Washington 'bans' political parties

As has been noted many times in the past, several of the founding fathers didn't have too many good words to say about political parties, the chief among these being George Washington himself who said that they "must be restrained in a popularly elected government because of their tendency to distract the government from their duties, create unfounded jealousies among groups and regions, raise false alarms amongst the people, promote riots and insurrection, and provide foreign nations and interests access to the government where they can impose their will upon the country". Of course, nothing ever came of these criticisms against parties over the ensuing governments, even during the presidency of the openly anti-party (or more correctly, anti-partisan) James Monroe.

However, what would happen if Washington attempted to (and if it's possible, succeeded) in prohibiting the formation of political parties on the national level, especially if it came in the form of an amendment. Of course, there's several boundaries that have to be crossed before such an amendment could come into affect (particularly if it's seen as restricting the freedoms of assembly and the unenumerated right that would become freedom of association), as well as the fact that in the US style of democracy, political 'associations' are almost guaranteed to rise eventually, but what if he managed to get it passed? How would it affect the evolution early American politics (particularly the Second-Party System and Jacksonian Democracy), and more importantly, would it be likely to see such an amendment overruled later down the track (if it even gets passed in the first place)?
 
Banning political parties from the federal government would not be terribly hard, nor change the appearance of things all that much. The rules of the House and Senate probably look a bit different, and there are fewer positions within a caucus, but party affiliation is not at the heart of the workings of the U.S. legislature.

That won't abolish party-based sentiment or political organization. The states will still retain their emergent party systems, meaning members of the House will be elected based on partisanship, while state legislatures will also continue sending Senators who share the ruling party's sentiments. They'd still attend the same functions and caucus together, as well, so all a ban on political parties would do is mean you couldn't say you belonged to the Federalist, Democratic, National Republic, or Whig Party while serving in Congress. Perhaps the most interesting side-effect would be the far earlier onset of ideological purity amongst parties, as the most reliable way to guarantee someone votes with your power bloc is to ensure that everyone agrees on the big issues.

Which, ironically, would create all kinds of sectionalist butterflies, exactly of the sort which Washington would have been trying to avoid.
 
Would it even work? I'm sure even if parties themselves don't exist similary minded individuals would work together and cooperate under party-in-everything-but-a-anme
 
Would it even work? I'm sure even if parties themselves don't exist similary minded individuals would work together and cooperate under party-in-everything-but-a-anme

That's one of the drawbacks that I mentioned in the original post (in the US style of democracy, political 'associations' are almost guaranteed to rise eventually), which would probably lead to a sort of consensus down the track of "why do we need this prohibition of parties if it's clearly not stopping de facto parties from forming". Then again, with this POD, future American presidents could begin to go down the path of prohibiting certain levels of 'association' in politics, and who knows where that would lead.
 
That's one of the drawbacks that I mentioned in the original post (in the US style of democracy, political 'associations' are almost guaranteed to rise eventually), which would probably lead to a sort of consensus down the track of "why do we need this prohibition of parties if it's clearly not stopping de facto parties from forming". Then again, with this POD, future American presidents could begin to go down the path of prohibiting certain levels of 'association' in politics, and who knows where that would lead.

Which, as you've pointed out as well, could be seen as infringing upon a host of liberties. And which would be quite useless since it would be obvious politicians would work around the law to form "parties" while sticking to the letter of the law.
 
The main problem, as others have said, is that at the end of the day you will still have people coming together to support the things they agree with, and even if those parties don't have an official acceptance, they'll still exist.

One possible idea I have kicked around and would likely try adding to any *US in any timeline I wrote would be to create a framework for Parties being officially registered with the US Government, however these Official Parties could only ever have a single focus, one single issue that they will vote on, with members being able to declare that they are voting with Party X on Issue Y and thus letting the head of the Party vote for them.

But even this probably wouldn't prevent Parties from actually turning into what they are now. Not unless there were some decent penalty to prevent parties from 'leaving their lane'. Something along the lines of Forced Abstention or something. But even that would require some sort of Judicial Review to determine whether something is 'in their lane' in the first place, and that will still lead to rivalries and problems.

I don't think there's actually a way to Ban Political Parties, not effectively.
 

jahenders

Banned
I can't see how they could be effectively banned -- they're essentially public discourse groups.

However, a few changes would have limited them:
- Congressional Rules:
- Designate congress will select committees by secret nomination and vote
- Designate that the chair of each committee will be selected by secret ballot amongst the committee members

Electoral Process
- Designate that all states will apportion their electoral college votes proportionally
- Stick with the original process whereby the VP was automatically whoever got the 2nd highest votes in the general election
 
getting rid of 'first-to-the-post' would help as there then wouldn't be quite the same ammount of interesting in joining together to keep your butt on a seat, in and by it self it wouldn't be anywhere near enough, but it would help diversify the political enviroment, which in turn could make soloing politicians having slightly higher chances of succeding (still probably closer to none than and kind of countable procents instead of promiles, but higher than the current system)
 
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