• What they believed: Parties would divide the republic into warring tribes loyal to power, not principl, with mobs wearing matching hats.

• Which Founding Fathers: George Washington, James Madison, John Adams, and Alexander Hamilton. 

• What they said: 

• Washington's Farewell Address was mostly about the problems with political parties and factions

• Washington warned that “the spirit of party… serves always to distract the public councils and enfeeble the public administration.”

• Adams called political parties “the greatest political evil under our Constitution.”

• Madison, who actually studied ancient republics, saw that factions lead to “instability, injustice, and confusion.”

• Why it matters: 

• Modern parties do exactly what they feared. They reward loyalty over logic, groupthink over reason, and memes over math.
• If you tell the truth but it makes your “team” look bad, you’re punished. If you lie but it helps the team, you’re promoted. That’s not democracy. That’s a high school lunch table with nuclear weapons.

• We need an honest debate that looks at the pros and cons, not one-sided propaganda.

• We need to reward talking to the other side, not demonizing them

All party systems are bad

One party systems are bad

We must set aside party fights over policies and even principles and  first get our processes right.