There can be no debating the fact that our United States today are divided deeply along multiple lines, with our political schisms being the most pronounced. Our once enjoyed age of reason and discourse is slowly giving way to an era of heated emotion and sectarian conflict, and it would appear as though elements of our nation’s vast media apparatus are hellbent on keeping these gaping wounds open. On the matter of such political dissensions and divisions, our first President, and hero of the Revolutionary War, George Washington, had a thing or two to say in his farewell address to the nation. Although he never publicly delivered his address, it was first printed in the Philadelphia Daily American Advertiser on September 19th, 1796, after he announced he wouldn’t be seeking a third term in office as president. His address touched on such subjects as our need for a strong Union, our (once) common attributes and moral compass, but more importantly, in it he dissuaded us from encouraging political factionalism, entertaining overgrown military establishments, and signing the soul of our nation away into permanent foreign alliances.
Political Factionalism
“Without looking forward to an extremity of this kind, (which nevertheless ought not to be entirely out of sight,) the common and continual mischiefs of the spirit of party are sufficient to make it the interest and duty of a wise people to discourage and restrain it. It serves always to distract the Public Councils, and enfeeble the Public Administration. It agitates the community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms; kindles the animosity of one part against another, foments occasionally riot and insurrection. It opens the door to foreign influence and corruption, which find a facilitated access to the government itself through the channels of party passions. Thus the policy and the will of one country are subjected to the policy and will of another.”
-George Washington’s Farewell Address, September 19, 1796
It’s a sad reality that many Americans today refuse to meet in the middle ground between the boundaries of their political identity, and rely solely on the party to which they belong to dictate their dealings with fellow Americans. Political moderation has become a “no-man’s land,” and anyone caught up in it ends up chewed up and spat out by extremists. Whether one identifies with the Republican, Democrat, Libertarian, or any other party, we must not forsake our common American identity with each other, and instead seek earnestly to find amiable, common ground with our neighbors on political issues. Perhaps political independents carry the correct idea about government, in that we as Americans should forsake party designations altogether, and return to our roots as a free people not bound to the whims of one faction or another. Political parties distract us, and detract away from our natural independence, by enabling corruption through nepotism, lobbying, and other means that degrade our government’s character. They foment contention and unrest between fellow Americans, discourage moderate dialogue with one another, and consequently undermine the security and stability of our interior; “a house divided cannot stand.” And yet, as noble an idea as abandoning such destructive factionalism might sound, it’s unfortunately an inevitable aspect of human nature, with political parties themselves resulting from the natural progression of man’s desire to associate with like-minded individuals.
“This spirit, unfortunately, is inseparable from our nature, having its root in the strongest passions of the human mind. It exists under different shapes in all governments, more or less stifled, controlled, or repressed; but, in those of the popular form, it is seen in its greatest rankness, and is truly their worst enemy.”
-George Washington’s Farewell Address, September 19, 1796
As is oftentimes the case, if one person presents their political affiliation to someone of opposite disposition, the latter will have undoubtedly begun to either consciously or subconsciously pass judgement, and form opinions on their character without having gotten to really know them. It’s within mankind’s own wicked nature to divide and destroy whatever doesn’t conform to his subjective worldview, but we as a free and independent society, should we choose to remain as such, must be willing to engage in rational discussion, and objective debate, with one another, at all times without resorting to the sort of factional violence out of which all tyrannies have arisen. President Washington foresaw that political parties could, if left unchecked, lead to a “frightful despotism.”
“The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism.”
-George Washington’s Farewell Address, September 19, 1796
From the above, we can conclude the following opinions President Washington held concerning political parties:
1.) They enable corruption and foreign interference in American politics.
2.) They seed the American public with jealousies, dissensions, and general animosities toward one another, thereby undermining our more perfect Union of states.
3.) Although an inevitable progression of human nature, party factionalism should be discouraged by a wise and free people.
George Washington was right to be wary of political parties, as history has proven. We need look no further than the dangers of groupthink as was manifested during 20th century political upheavals and revolutions in such nations as Russia, Germany, China, Cambodia, and countless others to understand the dangers which rabid collectivism poses to minorities and free individuals. It’s no hyperbole today to say that America’s prevailing political division, that between the Republican and Democrat parties, has grown more and more extreme as the years have progressed, and our public media has done it’s best to bottleneck the American public into an intellectual and political pit. In it, neither one side nor the other wishes to meet on common ground, but would rather silence, ridicule, and destroy their ideological rivals, no matter the cost to free society, and without respect to the natural rights of their fellow man.
Panem et circenses?
In the midst of such glaring political partisanship, a serious question must be considered: are America’s major political parties truly as divided as we think they are, or have they only presented us with an illusion of division in order to keep we, the American people, from pursing ideological independence, and rekindling our national consanguinity with each other? Is such a uni-party concealed only by a thick veneer of handouts and bailouts meant to placate us, disempower us, and keep the American public from perceiving the truth depths of their tyrannical machinations? Perhaps, indeed, this is the case. Every American alive today, who is true to the roots of this nation, has a common adversary in our prevailing political parties, which have all undoubtedly been influenced by foreign lobbyists and other wealthy interests. For so long as the misers in Congress seek to maintain our present divisions, while they themselves enjoy lavish raises and benefit from lucrative foreign trade deals, and insider information on the stock market, we will remain an impoverished and weakened nation, one that is vulnerable to subversion without and destruction within. Will we eat cake while they mar our constitution, our cornerstone of government, beyond recognition?
It may be argued that our major political parties today have even gone so far as to distort elements of our republic into that of a plutocracy. We must trace the monetary ties of our politicians in every political party, and identify where they obtain their money, and where our hard-earned tax dollars are truly going. Such transparency is absolutely necessary to maintain a free society. The fact that many wealthy foreigners like George Soros are pouring money into American political campaigns via “super PACs,” undermines the sovereignty of the average American, and consequently hinders a fair administration of our laws. Corruption runs deep in our parties, and only a concerted effort by free Americans can upend their pilfering of our public treasury, and stop them from sowing seeds of contention between our kindred countrymen. We should carefully consider the net worth and campaign fundraising of our elected representatives; for where one’s treasure is, there their heart will be also.
May we recall the wisdom of our first president, and unite to defy those who would see us divided and conquered. The spirit of our nation has always been one of independence, and certainly, dependence on any political faction, controlled by wealthy donors and radical interests, is sure to result in the frightful despotism President Washington warned us against more than two centuries ago. It should be noted that, unlike our politicians today, George Washington tried to refuse the then $25,000 presidential salary during his tenure in office, in the same manner as he had refused to take a salary for commanding the Continental Army during the Revolution, but Congress forced his hand, and he was made to take one. If only our generation was blessed with such humble public servants, rather than partisan demagogues!