I quit political parties and so should you

[Kyle]

[Cross posted from my Facebook page, but I know I'll get better conversation here]

While both parties want to be known for “integrity” and “compassion,” I see both failing to show either. As an example, Republicans are moving to greatly restrict voting, predominantly against people of color, while justifying it with a lie of “integrity” and “voter fraud”—even though there was no wide-spread fraud in the last election. As another example, Democrats want to be the “big tent” to include everyone and fight for all our rights, while the most liberal place in Texas—Austin—has decided to criminalize homelessness and offer no solutions for the unhoused other than to live in jail. Both parties are using gun control as a fake issue to irrationally scare their voters into thinking their lives are in constant danger. Gun control is only an issue because both democrats and republicans can use it to “rile up” their base and divide our country further.

What neither party is focused on is showing compassion and understanding for our fellow human beings. People from both sides of the political spectrum will agree to a lot of our overlapping goals—improving living conditions, ensuring security from both domestic and foreign threats, and not having basic rights unreasonably infringed upon. We should be able to discuss and define what those goals are. We should be able to discuss and disagree on what methods and measures are necessary to reach those goals. We should be able to be civil with each other about how to approach these problems as well as others.

But we cannot be civil anymore because these parties have pitted us against each other. If you do not agree with Trump that the last election was stolen (it was not) then you are a traitor to the republicans and you are nothing but a socialist communist. If you do not agree that everyone must wear a mask and social distance at all times, even if they’re fully vaccinated and not able to catch or transmit the Covid virus (which is unnecessary and alarmist) then you’re an anti-science Trumpist that has no place in the democratic party.

When we stop speaking to each other and instead just hurl insults over “bright line” issues, we are doing exactly what the two parties want—letting them tell us what to think and not actually thinking for ourselves. These are not easy issues. And there are no easy answers. But politicians are not interested in finding the answers to those problems- they are only interested in keeping us fighting each other to justify why they must be re-elected. It is a con and we are all falling for it.

Stop participating in this fraud. Stop donating money to these panderers that are only motivated by their own self-interest and quest for personal power. Let’s focus instead on having discussions, discovering common ground and reasonable compromises to tackle real problems we’re faced with in this country. Think for yourself. Most importantly, show the respect and decency to everyone else to which you believe you are entitled.

[bralbovsky]

Yes, but I have a suggestion.
This isn't a both sides thing. Again, not new. Will Rogers observed, "I don't belong to an organized party. I'm a Democrat."
Right now, there is a party wrestling with realities (various perspectives and experiences) and a party that's abandoned reality.
It's not simply that they should go off and fight and the rest of us should ignore them and carry on. The fight is happening in the cockpit of the plane.

I don't send money. I have made phone calls. I have driven old people to the polls, without asking about their votes.
In this moment, one party is a conspiracy to grab power. The other party is full of politicians (an entirely different discussion), but many of its most foolish moves are overreactions to the oppressive and ethically convenient strategies of neofascists. I'm not a fan of abortion, but I'm never going to get one. Maybe I would have standing to object to paying for it, but in the face of taxes covering viagra, I should shut up. The gun crisis, I'm convinced, is a direct result of this kind of garbage. If losing access to guns wasn't an invented phobia, hyper-regulating them would never have been mentioned.

Yes, political parties are bad.
Yes, we should abandon them.
Right now, one of them needs our direct attention because it's a cancer.
After it dies, the other party will balkanize rapidly and fundamentally be less of a threat.

[Phoebe]

I have never seen the appeal of parties, although I did temporarily register for one for a few months when I lived in a place that was holding a caucus, as I'd never seen a caucus and wanted to experience it. It was awful! So that was the end of my brief dalliance with parties.

[Kyle]

To Bill's point- I'm certainly not advocating that people shouldn't support candidates that they truly support- nor should people stop advocating for the policy issues that are important to them. Indeed, I'm advocating the opposite of that. But I don't believe that I need to advocate for, support or otherwise provide any endorsement for the democratic party because I feel the republican party is behaving worse, or is a bigger threat to democracy. I'm also not convinced that that is even true. I know very, very many liberals (some on this site) that supported fascist measures to fight against Trump and his autocratic designs. It was the "you have to punch Nazis" theory. I still feel that there are large portions of the democratic party (I would guess the large majority of its political operatives) that support that. In my opinion, that's just as bad as what the republicans are doing. It's just different. The level of scrutiny you're proposing, Bill, is certainly warranted, but to both parties. The democratic party of the future can easily become the republican party we see now. There's so much "with us or against us" conformity bullshit in both parties that I find them both highly dangerous.