“Let’s limit the lifetime of political parties, and get the damn out-of-control emotions out of politics ”

Our Proposal:

• Put a 12-year lifetime limit on government-recognized political parties
• Previous party leaders would be banned from leadership roles in the new parties 

The Goal:

• Reduce the institutionalization and mindless tribalism of our political parties
• Make our political parties what they should be: vehicles for coming up with, and organizing around, new ideas

Explanation:

George Washington warned against political parties, and saw them for the threat that they are to democracy. As he wrote:

“…[Political parties] may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government… It serves always to distract the public councils, and enfeeble the public administration. It agitates the community with ill founded jealousies and false alarms; ”

In an ideal world, political parties would simply be instruments for like-minded people to promote their ideas, and offer candidates for public office accordingly. But, as George Washington foresaw, inexorably political parties instead become hijacked by greedy, unprincipled politicians and their special interest allies as a way to gain power and to hold on to it—increasingly by whatever means necessary, even through violence and insurrection.

As the great historian Carroll Quigley explained in his classic book The Evolution of Civilizations, human organizations inevitably become institutionalized, which means that the self-interests of the organization’s members become the priority, superseding even the original purpose for the organization’s existence. The organization takes on a life of its own, independent of its purpose. This applies to virtually any organization, whether we’re talking about religious, military, charity, or any other type. But nowhere is this truer than with political parties, given the relationship between politics, power, and the addiction to power. As a typical (albeit extreme) example, the Communist Party was formed supposedly as a way to empower and liberate workers, but it instead became a corrupt religion-like vehicle to brutally subjugate entire groups of countries, to the exclusive benefit of party bosses and members, and to the endangerment of freedom worldwide. In communist countries, the interests of the party are the absolute priority, trumping everything else. Not even love between husband and wife or parent and child is recognized—the only love permitted is to the party and its “great, god-like” leader.

Sadly, in America today, our politicians operate under the same “Party First” mentality. Obsessed with holding on to power and in constant campaign mode, our elected officials and their media allies sow partisan division for political gain by stoking the emotions of their constituents and spurring the culture wars, with zero regard to the damage it does. This “Party First” mentality is causing mind-numbing partisan paralysis, and people are losing faith in democracy due to the inability of our elected officials to move the country forward and improve people’s lives. Democracy in America is in danger of collapsing as a result. 

The fact that our country is plagued with increasingly bitter tribal partisanship is no accident, because it is in the perverse interest of our political parties for that to happen. It is to their advantage to have people divided by deep Red-Blue fault lines of unchecked rancor, and to have constituents who will exclusively vote for one party or the other out of blind, emotion-and-misinformation-driven devotion and…out of hatred for the other party. Our presidential elections are a good example—they have devolved into Democrats and Republicans scraping over a few Purple counties in a few swing states, in such a way that literally a few thousand people across these states and counties determine who will be president. The votes of this tiny group unbelievably matter even more than the entire country’s popular vote, since a large majority of the other areas are non-competitive “Blue” or “Red” zones. Is that how things should be? Is it good for the country to have California automatically Blue, and Texas automatically Red, for example?

History shows that stoking animosity is a tried-and-true political strategy, because it is easier and less risky than offering serious ideas to address the many challenges a country may be grappling with, and above all discontented people respond to it. As a result, instead of referendums over solid proposals and vision for the future, elections in America have become partisan wars of spitefulness and revenge, spurred on to a large degree by ludicrous fact-distorting marketing campaigns and backed up by quack “zero principles” political commentators. No thought is given to the fact that our country will be doomed when we come to hate our political opponents more than we love our democracy (machetes anyone?); thanks to our political parties, America is now clearly heading down that path—to the delight of democracy’s enemies everywhere. As we have seen in recent years, anti-democratic forces, both domestic and foreign, are spreading emotion-stoking misinformation to viciously exploit a vulnerable underbelly in our democracy, one based on the ever more bitter division that our politicians and their political parties have created—just as George Washington predicted. (“[Political parties] kindle the animosity of one part against another; foments occasionally riot and insurrection, and opens the odor to foreign influence and corruption, which find a facilitated access to the government through the channel of party passions.”).

What to do?

We must strive to have the best of both worlds: political parties that serve as useful instruments for like-minded individuals to organize themselves, but that are less prone to self-serving institutionalization by greedy politicians; political parties that propose innovative ideas and engage with political opponents in fact-based debates for the benefit of their constituents and the country. “Propose your ideas in a serious way, respectfully contrast your ideas with those of your political opponents based on facts, and let the voters decide.”

In order to more closely realize this idealized vision of political parties, The Solution Party proposes the following:

1. Every 12 years, government-recognized political parties must be disbanded (“government recognized” means parties that have a certain minimum number of registered members)
2. Leaders of disbanded parties will be banned from holding a leadership position in any future government-recognized political party 
3. Enforce a strict one-term limit on all elected offices, as previously proposed

These three steps could go a long way to help curb the institutionalization of our political parties, and in turn significantly tone down the useless and dangerous rancor plaguing our politics now that results from it. Other additional steps related to this will be proposed at a later time. 

One might ask: won’t the new parties simply be carbon copies of the old ones? While such a possibility of course exists, the Solution Party believes that the newly-formed parties, based on new leadership and new political alliances, will strive to make a clean break from the previous ones by formulating novel proposals to address the challenges of each particular time, with the goal of attracting a large number of new voters.

Let’s give the our institutionalized political parties their gold watches and put them permanently out to pasture. Good riddance. 

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