to decide on what our laws will be rather than if some minority was to decide how our government will work and what it will do.
However, as I have already talked about in the previous section on Democracy, majority rule may not protect everyone. All that majority rule does is to provide a better way to protect those individuals in the majority. What we really need are laws and procedures, and the checks and balances that would ensure that all of us and all living things can be protected and given the chance to live our lives as we want, to the extent that we do not needlessly harm others, our resources or our environment.
The way our democracy was envisioned to work was that we would elect representatives who would represent our interests in our government, but the ultimate power over our government would remain in the hands of us, the people. Of course, this power was meant to be controlled by the majority. Although this is not the best option, it is still better than a monarchy, a dictatorship or some other form of authoritarian or minority rule. However, given our current political climate, we really do not even have majority rule.
Based on our current political and electoral processes, most of our elected officials are members of either the Democratic or Republican party, which has led to many, if not most, of our governments being dominated or even controlled by one or the other of these political parties. However, neither of these political parties represent anywhere near a majority. As of 2024, 28% of Americans identified themselves as Democrats, 28% as Republicans, and 43% as independents.
Since each of our political parties represents only a small minority of the voters, this means that most of our governments may be controlled by just a minority of the voters. Even worse is the fact that the political parties are made up of many factions where only one or a few of them may control the party. This means that many of our governments may at best only be controlled by a majority or even just a plurality of that minority.
In addition, members of political parties are made up of individuals who lean on average much farther to the left or to the right politically than most of the rest of us do. That means that when one party is in control in some location, then they may be able to pass laws and enact policies that are much further to the left or to the right of what most of us want or would even be comfortable with.
When our representatives lean a lot further to the left or to the right of their constituents, we end up with minority rule by extremists. As an analogy, think what would happen to us if we leaned too far to the left or to the right. We would fall over. If a ship leans too far to the left (port) or to the right (starboard), it will capsize and sink. Something similar could happen to our country if we continue to allow some extremist minority on either the left or the right to control our government.
Our government is sometimes referred to as our Ship of State where we are its crew and passengers. This metaphor emphasizes our need for a crew (our representatives) that will show skillful leadership and careful navigation and highlights the dangers of mismanagement or political conflict. To reach our destination, we need to keep a steady course and to keep from capsizing.
When too many of us move too far to the left (port) or the right (starboard) we risk capsizing our ship. When too many of us move too far one way, we force many others to move far enough the other way to keep us balanced. That is, when one political party moves to one extreme that forces the other party to move to the other extreme. However, when too many people move to the extremes it makes it hard to keep our ship balanced which makes it harder to keep our ship and us on a steady course and makes it far easier for someone to capsize our ship and us.
At the very least, we need to ensure that we have majority rule. However, our eventual goal must be to get to a point where our governments work for all of us, and not just for those of us who are in the minority or even in the majority. Given our differences, this may seem like a difficult place to get to, and it might be, but it would be worth it and there are ways to make it work. I will talk more about this in the upcoming sections.
Theoretically, each political party and its members have some guiding principles, values and beliefs. The party would say that they use these principles, values and beliefs when they decide their views and positions on the issues, what laws they want to pass, what policies to enact, and how they will run our governments. The party members may also say that they use these principles, values and beliefs when deciding how to live their lives.
However, there are at least a couple of things that often get in the way of a political parity’s principles, values and beliefs. First off, each political party has numerous factions which may want their party to have different principles, values and beliefs and adhere to them instead. Secondly, a political party and some of its members may not adhere to what they say are their principles, values and beliefs when those things would get in the way of some of their other goals.
For the Republican Party, they currently generally consider themselves to be conservative. When we talk about someone who is politically conservative, we are talking about a person who is averse to change and holds traditional values, or a person favoring free enterprise, private ownership, and traditional social ideas. Conservatives may also be more likely to prioritize our moral values of Authority, Loyalty and Purity over our other moral values.
For the Democratic Party, they currently generally consider themselves to be liberal. When we talk about someone who is politically liberal, we are talking about a supporter of policies that are socially progressive and promote social welfare, or a supporter of a political and social philosophy that promotes individual rights, civil liberties, democracy, and free enterprise. Liberals may also be more likely to prioritize our moral values of Care and Fairness over our other moral values.
Based on the above definitions of conservative and liberal, it looks like the Republicans and Democrats should have some principles, values and beliefs in common. These would include free enterprise, which is explicit in each definition, and liberty and freedom, which is implied in each definition. However, to hear members of each political party talk, it often sounds like they believe that all their principles, values and beliefs are the total opposite of each other. The only big difference in each of these definitions would seem to be in traditional principles verses progressive principles and in which moral values each prioritizes.
When we talk about traditional verses progressive, we are talking about keeping things the same verses changing things. First off, the world is changing, so things that worked in the past may not work anymore, so some change is necessary. Second off, if something works, there is no reason to change things just for the sake of change. Bottom line, we need change, but only when necessary or when it would make all our lives better. Therefore, what we really need is something in between traditional and progressive, like making changes in moderation.
There are many other principles, values and beliefs that the two major parties claim as either conservative or liberal positions, but which are not by definition actually conservative or liberal. Some of these positions, values and beliefs on both the left and the right may be good and should give us more freedom or liberty without causing undue harm. However, others would do undue harm by either barring us from doing some things that would not do any undue harm or by forcing us to do other things that would cause undue harm.
As I mentioned earlier in the section on knowledge and again above, one of the ways in which conservatives and liberals differ is in which of our moral values they are more likely to prioritize. Interestingly, neither conservatives nor liberals seem to prioritize our moral value of Liberty. Instead, they seem determined to force their views on how we should live our lives on everyone else. I would also contend that neither party prioritizes Honesty, since we get so many lies and so much disinformation from far too many of them.
Our moral values are meant to help us cooperate for our mutual benefit. When we ignore or downplay any of our moral values, we are harming our ability to cooperate with one another. Although each of us may prioritize different moral values than others, we must embrace all of them so that we can cooperate and work together to make and to keep our society and our civilization strong and prosperous.
Each political party usually has a platform that lists their views, positions and policies on many issues, the goals that they hope to accomplish and their proposed solutions to some of our problems. These views, positions, policies, goals and solutions are meant to reflect their principles, values and beliefs and are the planks on their platforms. These planks are decided by each party's leadership or, at best, by most or some plurality of the political party's membership.
In addition, the views, positions, policies, goals and solutions on the platform of one political party may often end up being the opposite of those of another political party. It often seems that many of their opposing viewpoints and platform planks arise more from a desire to differentiate themselves from their opponents rather than to promote good policies or good solutions to our problems.
When we vote for a candidate, we may be voting for the individual, for the political party’s platform, or against the other individual or political party’s platform. Some of us may completely agree with one political party's platform, but most of us may just prefer more of its planks over what is on the other political party’s platform. Given that we are usually presented with a False Delema fallacy when we do have a choice and those choices are more extreme than most of us would like, it is unlikely that most of us fully agree with either of our largest political party’s platforms.
In some cases, some of us may simply vote for the individual or political party that takes a particular position on just one given issue or a candidate or political party we feel can better handle some given issue even when we do not like their positions on other issues. On the other hand, too many of us simply vote based on our emotional response for or against one political party or the other based on how we feel about each of those political parties.
Most candidates will stick closely with their political party's platform which means that if they are elected, they will likely vote based on what it calls for or based on what they or their political party wants. However, this does not give us much help in deciding which candidate we want to represent us. What we want are representatives who will try to represent all our interests. That is, representatives who will listen to our concerns and needs, and who will then vote in ways that would be best to help all of us instead of doing the things that they or their political party want.
I have often found that I may like some things and dislike a lot of other things on each political party’s platform. Unfortunately, it often seems like my only choice is to vote for the candidates of the political party that has a platform that I like a little better, or dislike the least, or maybe the candidates that I thought might buck their political party on the things that I do not like. In some cases, it seems like some of us too often just vote for or against a single issue or for a given political party and may not even look at anything else.
Unfortunately, when we vote for candidates, our only choice may be to vote for or against the political party's complete platform. The winning candidates will then not know whether we voted for them or for all or just some of their political party's platform. If we did vote for certain planks on their political party's platform, each of us may have voted for different planks, so in many cases our representatives will not even really know why they were elected or in too many cases even care.
On the other hand, some research has shown that many voters do not really vote based on the issues or the political parties’ platforms. They mainly vote based on how they feel about the candidate or their political party. For instance, if voters find a candidate to be particularly charismatic then they may vote for that candidate no matter what positions that candidate or his or her political party is taking on the issues. This can be a particularly dangerous thing for our democracy, since charismatic leaders may not be held accountable for their actions and can therefore more easily abuse their power or even turn themselves into virtual or actual dictators.
After an election, the members of the winning political party may claim a mandate to enact their platform even when they have only won by a slight majority or plurality of those who turned out to vote. A mandate is defined as the authority to carry out a policy or course of action, regarded as given by the electorate to a candidate or political party that is victorious in an election. However, there are more than a few problems with this claim of a mandate.
The first problem is that when we elect our representatives, we are electing individuals to represent our interests in the government and to enact legislation that will best benefit us, their constituents. Maybe the deciding factor for us in voting for our representatives was some specific issue where most of us were in favor of their political party’s position on that issue. However, there is no easy way for anyone to be sure that most of us were in fact in favor of a party’s position on any one of the given issues based solely on our votes for the candidates.
Although some plurality or majority of us may have elected someone who is in the majority political party, we did not specifically vote for each of the policies of that political party. Without us specifically voting on our positions on the given issues no one can honestly say that we have given our representatives a mandate to act in any given way on them. In fact, we may have voted for these representatives despite their positions on the given issues because we may have liked their position on one or more other issues.
On the other hand, we may not have even voted for the elected representatives, or we may have elected representatives who were not in the majority political party. In those cases, we could not have given any mandate. This is especially true for representatives who were elected when running unopposed since they may only have been elected by a majority or plurality of the members of their political party that voted in their primary election.
The second problem is that with only two major political parties, we may only have been given two different positions for each issue. However, it would most likely be a False Dilemma Fallacy to think that there were only two possible positions that could be taken for any given issue. That means that even if most voters preferred one position over the other, there may be another position on the issue that would be preferred by most of us over either of those two positions. In fact, since our two major political parties often take extreme opposing positions on a lot of issues, what we may really prefer would be positions that were somewhere between their positions.
The third problem is that the majority party may claim that it has a mandate even when it has only won the election by a slim majority or plurality. Since the two major political parties each only represent a minority of the voters, then they really should only be able to claim to represent a minority of the voters. In addition, the party’s positions may then have only been decided by a majority or plurality of its members or even just by most of its leadership. This would especially be true of the numerous representatives who ran unopposed in gerrymandered districts.
By claiming a mandate, the majority political party's leadership is hoping it can get legislation passed for its views, positions, policies, goals and solutions even when they are not supported by a majority of the voters or even by a majority of their party’s members. This could also mean that the leadership of a ruling political party may be able to control the government. In other words, not only could we be ruled by a minority (the political party), but by just a minority (the political party's leadership) of that minority.
Another problem is that even when most of us, even those of us who voted for different representatives, like our representatives’ position on an issue, we may not like the way that position is being implemented. Our representatives may also have been vague about the details, have not told us about the side effects or have used lies, disinformation and other rhetorical tricks to manipulate us into liking their position on the issue.
There are some positions on some issues that few of us would be against. These might include such things as less crime, lower taxes, better jobs, lower cost of living, and better healthcare. However, the devil is in the details. Unless we have all the details of how a goal is going to be accomplished then all anyone can say is that most of us like the goal but not that we like or prefer taking any specific action towards that goal.
For instance, representatives may take the position of having less crime. Maybe they do not say how they will do that, or maybe they say that they will put more police on the job. However, few of us would want to lessen our crime by turning our country into a police state and taking away all our freedom while vastly driving up our taxes to pay for all the new police officers, judges, lawyers, prisons, etc. In addition, this would only lessen a symptom (crime) of some other big problems (like poverty, drug use, racism, etc.).
The bottom line is that none of our representatives can claim a mandate unless we all have had a chance to vote on the issue and have approved it by some significant majority. Even then, that would only be if all the details of what we were voting for had been spelled out and the effects had been thoroughly analyzed and debated. The only mandate that our representatives should ever truly be able to claim as a mandate to honestly and fairly represent the best interests of their constituents.
Most people who want to run for office will need the help and backing of one of the two major political parties. The reason for this is that these political parties can provide a lot of the money and support that candidates need to campaign and to get elected and they have pretty much locked out independents and anyone in any other political party. This gives these political parties a lot of leverage over the people who what to run for office.
In some cases, these political parties may try to recruit individuals to run for certain political offices. They will try to get individuals who will back their views, positions and policies on the issues and who will remain loyal to their political party. They may even do this when one or more other people want to run, since the party may feel that those others may not back all their views, positions and policies on the issues or may not be as loyal to their political party.
When a political party has more than one person who wants to run for an elected office, they will usually have a primary election to decide which person will run in the general election. If the party leaders prefer one person over the others, then they may endorse that person over the others. Since most primary elections are only open to members of the given political party, a party endorsement may sway enough voters in that political party to vote for their preferred candidate unless the party leadership is out of touch with its members.
When a primary election is only open to members of the political party, the selected candidates often have more extreme views than most voters and may even have more extreme views than most members of their political party. In the first case, members of each of our two major political parties are much more conservative or liberal than most of the population. In the second case, it has been shown that the more extreme members of each political party are more likely to vote in their political party’s primary elections and that they are more likely to vote for the more extreme candidates.
In most cases, when candidates are elected to office, those elected officials will want to be reelected. To get reelected, those elected officials will need the continued help and support of their political party, so they will usually try to keep in good standing with their political party. To do that, those elected officials will often work with and go along with the agenda of their political party's leadership and their fellow party members, even if it is not what is best for us, their constituents. Otherwise, they risk their party backing someone else to run against them in the next primary election.
As a result, our representatives may feel that they need to go along with what their political party wants and not really listen to their constituents who do not belong to their political party and who probably did not or would not vote for them. This is especially true if their constituents want something done that most of their political party would not want done, even if it would be a really good idea and be beneficial for them to do for their constituents.
Ideally, we want our elected officials to represent all of us, to listen to all our problems, complaints and ideas, and to work in the best interests of all of us irrespective of whether we voted for them or not or whether we belong to their political party or not. In some cases, our elected officials do try to represent all of us, but mostly, they will show preference and loyalty to their political party and to its members instead of to the rest of us. Which means they may not really work in the best interests of all of us the way they should.
This is not to say that our representatives will never listen or help, but it may be harder when we belong to a different political party. One way around this problem is to be an independent voter. If our district is not completely dominated by the political party that is in office, then candidates will be looking to win over enough of the swing voters. Therefore, independent voters may find an easier time getting heard than members of another political party.
An interesting irony is that a political party wants the members of its political party to show loyalty by voting with their political party 100% of the time but likes to criticize members of the other political party for voting a lot of the time with their political party. The better test of loyalty is for us to look at how often our representatives vote in the best interest of us, their constituents.
In many countries, there are many different political parties. In many cases, none of these political parties are large enough to rule alone, so they must form coalitions with other political parties to form a government. The members of a coalition must then cooperate with one another to get things done. If they do not cooperate sufficiently, then the coalition may break up, and a new coalition must be put together to form a new government.
In the United States, things are a bit different. Although there are many different political parties, two of them have become large enough that either one can usually form a government on its own. Now that these political parties have become large enough to rule on their own, they do not want to give up that power and have made it difficult for any third political party to become large enough to compete with them and may try to prevent new political parties from even being formed or recognized.
This two-party political system has become so ingrained that it even influences those who can serve as an election poll worker. One place where I lived, there was a shortage of poll workers, so I volunteered. However, even with the shortage, I was not called upon, so I investigated why. It turns out that the law states that each of the two main political parties each selects half of the poll workers. Therefore, as an independent voter, it looks like neither party wanted me. They each only wanted members of their own political party. Meaning that independents like me, who might theoretically be better qualified to protect the integrity of our elections, were unlikely to be called upon to be poll workers.
(Note: After I agreed to represent one of the political parties while remaining an independent voter, I was able to become and to work as a poll worker in several elections.)
In most cases today, one or the other of the two major political parties has been able to gain control of each of our local and state governments. This mainly came about due to the voters in each of those localities or states leaning a little more conservative or liberal and therefore electing at least a few more representatives from the corresponding political party.
Once a given political party has gained control of a state government, that political party has often been able to pass voting laws and through gerrymandering to create local, congressional and senate districts that are more favorable to their political party. This has often helped them to stay in power or to gain even more power, even in many cases where the political ideology of the voters in the given locality or state has shifted away from their political party.
The one last and most important remaining government that has not yet become completely controlled or dominated by a single political party is the Federal government. Up until now, one political party might dominate for a time, but the other political party eventually regains control for at least a little while.
However, this situation is now under attack as increasingly fewer federal congressional districts remain competitive. If one of the political parties can gain the upper hand in the number of federal congressional districts that it can control, then that political party could dominate or gain control of the federal government and change the rules so that they could remain in power.
In essence, if one political party can gain too much control, we could end up with one party rule, which could end up looking a lot like what China now has. In China, there is only one political party. That political party can do whatever it wants without any checks or balances. In fact, the Communist party in China decides who can join and it can expel anyone from the party who does not go along with its leaders. Although this is the Communist party in China, any political party on the left, on the right, or with any other ideology could rule as an Oligarchy or a Dictatorship if it was able to seize control of our federal government.
We can use a simple hiring analogy to help us see more clearly the problems caused by our two-party political system. In this analogy, our democracy can be thought of as an employee-owned company where we are both employees and owners. This company has many local, regional and national offices that need managers to run the offices and manage our businesses. As the owners of this company, we should have the right to decide who we will hire from among us to fill these management positions.
Initially, we tried to hire managers directly by selecting the candidates that ran and that got a plurality of the votes from the applicable employees. The problem was that a lot of similarly qualified candidates would often split our votes so that an often less qualified and more extreme candidate would get more votes and be hired. Despite our company’s founders warning us against using employment agencies to select our candidates, many of us did just that. Over time, a lot of us joined one of these employment agencies. Then, due to the advantages of their larger size, resources and accumulated clout, two of these employment agencies came to dominate the process of candidate selection and promotion and the hiring of our managers.
Most of us wanted managers who were highly qualified and who would use their authority to be loyal, caring and fair to all of us while listening to our ideas and doing what is best for us and our company. However, each of the two dominant employment agencies formed very different ideas about what they wanted our managers to be and to do.
Most of the people in one employment agency prioritized selecting candidates who would above all else use their authority to demand loyalty and most of the people in the other employment agency wanted managers who would above all else prioritize being caring and fair. In addition, those in each of these agencies wanted candidates who would above all else do the things that their employment agency wanted even if those things were not what was best for us or our company.
Each of these employment agencies would then select one candidate for each management position. If an employment agency had more than one candidate who wanted to be hired for a given position, the members of the agency would vote to decide which candidate they would select. The problem was that a lot of similarly qualified candidates would often split their votes so that a less qualified and more extreme candidate would get more votes and be selected. This was made even more likely since the more extreme minded members of each employment agency who were more determined that things be done their way were more likely to vote than the more moderate minded members.
In the beginning, each of these employment agencies would usually put up a candidate for each management position. Even though those candidates were often less qualified and were often more extreme minded than we would have preferred we would then have only had a choice as to which of these two candidates to vote for. In addition, the employment agencies and their supporters did not leave it up to the employees in the given office to decide when and where their candidates were interviewed. Instead, they helped their candidates to decide and even to dictate who could interview them, and when and where they could be interviewed or even if they could be interviewed. In addition, the employment agencies and employees at other offices were allowed to help promote their preferred candidates.
Over time, when enough managers from one employment agency were hired in a region, they rearranged the business in that region so that there would be more offices with employees favorable to the candidates from their employment agency than offices with more employees favorable to the other employment agency. Then, most offices become so dominated by employees who preferred one employment agency over the other that only that employment agency would even bother to select candidates to run for the management positions in those offices. Since the candidates from that employment agency could run unopposed the agency could often select candidates who were even less qualified and more extreme minded than before and the employees in those offices would have had no choice but to hire them.
With less qualified and more extreme-minded managers, our company is now not being run as efficiently or as profitably as it could be. In fact, with managers being more loyal to their employment agency than to our company, there is more division and less cooperation, and more corruption and chaos. What our company needs is to find a better way to hire our managers so that we can hire more qualified managers who will cooperate with us and with other managers to achieve our common goals of making our company more efficient and profitable so that it will better serve and benefit all of us.
The way to do that is to hire managers more like a real employee-owned company might do it. That is, we would first allow all prospective candidates to apply directly for our management positions through our Human Resources department. Employment agencies and some other groups may recruit some candidates, but those candidates would still need to apply through our Human Resources department and would not be allowed to get any additional outside help. Our Human Resources department would then do some initial screening and interviewing to ensure that the candidates all met our minimum requirements and to reject any that did not.
We would then require each acceptable candidate to sit for initial interviews and to answer all our questions. Since we are the owners of the company, all employees in the applicable office would be allowed to be involved in this initial interview process.
If there were too many candidates for us to do a thorough evaluation of all of them, then we would use our initial evaluations to whittle our list of candidates down to a more manageable number. To ensure that we narrowed down our list to the best candidates for all of us, and not to a list of candidates made up of those preferred by different factions among us, we would use a process where we would all vote and rank our preferences for all the candidates. We would then use those rankings to select which candidates most of us had preferred over the others and those candidates would go on to the next step in the hiring process.
With a manageable list of candidates, we would put them all through a more thorough evaluation where we would insist on all of them demonstrating their qualifications and answering all our questions. Once it was time to hire our manager, we would all vote and rank our preferences for all the candidates. We would then use these rankings to select which candidate most of us had preferred over the others and who we would then hire to be our manager.
Using this method should get us more qualified and preferred managers for our company just as something similar would get us more qualified and preferred representatives for our government. I will describe and go into more detail in the upcoming sections about how this hiring process would help us elect better representatives for our government.
In the above subsections I laid out some of the issues that we have with our political parties and especially with our two-party political system. There are some methods that could work to help solve some of these issues. These include, but are not limited to, such things as having independent redistricting commissions, having open primaries where we all can vote for candidates irrespective of political party, using Head-To-Head Matchup Voting to allow us to vote for and to rank our preferred candidates, and running clean elections that eliminate the influence of outside money. I will talk more about these changes plus others in the following sections.
Unfortunately, none of these methods alone or in combination would do a good enough job. They simply do not adequately deal with the root cause of our electoral issues, which is the strangle hold that our two-party political system has on our government and our democracy. The problem is that there really is no easy way to fix our two-party political system so that our government and our democracy can work as well as we want and need. The political divide is too great and if one party ever gains too much power or an upper hand over the other then we could devolve into an autocracy or dictatorship.
Therefore, the question becomes, can we make some changes that do make our political system work as it should? Despite our founding fathers’ warnings against having political parties, let's start by seeing if we can find some other ways to fix things so that our government and our democracy can work with political parties, and then we will move on to look at what I believe would be a better alternative.
One idea would be to create a viable third political party that could moderate and balance out the influence of the other two political parties and provide a middle ground on many issues. With three or more political parties, where none of them could dominate the political landscape, the parties would have to cooperate to get anything done. Like in many other countries, the political parties would then need to form alliances to form a majority government.
The main thing that may be getting in the way of a third political party is the resistance of the current two largest political parties. For instance, in many states, they have passed laws that make it very difficult for a third party to be recognized and to get their candidates on the ballot. In addition, our plurality and winner take all voting system means that a third-party candidate could simply become a spoiler who could allow the more extreme candidate to win the election.
If a third party was able to get recognized in enough states, it would need to become large enough to get enough of its members elected, but not so large that it simply replaces one of the existing two large political parties. Then, without one political party having a clear majority, there would be times when these parties could not agree on something, and the government could not get anything done. At other times, two of the parties might cooperate in passing each other’s legislation even if the majority did not agree with any of it.
Of course, third parties have been tried here in the United States many times in the past. Fairly recently there was the Reform Party, which went down in flames after being taken over and corrupted by extremists. Although a third party may sound like a good idea, it has never really worked here, at least not recently. It seems like there are just too many things that can go wrong based on how our elections work and with the determination of extremists to try to exert control and to take over all our political parties.
As we can see, having a third political party could simply create a whole bunch of new problems without really solving the underlying issues. The biggest problem would be the almost inevitable takeover of this third political party by determined extremists. These new problems may even get worse with a fourth or fifth political party. However, there is a way a different type of third political party could work to create a better political system. I will talk about that in just a bit.
If three or more political parties could result in as many or more problems as just having two dominant ones, what about a single political party? On the surface, it may look like it would have many good points, like our political party would always be in power, our elected officials would always represent our political party and therefore us, and there could not be any political party rivalries or partisan politics. Unfortunately, all that would happen is one of two really bad things.
On the one hand, the divisions between parties would simply shift to factions within the single political party. Of course, the large political parties already have many factions within them that are fighting for control, so that really would not be anything new. It would just become more extreme and whatever extreme views, positions and policies this single political party had would not be balanced by the extreme views, positions and policies of another political party.
On the other hand, if our country had just a single political party, we might not even have a democracy anymore. The political party’s leaders could gain so much power that they could do whatever they wanted. For instance, they may do what some political party’s leaders do in other countries with a single or one dominant political party, they might limit who can be in their political party, and they could select our representatives instead of letting us elect them. In this case, we would end up with an Oligarchy or a Dictatorship.
As I alluded to in the above Hiring Analogy subsection, what we really need to do is to look at our elections as hiring individuals to represent us in our governments instead of electing our leaders. When a company needs to hire a CEO or other high-level manager for their company, its board of directors or HR department will conduct a talent search. They may have some individuals in mind, or they may throw it out to various employment agencies. Their goal is to gather as many resumes as possible from good candidates and from whoever and wherever they can get them, whittle them down to the top few best candidates, put these finalists through an intensive interview process, and then make their selection based on who would be the best fit and do the most for their company.
If a company did their talent search like we currently do our elections, they would need to do things quite differently. First, they would be mostly limited to the two largest employment agencies. Each employment agency would decide who they wanted to apply for the job based on who would best benefit them and not who would best benefit the company. Then, each employment agency would submit just one candidate for consideration even if that candidate was not the best fit for the job and then limit the ability of the company to interview their candidate while trying to denigrate the candidate from the other employment agency.
Each candidate would then also decide when, where and who to talk to and what questions they would and would not answer. In addition, other companies would get to weigh in on which candidate they preferred. The company would then be limited to selecting one of those two candidates to fill their job opening. On the other hand, if only one employment agency submitted a candidate, then they would be forced to select that candidate.
Obviously, companies would object to doing their job searches like we currently conduct our elections since they would not be able to hire the best candidates for their job openings which would risk the success of their business. Instead, what we should do is to select the candidates for our elections more like companies do their job searches.
Therefore, I would completely remove the political parties from the electoral process. (The political parties could transform themselves into special interest groups, which is basically what they really are anyway.) Then we could get and select from more and better independent candidates. We would regain control over how we interview and evaluate our candidates so that we can best rate and rank them. Which would then allow us to elect candidates who would work for us, and who would have more of an incentive to represent all of us equally. In this way, we could get back to the principle of a truly democratic government that our founding fathers had wanted for us.
Of course, it will take a lot more than just eliminating the Political Parties, since the candidates would still need a way to campaign for office, which means some of the original problems that led to the creation of political parties in the first place would need to be solved. What we would need is a New Electoral Process that includes things like open primaries, clean elections, Head-To-Head Matchup Voting and some other improvements. I will talk more about these in an upcoming section on Voting.
Unfortunately, it may be very difficult, if not impossible, to get the existing two major political parties to change our political and electoral systems to ones where they would no longer have the unfair and excess power that they currently have. Therefore, we may need to create a third political party that would have the goal of getting enough individuals elected who could then make the needed changes.
One of the most important planks of this new political party's platform would be the reform of our political and electoral processes so that the political parties could be eliminated. Other planks on the platform might be to have nonpartisan or independent redistricting, to have open primaries, to use Head-To-Head Matchup Voting, to have clean elections, and to make other needed reforms to our electoral process. Another plank in the platform might be to work towards representing and doing what is best for all our citizens, and for all the other living things with whom we share this world.
Of course, these changes would need to be made universally in all states. However, it might be difficult to get all states on board, and they might not all agree on the same rules in each state. Therefore, it would be better to make many of the changes at the Federal level. However, these new laws may run into some constitutional challenges since the Constitution leaves much of our electoral process up to the states. Therefore, we would be better protected if we put some appropriate changes in an amendment to the Constitution. Thus, that should also be included as one of this party’s goals.
One danger with creating a new third party is the risk of it being taken over by extremists. Therefore, this political party needs to be set up so that it can act quickly to implement its goals and can keep out or expel anyone who does not agree with its goals. Of course, this does not mean that there could not be a debate about making changes and if some supper majority of the party members agree to some changes that they could not be made. If there are individuals who want something different then they would be perfectly free to create their own political party to pursue their goals.
There are a few names that might describe this short-term political party and its goals. I thought of quite a few different names. For instance, some of my initial thoughts were that it could be called something like or related to Citizens, Peoples, Everybody, Voters, Reform, Transformation, Democracy, Equality, Moderation, Temporary, and Our Future Path Party. Unfortunately, many of these names have already been used, would be confusing, or simply do not fully express what the party would be about.
For now, I thought I would stick with a name related to the party's final goal and call it something along the lines of the "No Politics" party, "No Political Parties" party or maybe “Nonpartisan Democracy” party. However, I am open to any appropriate suggestions for a better name.
Another way to handle this would be to get one of the newer political parties that have recently been created to embrace our goals. The following are two of these new political parties whose members might be convinced to do this.
The No Labels Party.
In 2010, a new political party was formed whose stated mission is to support centrism and bipartisanship though what it calls the “commonsense majority”. This is the No Labels Party. This party looks like it will try to give a voice to all of us, whether we are Democrats, Republicans or independents. The only condition is that members share certain foundational values and beliefs. These include a love of America, respecting people, supporting our military, listening to everyone and putting country above party. Their two mottos are "Think New." and "Do New".
The Forward Party.
In 2022, a new and different type of political party was announced. This is the Forward Party. This party looks like it will try to do many of the things that I am advocating for. This includes Ranked-Choice Voting, Nonpartisan Primaries, Independent Redistricting Commissions, and Common-Sense Solutions. Their two mottos are "Not Left. Not Right. Forward." and "Moving Forward Together". Their core principles include Free People, Thriving Communities, and Vibrant Democracy.
As we should be able to see from the above, our political parties are a root cause of many of our political problems. The solution is to remove the political parties from our electoral process and to switch to having a Nonpartisan Democracy. Since our current political parties may try to stand in the way of this, we may need to create a new political party with the express purpose of gaining enough support so that we can make this happen.
However, even if we can eliminate the political parties, that will not solve all our political problems. We also have some other problems that will need to be solved by having such things as independent or nonpartisan redistricting commissions, open primaries where we all can vote for candidates irrespective of any political affiliation, Head-To-Head Matchup Voting so we can elect our preferred candidates and clean elections that would eliminate much of the influence buying that comes from outside money. Therefore, in the following sections I will discuss some of our other political problems and propose some additional solutions.
Districts -
How to create better districts for our representative bodies.
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