The roster is set we have our GOP candidate and that for the Dems so the duel begins.
Let’s look at the system we have today and try to assess its validity.
Do political parties truly have a place in our system? Do we really them them?
Political parties exist to secure responsible government and to execute the will of the people.
From these great tasks both of the old parties have turned aside. Instead of instruments to promote the general welfare, they have become the tools of corrupt interests which use them impartially to serve their selfish purposes. Behind the ostensible government sits enthroned an invisible government owing no allegiance and acknowledging no responsibility to the people.
To destroy this invisible government, to dissolve the unholy alliance between corrupt business and corrupt politics is the first task of the statesmanship of the day.
The deliberate betrayal of its trust by the Republican party, the fatal incapacity of the Democratic party to deal with the new issues of the new time, have compelled the people to forge a new instrument of government through which to give effect to their will in laws and institutions.
Unhampered by tradition, uncorrupted by power, undismayed by the magnitude of the task, the new party offers itself as the instrument of the people to sweep away old abuses, to build a new and nobler commonwealth.
Those words were from the 1912 Progressive Party platform of Teddy Roosevelt……as accurate today as they were over a hundred years ago (some things seldom change).
I have been preaching of the uselessness of political parties for over a decade….
Are Political Parties Really Necessary?
As the long awaited 2024 election approached I gave another thought on the 2 party system….
The Two Parties Are What Is Wrong
I still hold to the idea that these parties are unnecessary if people would choose their support through knowledge and not some popular social media star.
Political parties are killing our beloved country and our break the mold system that started us down the road of world admiration.
So sports fans….do we really need these parties?
Any thoughts to share?
I Read, I Write, You Know
“lego ergo scribo”
The two-party system has had a grip on almost every western country since the 1800s. High time it was done away with.
Best wishes, Pete.
I could not agree more and I will have lots to say later. chuq
It was in China Russia, North Korea, and Cuba.
There is a saying that, before you tear down a fence, you should make sure you know why it was put there in the first place. It’s not hard to find negatives to cite about whatever is the established way of doing things (everything has some negatives), but overthrowing the system without understanding why it is the way it is usually ends up leading to re-inventing the wheel.
It is striking that every modern democratic country of any size does have political parties. It has not been demonstrated that a modern democracy can function without them. Realistically, people with the same or at least compatible political views are likely to team up to gain the advantages of large-scale organization and a “brand” well known to the voters. Even if parties were abolished, people would simply re-invent them within a few years, unless forcibly prevented from doing so.
The US has had a two-party system for practically its whole history. The only times there has been anything other than a stable two-party system were periods of transition when an old party was dying and its replacement was emerging. This suggests to me that anything other than a two-party set-up would be unstable and could not be sustained for long.
Having just two parties does have certain advantages. When there are only two, both parties are coalitions of interest groups, which therefore need to compromise with each other within the party to allow it to function. People so fanatical that they cannot compromise cannot work within a party and end up being totally frozen out of power, which is a good thing. If you have third parties which are big enough to be electorally significant, you get the kind of problems Israel has, where a small religious party can hold the balance of power between the big two and hold governance hostage in order to advance an agenda most voters don’t support. The US system makes it almost impossible for a third party to reach significant size — which, again, means that ideological purists who won’t compromise are blocked from that route of acquiring any power.
We have recently had a partial failure of the system in the House, where the “Freedom Caucus” has abandoned compromise with the rest of the Republican party and acted as a de facto third party, paralyzing the chamber except where moderates from both parties were able to reach agreements to work around them. But this just illustrates the harm a true viable third party could do.
Finally, the fact that the US has had two major parties for most of its history, yet the extreme polarization we see today has arisen in just the last couple of decades, shows that the parties are not the cause of the polarization. In fact, the broad general public is not as polarized as the media would have us believe. It’s just that the ideological crazies at the extremes, who make the most noise but are nowhere near being a majority, have acquired excessive influence to shape the agenda. Moderates need to assert themselves; most people are tired of all the hysterics and demonization of “the other side”. But parties themselves are not the cause of the problem.
Even Washington warned against the establishment of the parties……parties are the problem because they are easily corrupted…..I agree I liked the GOP platform of 1956 it was spot on and it has been demolished ever since….I do not think parties are necessary just profitable. chuq
Countries, especially large ones, are run by bureaucrats who spend their careers doing tgeir jobs, seeing that the government courts operate, the roads are maintained, courthouse stay open, laws are enforced and so on. Without them, nothing would work. Call them an invisible government if you like but a civilization depends on them to function.
I believe we would have more people in office who represent the majority os the coutry if we did away with closed primaries. Restricting the voter poll to party member skews the pools of voters toward the extremes.
voter pool. not poll
No problem I knew what you meant chuq
We need a national primary…..get money out of the equation and vote for the person with the best policies. chuq