I sometimes like to look at the website grants.gov to review how our government is spending our money. It's always a disappointment. One that hit me last night not only as disappointing but a bit ironic was opportunity number SFOP0005045. Here are some exerts from the listing I found interesting:
Today, only a quarter of <redacted> believe that democracy is thriving in <redacted> and half believe that clear and responsive party platforms are crucial.
The name of the country has been redacted since I would believe this statement about the United States. The goal of the funding is to strengthen "public accountability" of the political parties. Novel idea, we should try it.
This goal will be achieved through strengthening engagement and cooperation among political parties, citizen groups, and civil society to enhance mutual trust; enabling political parties to develop responsive issue-based platforms and deliver on promises made during campaigns; allowing citizens to hold political parties accountable for performance, conduct, and use of resources; and building mutual and societal trust among all parties.
Cooperation between political parties, we don't have that! If you include citizen groups and civil society (I think the phrase civil society would exclude most of Hollywood) we certainly don't have cooperation. Holding government accountable for the use of our resources should stop this funding opportunity and the Mueller investigation since he is supposed to be investigating potential Russian manipulation of our election but instead seems to focus more on President Trump's infidelity twelve years ago (more than ten years before he took office).
political parties have become complex institutions that often face internal ideological rivalries, strategic differences, and leadership divisions
Can you believe someone in our government is saying this about another country's government? We should be the poster child for that statement.
A successful project will result in the following objectives:
- Political parties develop governance action plans based on newly-created platforms;
- A mechanism is developed for political parties to hold elected officials (party members or counterparts with whom parties interact) accountable to their party’s platform;
- Engagement and partnerships are deepened with civil society organizations to enable the public to assume the responsibility of holding their elected officials accountable to the promises they make; and,
- Mutual trust is strengthened between and among parties, and with civil society, including media, and the public.
To me items 2. and 4. really stand out. Can you imagine political parties that would really hold their members accountable to the party platform. We would really be able to know what we were getting when we voted. I don't think this eliminates debate but focuses it on how to further the platform of the party. Mutual trusts between parties, I don't see that happening anytime soon not to mention a public that actually trust the media.
You may be wondering now what country it is with problems that are so reflective of our own. The answer will take you back to season 3, episode 10 or 11 of the old TV series Happy Days. In this episode Richie, Potsie, and Ralph have rented a cabin and to try to pick up girls by posing as Tunisian businessmen. Now you know, one of our members of government describe Tunisia as having the same types of problems as our government. The only difference we want to provide $2 million to improve their situation. What an example we set for them.
In case you don't know. Tunisia is in Africa. According to the CIA website Tunisia is a country of 11.4 million people. Ethnically Tunisians are 98% of Arab decent and by religion 99.1% are Sunni Muslim. If it cost $2 million to improve the problems with political parties in a country of only 11.4 million people, almost without ethnic and religious diversity, can you imagine what it would cost here?
Politics is funny. There are countless instances where it would do more good for political parties to work together, instead of fighting each other. But alas, is it exceedingly rare for them to do so.
I am no expert, but I would think that cooperation would go a long way in cutting down the costs of improving problems. It certainly couldn't do much harm if any.
Funny is a good description, I would also throw in confusing and infuriating. Cooperation would help. If they would focus on what is best for the average citizen and stop pandering to small segments of the population and of course their donors, things could really happen.
First both parties have to get over the knee jerk reaction to disagree with anything from the other party.
And that would only scratch the surface. If they truly kept the average Joe in mind, they would not act the way they do now. How they act now, to me, says they consider only their agendas and what they have to gain.
I honestly cannot recall a single instance where one party acknowledged good work done by the another party, nor a good idea for that matter.
Yes, and when they vote in a manner that goes against what the claimed while campaigning they tell us that politics is about "compromise". They can compromise their espoused beliefs but not cooperate apparently.
The truth, sadly, is that we have only one party in America, my friend. It's the electronic voting machine exclusionary pro-war globalist party. The facade of democracy only still exists within the imaginations of low-information dupes. What we really need is either a leveled playing field for multiple parties, OR (and this was the position of the founders) NO PARTIES AT ALL.
When the founding fathers spoke of "parties" they used the term "factions."
The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism.
~ George Washington, Farewell Address, September 19, 1796.
All combinations and associations, under whatever plausible character, with the real design to direct, control, counteract, or awe the regular deliberation and action of the constituted authorities, are destructive of this fundamental principle, and of fatal tendency. They serve to organize faction, to give it an artificial and extraordinary force; to put, in the place of the delegated will of the nation the will of a party, often a small but artful and enterprising minority of the community.
~ George Washington, Farewell Address, September 19, 1796.
Here are some Founding Fathers’ quotes that address the spirit of faction and animosity that characterize a radically polarized two-party system. See especially George Washington’s “solemn warning” against this great danger to our individual and national happiness.
George Washington
Let me … warn you in the most solemn manner against the baneful effects of the spirit of party.
~ George Washington, Farewell Address, September 19, 1796.
The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism.
~ George Washington, Farewell Address, September 19, 1796.
The alternate triumphs of different parties … make the public administration the mirror of the ill-concerted and incongruous projects of faction, rather than the organ of consistent and wholesome plans digested by common counsels.
~ George Washington, Farewell Address, September 19, 1796.
The common and continual mischiefs of the spirit of party are sufficient to make it the interest and duty of a wise people to discourage and restrain it.
~ George Washington, Farewell Address, September 19, 1796.
[The spirit of party] serves always to distract the public councils and enfeeble the public administration. It agitates the community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms, kindles the animosity of one part against another.
~ George Washington, Farewell Address, September 19, 1796.
[The spirit of party] opens the door to foreign influence and corruption, which finds a facilitated access to the government itself through the channels of party passions.
~ George Washington, Farewell Address, September 19, 1796.
All combinations and associations, under whatever plausible character, with the real design to direct, control, counteract, or awe the regular deliberation and action of the constituted authorities, are destructive of this fundamental principle, and of fatal tendency. They serve to organize faction, to give it an artificial and extraordinary force; to put, in the place of the delegated will of the nation the will of a party, often a small but artful and enterprising minority of the community.
~ George Washington, Farewell Address, September 19, 1796.
However combinations or associations of the above description 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.
~ George Washington, Farewell Address, September 19, 1796.
The unity of government which constitutes you one people is … a main pillar in the edifice of your real independence, the support of your tranquility at home, your peace abroad; of your safety; of your prosperity; of that very liberty which you so highly prize. But … it is easy to foresee that, from different causes and from different quarters, much pains will be taken, many artifices employed to weaken in your minds the conviction of this truth; … this is the point in your political fortress against which the batteries of internal and external enemies will be most constantly and actively (though often covertly and insidiously) directed.
~ George Washington, Farewell Address, September 19, 1796.
It is of infinite moment that you should properly estimate the immense value of your national union to your collective and individual happiness; that you should cherish a cordial, habitual, and immovable attachment to it; accustoming yourselves to think and speak of it as of the palladium of your political safety and prosperity; watching for its preservation with jealous anxiety; discountenancing whatever may suggest even a suspicion that it can in any event be abandoned; and indignantly frowning upon the first dawning of every attempt to alienate any portion of our country from the rest, or to enfeeble the sacred ties which now link together the various parts.
~ George Washington, Farewell Address, September 19, 1796.
John Adams
There is nothing which I dread so much as a division of the republic into two great parties, each arranged under its leader, and concerting measures in opposition to each other. This, in my humble apprehension, is to be dreaded as the greatest political evil under our Constitution.
~ John Adams, Letter to Jonathan Jackson (October 2, 1780). In: Charles Francis Adams (ed.), The Works of John Adams, Vol. 9, Boston, 1854. pp. 510-11.
Satyagraha
Cultural Psychology
The Founding Fathers on Party Strife (Quotes)
with 3 comments
Here are some Founding Fathers’ quotes that address the spirit of faction and animosity that characterize a radically polarized two-party system. See especially George Washington’s “solemn warning” against this great danger to our individual and national happiness.
George Washington
Let me … warn you in the most solemn manner against the baneful effects of the spirit of party.
~ George Washington, Farewell Address, September 19, 1796.
The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism.
~ George Washington, Farewell Address, September 19, 1796.
The alternate triumphs of different parties … make the public administration the mirror of the ill-concerted and incongruous projects of faction, rather than the organ of consistent and wholesome plans digested by common counsels.
~ George Washington, Farewell Address, September 19, 1796.
The common and continual mischiefs of the spirit of party are sufficient to make it the interest and duty of a wise people to discourage and restrain it.
~ George Washington, Farewell Address, September 19, 1796.
[The spirit of party] serves always to distract the public councils and enfeeble the public administration. It agitates the community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms, kindles the animosity of one part against another.
~ George Washington, Farewell Address, September 19, 1796.
[The spirit of party] opens the door to foreign influence and corruption, which finds a facilitated access to the government itself through the channels of party passions.
~ George Washington, Farewell Address, September 19, 1796.
All combinations and associations, under whatever plausible character, with the real design to direct, control, counteract, or awe the regular deliberation and action of the constituted authorities, are destructive of this fundamental principle, and of fatal tendency. They serve to organize faction, to give it an artificial and extraordinary force; to put, in the place of the delegated will of the nation the will of a party, often a small but artful and enterprising minority of the community.
~ George Washington, Farewell Address, September 19, 1796.
However combinations or associations of the above description 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.
~ George Washington, Farewell Address, September 19, 1796.
The unity of government which constitutes you one people is … a main pillar in the edifice of your real independence, the support of your tranquility at home, your peace abroad; of your safety; of your prosperity; of that very liberty which you so highly prize. But … it is easy to foresee that, from different causes and from different quarters, much pains will be taken, many artifices employed to weaken in your minds the conviction of this truth; … this is the point in your political fortress against which the batteries of internal and external enemies will be most constantly and actively (though often covertly and insidiously) directed.
~ George Washington, Farewell Address, September 19, 1796.
It is of infinite moment that you should properly estimate the immense value of your national union to your collective and individual happiness; that you should cherish a cordial, habitual, and immovable attachment to it; accustoming yourselves to think and speak of it as of the palladium of your political safety and prosperity; watching for its preservation with jealous anxiety; discountenancing whatever may suggest even a suspicion that it can in any event be abandoned; and indignantly frowning upon the first dawning of every attempt to alienate any portion of our country from the rest, or to enfeeble the sacred ties which now link together the various parts.
~ George Washington, Farewell Address, September 19, 1796.
John Adams
There is nothing which I dread so much as a division of the republic into two great parties, each arranged under its leader, and concerting measures in opposition to each other. This, in my humble apprehension, is to be dreaded as the greatest political evil under our Constitution.
~ John Adams, Letter to Jonathan Jackson (October 2, 1780). In: Charles Francis Adams (ed.), The Works of John Adams, Vol. 9, Boston, 1854. pp. 510-11.
Abuse of words has been the great instrument of sophistry and chicanery, of party, faction, and division of society.
~ John Adams, Letter to J. H. Tiffany (March 31, 1819). In: Charles Francis Adams (ed.), The Works of John Adams, Vol. 10, Boston, 1856. pp. 377-8.
Thomas Jefferson
I never submitted the whole system of my opinions to the creed of any party of men whatever, in religion, in philosophy, in politics, or in anything else, where I was capable of thinking for myself. Such an addiction is the last degradation of a free and moral agent.
~ Thomas Jefferson, Letter to Francis Hopkinson (March 13, 1789). In: Merrill D. Peterson (ed.), Letters of Thomas Jefferson, New York, 1984, pp. 940-42. [PL Ford, Writings of Thomas Jefferson, vol. 5, pp. 75-78].
The happiness of society depends so much on preventing party spirit from infecting the common intercourse of life, that nothing should be spared to harmonize and amalgamate the two parties in social circles.
~ Thomas Jefferson, To William C. Claiborne, July 1801
Having never lived in a period of time without political parties for me this is difficult to imagine. Not saying it is good or bad and I do agree with you that this was the intent of the founding fathers. It would take me a while to wrap my head around it.
More than two major political parties I think is a bad thing. The way I read the twelfth amendment we could, or would, end up with those in power representing a minority of the population. At least with two political parties, we end up with leadership representing something close to what the majority voted for. Besides, many in our voting population seem to make what I think of as a bad decision when faced with only two options, imagine if they had three or four options to chose from.
If you have a multi-party system, more inter-party cooperation (if that is a legitimate goal, as your article suggests) is GUARANTEED, as they must often form a government together or yield to others.
No parties can work, and did for the first 8 years of our federal system. Open primaries (where citizens vote for candidates irregardless of political party) would simply need to be expanded from a few states to all 50 states. Then the top candidates (say the top 10 for POTUS, statewide candidates, etc.) ALL get seated in the televised debates. No more liberal groups and neocon groups picking who gets heard, ONLY.
With a multi-party system, inter-party cooperation is only GUARANTEED if they actually want to get something done. Otherwise instead of our two parties sitting on their hands we now have three or four parties sitting on their hands. The number of parties involved is less important to me than those elected officials standing by what they said they wanted to do and actually working for the people rather than for themselves.
Open primaries I think are a great system. Puts the people more in charge of who the potential next leaders could be.