As I've seen noted many times on this site, the Democratic and Republican parties in the United States are unusual, globally speaking.
- First, they are extremely broad-tent organizations with little central control over state or local branches, and efforts to adhere to a nationwide platform are limp at best. People can win primary elections and run as partisan candidates while being actively opposed by the party leadership. Expulsions from parties are unheard of.
- Second, in most states, party membership consists of ticking a box on a form, involves no dues, and conveys no exclusive benefits or responsibilities other than the ability to vote in primary elections - and in jurisdictions with open primaries, not even that.
What would it take to make being, say, a Democrat more like being a member of a European party? That is to say, you'd have to pay dues to the DNC, face expulsion for campaigning for another party's candidate, and agree to abide by a Democratic manifesto if you were to run for office.
There are some obvious answers, like having a strong labor party introduce the concept of disciplined and active party membership into the mainstream as happened in other countries. The ever popular "Woodrow Wilson leads some electoral reform" concept might work here, too, since Wilson believed that political parties needed to be ideologically rather than regionally based. But can y'all think of any less obvious ways to achieve this challenge?