Our Political Party System is Failing America

“If I could not go to heaven but with a party, I would not go there at all.”

Thomas Jefferson, March 13, 1789

The month before George Washington took the oath as our first president, Thomas Jefferson shared a concern held by many of the nation’s founders. The framers of the Constitution disdained the idea of “party,” which they understood to be a “faction” whose selfish interests opposed the common good. 

No political parties existed when Washington was elected, but he worried about the danger of “the spirit of party.” In his Farewell Address he warned that in popular governments “it is seen in its greatest rankness, and is truly their worst enemy.”  Jefferson, despite his words, helped form the first political party and it propelled him to the presidency in 1800. Yet he echoed Washington in his own Inaugural, reminding citizens not to “countenance a political intolerance as despotic, as wicked, and capable of as bitter and bloody persecutions” as religious intolerance had produced throughout history.

Political parties can play a positive role.  They can: (a) provide a channel for political anger and energy to avoid violent conflict; (b) form and promote views on public issues, educating the public; (c) encourage productive dissent, avoiding the danger of unchallenged opinion; (d) support good candidates for office; (e) organize voters and energize political participation; (f) support compromises in the interest of national unity and justice, thus (g) strengthening commitment to democracy and discouraging authoritarianism.

Yet these potential benefits depend on self-restraint. As Jefferson said “though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will to be rightful must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal law must protect, and to violate would be oppression.”  Such restraint is far too weak today. Today’s political parties are failing us.    

·       Fostering Division and Preventing Compromise

The current party system deepens polarization leading to increased distrust of politics and democracy.  This is fueled by gerrymandered Congressional districts.  The winner of a party primary in these practically “one-party” districts is thus heavily favored to win the election, pushing candidates to extremes to win their primary, where extreme voters are most likely to vote. The election winner thus represents the views of only part of her/his own party and can safely ignore the losing party. Still further, the winners in “safe” districts can mostly ignore party leadership in Congress, making it hard for the majority party to govern and often leaving it beholden to its most extreme members. 

·       Promoting Candidates Weakly Qualified to Govern

Running for office under our current party system depends too heavily on raising money and capturing media attention. This provides unwarranted influence for wealthy donors whose access and power diminish the voice of other Americans.  It also encourages “performance” behavior designed to provoke, anger and amuse at the expense of substance.  Parties then may support the rise of office seekers who lack the experience, Constitutional understanding and respect for the rule of law essential for democracy.  In addition, about a quarter of U.S. adults don’t even trust either major party to have a fair process for selecting presidential nominees, undercutting the legitimacy of the winner.

·       Distorting Public Debate

Parties and candidates too often engage in misleading and misinforming the public as a conscious election strategy.  Healthy, fact-based debate suffers. Differences within a party, even at the local level, are discouraged if they fail to toe the national party line, replacing diversity of thought with demanded conformity. Ostracism from party support for those who fail to comply follows. The public is thus ill-educated about issues and how government works, opening the door for more disinformation and conspiracy theories.

·       Weakening the Separation of Powers Essential for Justice

Washington warned about “encroachment” and the need for the parts of government “to confine themselves within their respective constitutional spheres.” Yet Congressional party majorities have ceded extensive power to the president especially one of the same party, power that is then hard to get back.  At the same time Presidents and Senators now use ideological loyalty as a criterion for confirming Supreme Court justices.  Not content with weakening separation at the national level, parties have turned state attorney general and state Supreme Court elections into partisan contests.  The legitimacy of the justice system has suffered as a result.

These failures demand correction if the political party system is to strengthen democracy.  Washington, in his Farewell Address, foresaw the danger of where we are today:

“The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension . . . is itself a frightful despotism.  . . . The disorders and miseries which result gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual; and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction . . . turns this . . . to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of public liberty.”

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