Abolish political parties now, before it's too late. It may already be too late.
Fundamentally, political parties are based on freedom of association.
Freedom of association allows people to form their own groups, for whatever reason. A group of hikers, model railroad enthusiasts, or a group seeking political ends.
Political parties also cross into advocacy, which is/can be petitioning government for redress. Another constitutionally protected thing.
Best option that I can see is having elections ignore party affiliation. Basically the jungle primary thing.
But in my experience, with nonpartisan elections, everybody still knows what ‘party’ the candidates are.
Is there any institution that can do that which isn't dominated by these two parties?
I'm not sure how this could be avoided in the US system of 2 senators per state. You can't exactly send 2/3ds of a senator to Washington if you had a proportional system.
Make the state legislatures proportional, impose a deadlock-free contingency procedure and repeal the seventeenth amendment. Either that or random ballot.
Though, I wouldn't necessarily consider either of those good ways of solving that problem, which would probably involve increasing the size of the senate as well somehow.
that means, i think it is reasonable to demand that a political representative be neutral and not have any associations for which it could be argued that they represent a conflict of interest.
parties influence or even control who gets to stand for election. why should that be the case? anyone should be able to stand for election, regardless of affiliation.
in many countries, parliaments have a concept of requiring that members of parliament vote along their party. that should be illegal, MPs should only vote according their conscience. influencing them should be illegal. lobbying should be illegal.
none of this restricts freedom of association.
Of course I can eschew those responsibilities and then the club can deny me the benefits or kick me out.
This statement directly contradicts your view that ‘none of this restricts freedom is association’
Define ‘demand’. Voters demand, like their opinion is they won’t vote for someone who has associations. Or government demands that candidates have no associations.
it restricts your freedom of association only as much the rule of law already does.
with demand i mean a potential law that demands that representatives be independent: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conscience_vote
- 3rd parties can't compete
- Campaign spending spirals upwards because of the consolidation of money
- Regular people can't run without party support
- Politicians get campaign money in exchange for giving in on policy
- Lobbyists can consolidate their efforts (it's easier to buy one or two parties than many)
* There's been an increased focus on federal (vs local) governing. People "over there" now need to adopt the solutions we have "over here". Since federal gov cannot possibly be in tune to all voters micro-needs, a successful federal-first party needs to focus on high-profile outrage-fueled issues.
* The main focus is on proportional representation, where votes for legislators are in proportion to the people who they represent. This avoids winner-take-all elections at congressional level, and removes the need to both pander to moral outrage and gerrymander.
* Another huge factor is increasing the number of seats elected, and pinning it to # of people they represent. This allows minority groups to have their say in congress, rather than having to jump on the bandwagon of "least evil" candidate. Congress has not expanded in a long time.
The fundamental problem with parties appears to be that they're a way to exert undue influence on and ultimately break down democracy. So it seems like measures that increase democracy and reduce the power of any person or organization are what's required.
From a voting perspective, that means things like multiwinner districts and races (improves minority representation and blunts gerrymandering), compulsory voting, paid voting holidays, independent voting commissions that draw maps, ranked choice voting...
It also means either reducing the mechanisms by which capital can be converted into political power or reducing the amount of capital the entities at the top have, or both. So antitrust laws are not only good for the economy, but also for democracy.
But this has to be addressed:
> Abolish political parties now
You can't. "Parties" are just agreements. I want something, she wants something else, you want something different still, etc... I decide to vote with her because she'll support my stuff in return, where you won't. Now we have a party. That's all that a party is, they naturally arise any time you have any kind of collective decision making (not just democracy: treaty coalitions are just geopolitical "parties", etc...).
The two party system, likewise, is a natural evolution of first-past-the-post/winner-take-all voting. If you need 50% to do anything, then you need to get your party to be bigger than that. And the folks left out need to band together in order to get what they want. So the two sides naturally seek (via compromise, coercion, etc...) to an equilibrium where they both win about half the time. Anyone in a "third party" never wins anything.
[1] Again, why the ridiculous hyperbole? It's not like this is some new evil plague; "parties" have been with us for thousands of years!
That seems unimaginative. The agreement to create the party is recognized as some sort of incorporated being for the purpose of receiving and spending money. This could be shaped in various ways by taxing authority, or by retroactively changing the pay structure of officers, or by optimizing the valuation of different asset classes for the purpose of taxation. I'm sure others can think of even better ways to pursue abolition without expanding the already expansive controls on how people express the freedom of association.
If you want the system to change we need to restructure how elections work, not somehow try to abolish the idea of people working together politically.
We can't even prevent private corporations from unlimited funding of campaigns. How on earth would we be able to abolish political parties?
Switching from FPTP to IRV changes the balance of power in any state that is not dominated by one party. The party that stands to gain supports it, the party that stands to lose opposes it. That's it there is no other motivation. If the balance of power were flipped you would see the stances flipped.
You can see the happening right now where the Democrats who initially opposed those state laws meant to undermine the ACA now loudly support them because almost all of them banish government from healthcare extremely broadly where Republicans now want them gone because it inhibits their ability to restrict abortion access.
I guess we have to work state-by-state and county-by-county in swing areas to get IRV/ranked choice voting enacted, then scream very loudly when someone tries to change it back.