What are parties for?

Parties are not for identity, nor are they ends in themselves. They are tools, and they are most effective when more people, acting out of loyalty to principle rather than to ideology, get more involved, not less.

This is a time of great disillusionment with political parties, even as it is also a time of unprecedented partisan polarization. The two conditions exacerbate each other. At present, a record high of 45% of Americans are unaffiliated with any party and no small number of them are voters under the age of 30, leaving the parties more hardened in their positions. There are, of course, many good reasons for this disillusionment: the ineffectiveness of parties, the increasing sense that the parties no longer allow room for differences of judgment and opinion, and our own growing fatigue with the tribalism and contempt that parties stir up. Moreover, many Americans instinctively feel that human beings are far more complicated than our political discourse suggests. Party affiliation today goes a long way to predict what decisions otherwise unique people will make—if they attend church, where they attend it, what cars they buy, what music they listen to, and what food they eat. It plays a significant role in whom one chooses to marry, or even if one marries at all. The R and D, red and blue, are markers that deceive us into believing that we can easily distinguish between the good guys and the bad guys.

On the occasion of Presidents’ Day, it is important to remember that George Washington wisely warned us in his famous farewell address of 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. But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent 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, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of public liberty.” 

In short, Washington’s voice was prophetic. He believed that if we fell victim to the fervor of partisanship, we would make ourselves vulnerable to the rise of despotism, the very form of government our constitutional democracy was designed to protect against.

Even though we know partisan fervor is wrong, too many of us need and like to have someone to blame, someone to hate, someone to complain about. Politics has become a sport, and we have been seduced by the performers to be content with the role of the spectator, someone who is willing to root for one team over another. And this has allowed extreme elements to gain more power.

So, what are parties for? Why should we be invested in them at all? To answer this question, we could start by determining what parties are not for. They are certainly not for establishing one’s identity or worth. When parties become warring tribes, as Washington warned, we will lose the nation. They are also not ends in themselves but useful tools. They can galvanize support, create political power, and move the levers of government but we must keep them at a proper distance.

One measure of the proper distance might be to ask ourselves: how frequently do we think outside of the box of party logic? How willing are we to assume positions on specific issues that show more nuance than what a given party has already established as settled? When was the last time that you voted for someone from a second party? If your views on immigration, climate change, healthcare, education, gun control, or any other hot button issue of the day show nary a shadow of difference from the official party line or from the latest rants by pundits, I would suggest that you have not found appropriate distance. If you are a person of faith, you have an especially important reason to avoid this. When party and religion become synonymous, we don’t just impoverish democracy. We also compromise religious principles.

It might also help to remember what government is for. Politics matter because policy creation and policy implementation are how we fulfill the obligations of government to protect the safety and rights of all people and to facilitate human flourishing. At Engage, we see respecting human dignity, human potential, and human differences as the foundational principle of all forms of civic engagement. That is to say, the purpose of politics is not to wield power or for gain at the expense of others, but to bring about higher levels of human flourishing across society. This is disarmingly simple. If voters, political leaders, and government bureaucrats all understood that their job was to prioritize human well-being, it might change a lot about the way politics operate. 

Despite our problems, however, we can ill afford to withdraw. Appropriate independence from party thinking is healthy, but wholesale withdrawal from parties by otherwise wise and good people only allows parties to become echo chambers of extremism. At Engage, we envision a political culture with robust and broad participation in both parties, where real competition of ideas and candidates becomes the norm. Any community or state dominated by only one party risks eroding the spirit of democracy and endangering public liberty. No matter how passionate one’s convictions are on one side of the spectrum, a true patriot values and defends the need for the healthy presence of the other side. Without such commitments from parties, voters, and politicians, we run the risks Washington described. For that reason, Engage seeks to motivate more engagement with parties, not less, but we insist that this must be an engagement that is led by principle not by party fanaticism and it must be balanced between the two parties. More people involved in party building who are less invested in parties as identity or as their own ends are what this country needs. We need more independent thinkers who refuse to withdraw but are instead willing to do the hard work of building principled political power.

We are providing an upcoming training to help people navigate the caucus process in Utah for the two major parties. Understanding and getting more involved with caucuses, even reforming the electoral process itself when necessary, are vital to being politically influential and effective and in helping to restore the democratic spirit our country needs. Please join us this Thursday, February 19, 7:00-8:30 in B135 JFSB on the BYU campus, to learn the ropes and increase your effectiveness at the local level.

George Handley, Executive Director, Engage: A Forum for Civic Renewal