The 2016 election of Donald Trump as president set off a tidal wave of anger and resentment that has divided America into two bitterly opposed camps. Those on the left consider Trump to be the embodiment of evil whereas many on the right see him as a “disrupter” and champion of the common man. The recent mid-term elections revealed that this conflict between pro-Trump and anti-Trump forces continues unabated. The political divide in America now is characterized by revenge-minded Democrats who are determined to remove Trump from office and those who will fight to prevent this from happening. As a result, the country will be mired in a lengthy political power struggle while important issues affecting the lives of millions will be neglected. America – sad to say – is currently a nation in crisis.
If a team of scientific crisis management experts were assembled to assess the cause of this problem they would surely arrive at the conclusion that it is “politics” pure and simple. The solution, therefore, would be the abolition of all political parties.
This is actually not a new idea. The French philosopher Simone Weil made this suggestion more than seventy years ago. This seemingly radical proposal has been resurrected and supported by the award-winning Canadian journalist Andrew Nikiforuk. As he pointed out this past summer:
“In the United States two political parties have now divided the nation with the kind of violent partisan rhetoric that erupted just before the Civil War. Across the Western world, political parties have turned parliaments into digital circuses, provoking waves of contempt among ordinary people…by actively preventing party members from speaking for truth or justice, modern political parties cultivate mendacity the way cell phones archive selfies. Party politics demand that politicians must, on a daily basis, lie to the party, lie to the public and lie to themselves.”
This is a damning indictment of politics not just political parties. And it should be clear to any clear-thinking citizen that the time has come to abandon this morally bankrupt system that has mismanaged our affairs through influence peddling and legal bribery innocuously labeled “campaign contributions”.
Weil and Nikiforuk are not anarchists and they are not proposing some form of extreme libertarianism requiring the dismantlement of government. Governing should be left to capable administrators and professional managers who are not beholden to wealthy donors or special interest groups. Rather than being “elected” they should be hired, paid a decent salary and evaluated for performance by a non-partisan committee of informed citizens.
If we fail to take this step then we are doomed to repeat the same mistakes of the past – suffering from a deeply flawed system that only produces corruption, conflict and economic woe.
We must declare total independence from the tyranny of politics before we are crushed under its weight. To borrow the immortal words of Thomas Paine: “The blood of the slain, the weeping voice of nature cries: ‘tis time to part”.
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