Should political parties be abolished?

[WalterWhite]

The vast majority of politicians vote in line with their parties >90% of the time. This leaves very little room for independent thought and novel ideas within Congress.

This will force voters to judge candidates based on their policy positions and their character, not their political party. This will also give moderates more of a voice in Congress; for instance, states with high amounts of economically interventionist conservatives (West Virginia perhaps) could elect candidates that represent their values, instead of having to resort to either the liberal Democrats or the conservative Republicans, neither of which represent the people of West Virginia well.

Primaries will take the form of jungle primaries; anyone eligible can file to run, and top few people (number can vary per race) would run for the general.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Of course not.

"The political parties created democracy and modern democracy is unthinkable save in terms of the parties" - EE. Schattschneider

[Ferguson97]

No. Not only would this violate the right to freedom of speech and assembly, but I don't even know how this would be enforced.

[Dr. MB]

there are always gonna be parties and factions, no way to completely get rid of them

[quesaisje]

"When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in Common Sense Solutions™ and promising reform to broken systems." - P.T. Barnum

Abolishing organizations that compete for power is what authoritarians do. There is no shortage of clichés that a leader could use to excuse that action, but all of them are equally meaningless.

Anyway, few of Congress's problems have to do with a lack of "novel ideas" or "independent thought," and that would be true even if the body were not packed with howling mediocrities.

[Hammy]

"When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in Common Sense Solutions™ and promising reform to broken systems." - P.T. Barnum

Abolishing organizations that compete for power is what authoritarians do. There is no shortage of clichés that a leader could use to excuse that action, but all of them are equally meaningless.

Anyway, few of Congress's problems have to do with a lack of "novel ideas" or "independent thought," and that would be true even if the body were not packed with howling mediocrities.

How can somebody who died before the word fascism was created have a quote about fascism?

[quesaisje]

How can somebody who died before the word fascism was created have a quote about fascism?

P.T. Barnum was a prescient man whose thoughts on advertising were many decades ahead of his time. He also once said that he didn't care what the newspapers said about him as long as they spelled his name correctly.

[MarkD]

Look at the Nebraska legislature. It is, technically, the only state legislature which has banned party labels. But it is common knowledge that every legislator is actually, functionally, a member of one of the two major parties.
It demonstrates the futility of trying to ban political parties.

[RI]

Look at the Nebraska legislature. It is, technically, the only state legislature which has banned party labels. But it is common knowledge that every legislator is actually, functionally, a member of one of the two major parties.
It demonstrates the futility of trying to ban political parties.

Nonpartisan races give voters and candidates more flexibility than partisan ones, and people tend to be more open-minded in them. Republican-aligned candidates often far overperform in urban nonpartisan races relative to partisan ones, for example. Ann Davison certainly wouldn't have won in Seattle if she had an (R) next to her name on the ballot. On the opposite side, look at the recent Colorado Springs mayoral race.

It's tougher in a legislative setting where caucuses necessarily form, but executive races benefit from being nonpartisan.

[BigZuck08]

I don't think they should be abolished, but we should do what cities do nationwide, which is make the elections nonpartisan. Too many people in America vote solely based off of party affiliation without bothering to look up the candidate's stances. What I mean by making elections nonpartisan is removing party affiliation from the voting ballot. As the person above me said, executive races benefit from being nonpartisan.

[Frodo]

No, we simply need a political system (e.g. parliamentary) better suited to factionalism and political parties than ours.  

[Blue3]

No, it wouldn't really solve anything. Just make things less clear.

[PSOL]

You cannot have society without at least one of them, which is so unlike the state.

[mileslunn]

Most places that do this are areas with very small populations.  In Canada, Northwest Territories and Nunavut have no political parties, but they have only 40,000 people otherwise similar size to a small city or small enough could fit in a football stadium.  Isle of Man and Channel Islands also generally don't but again small population.  Better comparison is in Ontario, municipal elections ban political parties so in Toronto which has 3 million, there are none.  But nonetheless it is well known each election which candidates align with certain ideology and federal party so may not formally exist, but people still generally know who is who. 

[First1There]

Do you know what happens when you ban the 2 political parties in the House of Representatives? You get 435 parties.