Do political parties do more harm than good?

I am just wondering about the effects of political parties in the US.
George Washington believed political parties will divide the nation severely and lead to some messy problems.

I think parties do more harm for they emphasize party survivability through corruption, sleazy politicians, and Machiavellian tactics over emphasizing policies that help the common good.

Am I right or is this my cynicism? Thoughts? :neutral:

Probably, but they are also inevitable. People normally separate themselves into groups. Political parties are just those groups given form. If you got rid of all political parties tomorrow, they'd be back by the end of the week.

Cephus said:

Probably, but they are also inevitable. People normally separate themselves into groups. Political parties are just those groups given form. If you got rid of all political parties tomorrow, they'd be back by the end of the week.

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Something people do not seem to understand, even if you banned parties, they will form into party like groups. Even George Washington, the man people seem to point to as an example of non-partisanship still favoured one over the other, just didn't make it official.

It's not about what's best for the people, it's about what's best for the party.

So yes - the "party" is the problem.

Washington and many other members of our forefathers had the pretension of being above Party and factional politics, but were themselves the very creators of that system. Some were better at being above the fray than others (Washington perhaps more than most), but in their own way, nevertheless contributed to it.

Dragonfly said:

It's not about what's best for the people, it's about what's best for the party.

So yes - the "party" is the problem.

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So why would another party fix the problem? How do you govern without them?

Cephus said:

Probably, but they are also inevitable. People normally separate themselves into groups. Political parties are just those groups given form. If you got rid of all political parties tomorrow, they'd be back by the end of the week.

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It did not even take so long for the one-party system of the post-1812 war world to crumble into geographical fiefdoms, before, once again, a two party system.

Carjosse said:

Something people do not seem to understand, even if you banned parties, they will form into party like groups. Even George Washington, the man people seem to point to as an example of non-partisanship still favoured one over the other, just didn't make it official.

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We are not talking about banning parties, I just want to know if parties do more harm than good, bias is irrelevant in this thread (unless it determines your answer to the main question).

Fritz said:

We are not talking about banning parties, I just want to know if parties do more harm than good, bias is irrelevant in this thread (unless it determines your answer to the main question).

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They do more good than harm. Politics needs direction and structure.

Fiddytree said:

They do more good than harm. Politics needs direction and structure.

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I see your point, at least you answered the question. eace

Fritz said:

I see your point, at least you answered the question. eace

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I had to do more than that, however. Those of us who will answer parties are good will point to the oft-repeated opines of the dissenting forefathers in order to demonstrate that in this subject, the Emperor(s) had no clothes.

ModerateGOP said:

So why would another party fix the problem? How do you govern without them?

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In small-scale governments it is rather feasible but you can see what happens. The North-West Territories and Nunavut both use a consensus government model, there are no parties but they have a very small population that makes Wyoming seem crowded. Our municipal governments also have no parties with the exception of Montreal but even then it is a loose group of individuals with somewhat similar ideas, like the governing party technically is Team Denis Coderre (the mayor). In Toronto there is only left-leaning and right-leaning councilors, and a division can usually be seen that way but overall is much more bi-partisan with the mayor John Tory (former Ontario Progressive Conservative leader) receiving support from both provincial Liberals and Progressive Conservatives. It can work but definitely not on a large national scale.

Fritz said:

We are not talking about banning parties, I just want to know if parties do more harm than good, bias is irrelevant in this thread (unless it determines your answer to the main question).

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It is just a point sometimes people bring up when discussing party politics and the bad things about them. Parties are not good but they are inevitable.

Carjosse said:

In small-scale governments it is rather feasible but you can see what happens. The North-West Territories and Nunavut both use a consensus government model, there are no parties but they have a very small population that makes Wyoming seem crowded. Our municipal governments also have no parties with the exception of Montreal but even then it is a loose group of individuals with somewhat similar ideas, like the governing party technically is Team Denis Coderre (the mayor). In Toronto there is only left-leaning and right-leaning councilors, and a division can usually be seen that way but overall is much more bi-partisan with the mayor John Tory (former Ontario Progressive Conservative leader) receiving support form both provincial Liberals and Progressive Conservatives. It can work but definitely not on a large national scale.

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In rural areas it is also more probable to have a non-party Party form. The North Dakota Non-Partisan League is informative here. After decades of putting candidates in both Parties, the NPL developed an identity crisis in the early post-WWII era, uncertain if it could continue to host candidates in both parties instead of just one. The grouping split, first becoming stronger in the Republican Party, before eventually becoming married to the Democratic Party in 1956-1960.

*See, Seymour Martin Lipset & Gary Marks, It Didn't Happen Here: Why Socialism Failed in the United States (W.W. Norton & Company, 2000).
LLloyd B. Omdahl, Insurgents (Lakeland Color Press, 1961).

Fritz said:

I am just wondering about the effects of political parties in the US.
George Washington believed political parties will divide the nation severely and lead to some messy problems.

I think parties do more harm for they emphasize party survivability through corruption, sleazy politicians, and Machiavellian tactics over emphasizing policies that help the common good.

Am I right or is this my cynicism? Thoughts? :neutral:

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I had thought about at one point in the context of optimizing democratic systems. Of course, the system can be constructed in such a way that parties do harm. But in general they are much more helpful than not. Especially in the american system, where individual candidates of extremely different stature and intra party policy mixes that are wider apart than itrr party ones in most democracies I know.

Fritz said:

I am just wondering about the effects of political parties in the US.
George Washington believed political parties will divide the nation severely and lead to some messy problems.

I think parties do more harm for they emphasize party survivability through corruption, sleazy politicians, and Machiavellian tactics over emphasizing policies that help the common good.

Am I right or is this my cynicism? Thoughts? :neutral:

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There is really no way around this type of thing. Intentionally defined political parties or not people are always going to join with those they agree with more in order to achieve more power. The parties can definitely divide, but the key is to have a system that forces them to the center. That is really the problem we have to day more than anything Gerrymandering has made it so every house seat is either incredibly red or incredibly blue which puts a lot of extremists in congress.

Fritz said:

I am just wondering about the effects of political parties in the US.
George Washington believed political parties will divide the nation severely and lead to some messy problems.

I think parties do more harm for they emphasize party survivability through corruption, sleazy politicians, and Machiavellian tactics over emphasizing policies that help the common good.

Am I right or is this my cynicism? Thoughts? :neutral:

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Parties are, on some level, inevitable. Our system wasn't built for them, but you're always going to have them. How good or bad they are sort of depends on how much control they can exert on the overall system. Without proper political competition, the party structure will stagnate and you cannot produce proper turn over or exert proper control. When this happens, the Party Establishment takes over, and it starts moving towards Party Power over representing the People. And in this form, it can be bad.

I think nowhere has this become more evident than in America with our Republocrat party. Our system has solidified on this status quo, and the Republocrats have set up the rules from campaign contributions to how the debates are run that guarantee the collapse of political competition and the image that they are the only viable party in America. Which aggregatly, we have now accepted. And once that happens, they have no fear of the People. It doesn't matter anymore. They can put up the worst of the worst and we'll still vote for them. This was evident in the last Presidential election. The Republocrat party put up two of the biggest turds ever, and we had to vote for one of the two turds. If anything, the latest election told the Republocrats that they are now free to do whatever they like without reprisal because they cannot lose power. Everything is set in their direction, everything guaranteed that they come out on top.

So on some level, parties will happen. But you cannot allow them to set all the rules because once they can, they will set up all the rules in such a way as they cannot lose power. And once they cannot lose power the People lose control.

Carjosse said:

In small-scale governments it is rather feasible but you can see what happens. The North-West Territories and Nunavut both use a consensus government model, there are no parties but they have a very small population that makes Wyoming seem crowded. Our municipal governments also have no parties with the exception of Montreal but even then it is a loose group of individuals with somewhat similar ideas, like the governing party technically is Team Denis Coderre (the mayor). In Toronto there is only left-leaning and right-leaning councilors, and a division can usually be seen that way but overall is much more bi-partisan with the mayor John Tory (former Ontario Progressive Conservative leader) receiving support from both provincial Liberals and Progressive Conservatives. It can work but definitely not on a large national scale.

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Based on your descriptions of that system, you know that that cannot even be attempted here. We have too many people for a small-scale government of which you describe. Next.

Fritz said:

I am just wondering about the effects of political parties in the US.
George Washington believed political parties will divide the nation severely and lead to some messy problems.

I think parties do more harm for they emphasize party survivability through corruption, sleazy politicians, and Machiavellian tactics over emphasizing policies that help the common good.

Am I right or is this my cynicism? Thoughts? :neutral:

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For the most part, yes, they do harm, but... it's human nature for people to organize into like-minded groups to further their own agenda. That's not going to go away.

I think a better system would be like reading a resume.

These are the things I've done.
These are the things I want to do.

Vote.

The only good they have brought is help join together people who believe something similar. The bad they have doe is hold lots of power over who gets to be elected, force everybody to pick a side which often leads them to demonizing the other side while always defending their own party, divide our country in two and create partisan issues, and discourages politicians from changing their mind on issues.