Abolishing partisan politics: Pros and cons?

[MSC]

With disaffection of both political parties in the USA at an all time high, remedying the issues created by both political parties may require a constitutional amendment and a large cultural movement amongst voters to push this issue onto future candidates, explicitly mandating them with the dissolution and abolition of all multi-issue political parties in the United States. The right to assembly is retained through the retained ability of voters to form parties around single issues, so that parties can attempt to remain solution based while focused on a singular area of governance. 

So, with all that said, what would the pros and cons of such a system be? With or without campaign finance reforms. 

[iNow]

Con: Never reaching sufficient critical mass to pass legislation on issues you care about 

[MSC]

52 minutes ago, iNow said:

Con: Never reaching sufficient critical mass to pass legislation on issues you care about 

Assuming that humans only coalesce around solving a problem when there is a flag attached to it? Sorry, I may just not understand what you mean. Might need to flesh it out more for me. 

The part about single issue parties being permissable is based on one issue where you have clearly identifiable groups, pro-life and pro-choice and you can break those down into subgroups as well. 

But you know, while we are at it, since democracy seems to be under threat, and the federal government is being cut up and reformed anyway, and since this is an issue at play in countries besides the USA; we can make this thread about creative solutions to the failings of current democracies. We don't have to look at strictly non-partisanship. Let's brainstorm. 

[exchemist]

7 hours ago, MSC said:

With disaffection of both political parties in the USA at an all time high, remedying the issues created by both political parties may require a constitutional amendment and a large cultural movement amongst voters to push this issue onto future candidates, explicitly mandating them with the dissolution and abolition of all multi-issue political parties in the United States. The right to assembly is retained through the retained ability of voters to form parties around single issues, so that parties can attempt to remain solution based while focused on a singular area of governance. 

So, with all that said, what would the pros and cons of such a system be? With or without campaign finance reforms. 

Not workable in my view. A number of considerations:

- the only practical form of government is representative government, in which individuals are elected to make decisions on behalf of the electors. Because of "Events, Dear Boy" it is not practical to elect people to enact only the specific issues apparent at the time of the election.  

- government needs an integrated programme for governing. You can't separate individual issues because you will always need to resolve conflicts between issues that pull in different directions, prioritise those that are chosen, and determine what gets funded. 

- there will always tend to be a coalescence of views among the electors on groups of issues. You can't force people to keep them separate. So parties will inevitably form, whether official or not. 

I agree recent events certainly show the need for constitutional reform, but I would suggest a different approach. The following are top of the head suggestions that may not withstand scrutiny but for whatever they are worth I'll list them:

- Cut back the power of the presidency and reinforce that of Congress. In particular, Congress should be required to approve hiring and firing decisions for the heads of government departments on the basis of written reasons that can be challenged in court by those affected. This would help de-politicise the civil service and rebuild trust in its impartiality. 

- introduce strict limits on political financing, both of presidential and Congressional candidates. This would reduce the power of wealthy organisations and individuals to distort the process and would make it easier for new political parties to form and win seats, breaking the duopoly. 

- reform the process for appointing judges. They should not be elected, nor appointed by the Executive, but chosen from the pool of experienced advocates, by an independent appointments commission containing a mix of senior judges and outsiders representing the community (so that it does not become incestuous).  

[iNow]

8 hours ago, MSC said:

Might need to flesh it out more for me. 

Smaller groups means smaller funding and smaller numbers in favor when voting. The reason we tend to split into blocs is bc that's what has been required to actually get things passed and factions tend to be tiny for most issues. 

Not the best comparison, but perhaps helpful to think in terms of political gravity. Smaller asteroids aren't as effective at gathering more mass as larger asteroids. Jupiter has a larger influence on the solar system than Pluto. If Pluto wants a bigger role, then Pluto needs to become larger and until then can largely be ignored. It's not altogether different with political issues. 

[dimreepr]

11 hours ago, MSC said:

With disaffection of both political parties in the USA at an all time high, remedying the issues created by both political parties may require a constitutional amendment and a large cultural movement amongst voters to push this issue onto future candidates, explicitly mandating them with the dissolution and abolition of all multi-issue political parties in the United States. The right to assembly is retained through the retained ability of voters to form parties around single issues, so that parties can attempt to remain solution based while focused on a singular area of governance. 

So, with all that said, what would the pros and cons of such a system be? With or without campaign finance reforms. 

What would you replace it with? Artisan policy seems a bit gay...

[MSC]

9 hours ago, iNow said:

Smaller groups means smaller funding and smaller numbers in favor when voting. The reason we tend to split into blocs is bc that's what has been required to actually get things passed and factions tend to be tiny for most issues. 

Not the best comparison, but perhaps helpful to think in terms of political gravity. Smaller asteroids aren't as effective at gathering more mass as larger asteroids. Jupiter has a larger influence on the solar system than Pluto. If Pluto wants a bigger role, then Pluto needs to become larger and until then can largely be ignored. It's not altogether different with political issues. 

It's an interesting comparison nonetheless, not the best as you say, and I don't think you'd assume every issue has the same mass or even the same density if you'll allow me to stretch it further. Euthanasia and abortion share a death theme so you could say they are a similar mass but one is denser because it draws more people into caring about the issue. 

Smaller groups does mean smaller funding, but with a smaller focus, you don't need as much funding. I don't know, I just feel issues themselves fighting for the spotlight would be a better status quo than Republicans vs Democrats fighting for the spotlight.

11 hours ago, exchemist said:

the only practical form of government is representative government, in which individuals are elected to make decisions on behalf of the electors. Because of "Events, Dear Boy" it is not practical to elect people to enact only the specific issues apparent at the time of the election

But who are those representatives ultimately loyal to? The voters, financial backers or their parties? We can both agree it ought to be the voters, but with the influence of the other two, it's worse odds than a coin flip on who a given rep will ultimately serve. 

Yes, how you described it would be impractical, but whether or not only readily apparent issues are all that is considered come election time, would depend on implementation of the concept, not the concept itself. 

We also need to ask ourselves if we are not muzzling our reps by forcing them to pick between joining one of two gangs, each with their own predetermined lines of bullshit for you to sing. A blanket approach to everything, where we are always told it either has to be done the democrat way or the Republican way, but never the right way, the effective way.

There is also I feel a two way insulation from consequence dynamic between rep and chosen party, wherein the rep can blame their failures on the party and the party can blame their failures on the reps. 

You also don't see much unity or even harmony in either of the major parties in the USA right now. If I ask you what is a Democrat and what is a Republican? Will your definition of either Include details of where they stand on every issue? 

One thing I'm not sure either of you are taking into account; voters are people, people are different, different people care about different things, whether they should or not, that's what they will do. You already have single issue voters and you have plenty of multi-issue voters who feel like neither party fully represents them. 

To me, this means the solutions lie in either diminishing/eliminating multi-issue partisanship, or changing the nature of partisanship so that it's less... Shit, for everyone. 

 

 

[iNow]

1 hour ago, MSC said:

the solutions lie in either diminishing/eliminating multi-issue partisanship, or changing the nature of partisanship

Yet those with the authority to do so have a vested interest in not doing so. 

[exchemist]

10 hours ago, MSC said:

It's an interesting comparison nonetheless, not the best as you say, and I don't think you'd assume every issue has the same mass or even the same density if you'll allow me to stretch it further. Euthanasia and abortion share a death theme so you could say they are a similar mass but one is denser because it draws more people into caring about the issue. 

Smaller groups does mean smaller funding, but with a smaller focus, you don't need as much funding. I don't know, I just feel issues themselves fighting for the spotlight would be a better status quo than Republicans vs Democrats fighting for the spotlight.

But who are those representatives ultimately loyal to? The voters, financial backers or their parties? We can both agree it ought to be the voters, but with the influence of the other two, it's worse odds than a coin flip on who a given rep will ultimately serve. 

Yes, how you described it would be impractical, but whether or not only readily apparent issues are all that is considered come election time, would depend on implementation of the concept, not the concept itself. 

We also need to ask ourselves if we are not muzzling our reps by forcing them to pick between joining one of two gangs, each with their own predetermined lines of bullshit for you to sing. A blanket approach to everything, where we are always told it either has to be done the democrat way or the Republican way, but never the right way, the effective way.

There is also I feel a two way insulation from consequence dynamic between rep and chosen party, wherein the rep can blame their failures on the party and the party can blame their failures on the reps. 

You also don't see much unity or even harmony in either of the major parties in the USA right now. If I ask you what is a Democrat and what is a Republican? Will your definition of either Include details of where they stand on every issue? 

One thing I'm not sure either of you are taking into account; voters are people, people are different, different people care about different things, whether they should or not, that's what they will do. You already have single issue voters and you have plenty of multi-issue voters who feel like neither party fully represents them. 

To me, this means the solutions lie in either diminishing/eliminating multi-issue partisanship, or changing the nature of partisanship so that it's less... Shit, for everyone. 

 

 

I continue to struggle to see how this would work. You would have candidates forbidden to organise themselves into political parties. How then would a coherent programme for government be developed, given, as I pointed out, that this involves trade-offs, prioritisation and funding decisions on the various single issues involved? 

You say that  voters, on the other hand, would be allowed (actually you could not  prevent them, in a free society) to form parties, but only on the basis of single issues. How would you stop them combining issues, on the basis of the priorities  and trade-offs they would like to see enacted? Surely the relative importance voters attach to various issues is a big part of political opinion. Forcing politics into a set of single issues would just be a further infantilisation of politics. It is the often hard choices between the various single issues, where ideals meet practical reality, where you need mature judgement. The electorate should in my opinion be encouraged to confront this, not to live in a silly bubble of things they would like without regard to the consequences. 

It seems to me that how the voters organise themselves must be left to them, if we want to live in a free society.  What you can control, without impinging on the freedom of citizens, is the effect of disproportionately powerful actors in society, such as wealthy individuals, corporations and unions, who currently buy influence over political parties. You can do that by strictly limiting financial donations and mandating that they must all be published with donors identified.  This is done in most democracies, but not, apparently in the USA, perhaps with predictable results. The amount of money spent in US politics is absolutely insane, to any outsider.

Regarding the elected representatives, if you want them to enter government with a plan for governing, you must allow them to meet and agree beforehand proposals for the trade-offs, prioritisation and funding that I have mentioned. Without that you would have months of paralysed, impotent government while a programme was thrashed out among hundreds of individual representatives, all with different opinions!  If you look at the coalitions that are often formed between 2 or more parties in European countries, the negotiations involved take long enough. Between individual representatives, forbidden to form parties with a pre-agreed programme, it would be ten times harder.   If you permit them to pre-agree a plan, you already have a political party, it seems to me. 

 

 

Edited yesterday at 10:42 AM by exchemist

[dimreepr]

2 hours ago, exchemist said:

I continue to struggle to see how this would work. You would have candidates forbidden to organise themselves into political parties. How then would a coherent programme for government be developed, given, as I pointed out, that this involves trade-offs, prioritisation and funding decisions on the various single issues involved? 

You say that  voters, on the other hand, would be allowed (actually you could not  prevent them, in a free society) to form parties, but only on the basis of single issues. How would you stop them combining issues, on the basis of the priorities  and trade-offs they would like to see enacted? Surely the relative importance voters attach to various issues is a big part of political opinion. Forcing politics into a set of single issues would just be a further infantilisation of politics. It is the often hard choices between the various single issues, where ideals meet practical reality, where you need mature judgement. The electorate should in my opinion be encouraged to confront this, not to live in a silly bubble of things they would like without regard to the consequences. 

It seems to me that how the voters organise themselves must be left to them, if we want to live in a free society.  What you can control, without impinging on the freedom of citizens, is the effect of disproportionately powerful actors in society, such as wealthy individuals, corporations and unions, who currently buy influence over political parties. You can do that by strictly limiting financial donations and mandating that they must all be published with donors identified.  This is done in most democracies, but not, apparently in the USA, perhaps with predictable results. The amount of money spent in US politics is absolutely insane, to any outsider.

Regarding the elected representatives, if you want them to enter government with a plan for governing, you must allow them to meet and agree beforehand proposals for the trade-offs, prioritisation and funding that I have mentioned. Without that you would have months of paralysed, impotent government while a programme was thrashed out among hundreds of individual representatives, all with different opinions!  If you look at the coalitions that are often formed between 2 or more parties in European countries, the negotiations involved take long enough. Between individual representatives, forbidden to form parties with a pre-agreed programme, it would be ten times harder.   If you permit them to pre-agree a plan, you already have a political party, it seems to me. 

 

 

Indeed +1, even in an anarchic society, side's would still naturally form.

12 hours ago, MSC said:

It's an interesting comparison nonetheless, not the best as you say, and I don't think you'd assume every issue has the same mass or even the same density if you'll allow me to stretch it further. Euthanasia and abortion share a death theme so you could say they are a similar mass but one is denser because it draws more people into caring about the issue. 

Smaller groups does mean smaller funding, but with a smaller focus, you don't need as much funding. I don't know, I just feel issues themselves fighting for the spotlight would be a better status quo than Republicans vs Democrats fighting for the spotlight.

There is no utopia, there's only better than now; if that got enough funding, then even the denser would accept it... 😉

Edited yesterday at 01:05 PM by dimreepr

[MSC]

14 minutes ago, dimreepr said:

There is no utopia

Never said there was?

2 hours ago, exchemist said:

I continue to struggle to see how this would work. You would have candidates forbidden to organise themselves into political parties. How then would a coherent programme for government be developed, given, as I pointed out, that this involves trade-offs, prioritisation and funding decisions on the various single issues involved? 

You say that  voters, on the other hand, would be allowed (actually you could not  prevent them, in a free society) to form parties, but only on the basis of single issues. How would you stop them combining issues, on the basis of the priorities  and trade-offs they would like to see enacted? Surely the relative importance voters attach to various issues is a big part of political opinion. Forcing politics into a set of single issues would just be a further infantilisation of politics. It is the often hard choices between the various single issues, where ideals meet practical reality, where you need mature judgement. The electorate should in my opinion be encouraged to confront this, not to live in a silly bubble of things they would like without regard to the consequences. 

It seems to me that how the voters organise themselves must be left to them, if we want to live in a free society.  What you can control, without impinging on the freedom of citizens, is the effect of disproportionately powerful actors in society, such as wealthy individuals, corporations and unions, who currently buy influence over political parties. You can do that by strictly limiting financial donations and mandating that they must all be published with donors identified.  This is done in most democracies, but not, apparently in the USA, perhaps with predictable results. The amount of money spent in US politics is absolutely insane, to any outsider.

Regarding the elected representatives, if you want them to enter government with a plan for governing, you must allow them to meet and agree beforehand proposals for the trade-offs, prioritisation and funding that I have mentioned. Without that you would have months of paralysed, impotent government while a programme was thrashed out among hundreds of individual representatives, all with different opinions!  If you look at the coalitions that are often formed between 2 or more parties in European countries, the negotiations involved take long enough. Between individual representatives, forbidden to form parties with a pre-agreed programme, it would be ten times harder.   If you permit them to pre-agree a plan, you already have a political party, it seems to me. 

 

 

Well then I don't know, kind of seems like how you envision this and how I envision it are very different but thanks for making it sound stupid. You were the one who said a counter cultural movement was needed and this is what I came up with. Sorry it wasn't good enough. I asked for pros and cons, all y'all did was conconcon. Not even an attempt to be open minded or creative.

You want money out of politics? Dissolve multi issue parties, you want merit in politics? Single issue parties would invite it since people will actually have to know what they are talking about on a given issue. Forgive me for thinking it would be a good idea to take a cue from science and name parties based on function, not ideology and abstracting away from problems. You call it infantile, I call it breaking a problem down into smaller parts so that it can actually be solved. Where issues meet, that's something to think about yeah, but not enough to throw out an entire idea that has been completely unexplored or tested. 

You'd think independent representatives don't exist with reading these responses. 

The way I see it, it's either this or switching to a hybrid representative/direct democracy model. 

11 hours ago, iNow said:

Yet those with the authority to do so have a vested interest in not doing so. 

Yeah well, so did the people who owned slaves when they voted to abolish. Let's say there was a push to make this the 28th amendment, if enough people want it, if enough people make it clear they are only going to vote for whomever will vote in favour of the 28th, it is achievable. 

[dimreepr]

1 minute ago, MSC said:

Never said there was?

I didn't say you did. 

4 minutes ago, MSC said:

Yeah well, so did the people who owned slaves when they voted to abolish. Let's say there was a push to make this the 28th amendment, if enough people want it, if enough people make it clear they are only going to vote for whomever will vote in favour of the 28th, it is achievable. 

Everything (well almost) is achievable with enough funding, as the bad guy's are currently demonstrating; and the slave-owner's tried to avoid...

[MSC]

8 minutes ago, dimreepr said:

I didn't say you did. 

Everything (well almost) is achievable with enough funding, as the bad guy's are currently demonstrating; and the slave-owner's tried to avoid...

Sidebar; funny as all hell that the slavers in the UK were too stupid to realize their funds were being attacked first, pre abolition. 

 

42 minutes ago, dimreepr said:

side's would still naturally form.

So maybe I'm arguing from the extreme, but I think the overall theme of diminishing party power and increasing individual accountability is achievable.

I also want to make it clear that when faced with the world's current problems, I don't think there is any one strategy that will fix it all. 

The other ideas mentioned here, fixing campaign finance issues etc are still absolutely valid and should be followed through on. 

@iNow and @exchemist Sorry for how snappy my first response to you both today was. I hadn't had coffee yet and had just woken up. I appreciate you both taking the time to respond and I realize I haven't done a good job of explaining how I would envision this working, but that's mainly because some of this is still incubating and admittedly it would take some wild reformation of both the executive and legislative branches of government and changes in how elections are carried out. 

I was already aware that the thorniest part of it is the implications for the right to assembly. Having done more research, the forming of parties probably can't be outlawed, for the reasons @exchemist stated..  however I have come across mentions of small state and local governments around the world that have de jure non-partisan policies, where parties aren't allowed to take part in elections directly and they serve advisory roles to the executive and legislative branches instead. 

[TheVat]

" However [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, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion. "  - G Washington 

Farewell Address | Saturday, September 17, 1796

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Washington's_Farewell_Address#:~:text=He acknowledges the fact that,among groups and regions%2C raise

[MSC]

20 minutes ago, TheVat said:

" However [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, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion. "  - G Washington 

Farewell Address | Saturday, September 17, 1796

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Washington's_Farewell_Address#:~:text=He acknowledges the fact that,among groups and regions%2C raise

Maybe you can help me with something; hit a wall in my research, trying to find out how the USA conducted elections pre 1796 and the normalisation of political parties via the Federalists and the Democratic Republicans. 

[exchemist]

33 minutes ago, MSC said:

Sidebar; funny as all hell that the slavers in the UK were too stupid to realize their funds were being attacked first, pre abolition. 

 

So maybe I'm arguing from the extreme, but I think the overall theme of diminishing party power and increasing individual accountability is achievable.

I also want to make it clear that when faced with the world's current problems, I don't think there is any one strategy that will fix it all. 

The other ideas mentioned here, fixing campaign finance issues etc are still absolutely valid and should be followed through on. 

@iNow and @exchemist Sorry for how snappy my first response to you both today was. I hadn't had coffee yet and had just woken up. I appreciate you both taking the time to respond and I realize I haven't done a good job of explaining how I would envision this working, but that's mainly because some of this is still incubating and admittedly it would take some wild reformation of both the executive and legislative branches of government and changes in how elections are carried out. 

I was already aware that the thorniest part of it is the implications for the right to assembly. Having done more research, the forming of parties probably can't be outlawed, for the reasons @exchemist stated..  however I have come across mentions of small state and local governments around the world that have de jure non-partisan policies, where parties aren't allowed to take part in elections directly and they serve advisory roles to the executive and legislative branches instead. 

Yes, I have in fact tried to be constructive, laying out what I would tentatively suggest by way of reform in an earlier post.

Glad to see you take on board the point about money in politics. However I still feel you need to address my point about how a coherent programme for government could be created without political parties. To me that is an almost insuperable difficulty - subject to what further ideas about that you may have.

I also really do feel quite strongly that single issue politics is childish and by no means to be encouraged.

[MSC]

5 minutes ago, exchemist said:

also really do feel quite strongly that single issue politics is childish and by no means to be encouraged.

So how I envision it, is that the parties themselves are single issue, but voters belong to multiple parties, based on which group they feel has the best approach to the given issue. One issue, is personnel management and communication. 

This would make the role of president, more like that of a project manager, with a presidential roundtable council of team leads who work on the issues, independently of each other, with task forces for where issues meet and intersect. 

I suppose you could almost call it maintained coalition governance. 

27 minutes ago, exchemist said:

Glad to see you take on board the point about money in politics. However I still feel you need to address my point about how a coherent programme for government could be created without political parties. To me that is an almost insuperable difficulty - subject to what further ideas about that you may have.

I do value your feedback, even if the last batch required me to step back after a knee jerk that was completely my bad. 

Admittedly though, what I've described would be a headache come election time, but election time is always a headache and simpler ways don't imply better ways, people can stand to be asked to do something a bit more complex it it's only every few years. 

[dimreepr]

1 hour ago, MSC said:

So maybe I'm arguing from the extreme, but I think the overall theme of diminishing party power and increasing individual accountability is achievable.

I also want to make it clear that when faced with the world's current problems, I don't think there is any one strategy that will fix it all. 

Religion had a pretty good stab at it, for a lot of people; it's a yin-yang kinda thing, power is an illusion... 

1 hour ago, MSC said:

Sidebar; funny as all hell that the slavers in the UK were too stupid to realize their funds were being attacked first, pre abolition. 

And now it's Americas problem... 😉

[MigL]

On 3/16/2025 at 10:20 PM, MSC said:

With disaffection of both political parties in the USA at an all time high, remedying the issues created by both political parties may require a constitutional amendment

And which party would propose this Constitutional amendment ?