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By Gaylord Livingston
Take a good look at the image. That’s not a foreign war zone. That’s us—America—riddled with ideological trench lines and carpet-bombed by generations of political theater. Standing there like mascots of madness are the cracked remains of the donkey and the elephant, two fossilized relics of a party system that should’ve been buried with dial-up internet.
But we keep reviving them. Like some national case of Stockholm Syndrome, we just can’t quit the institutions that have sold us out. Again. And again.
Here’s the radical idea: eliminate the party systems entirely. Not reform them. Not start a “third way.” Not “reach across the aisle.” Cut it out—before it spreads any further. Pull the plug on the whole factional charade.
What would happen? For starters, the political scaffolding would collapse. Not just the parties, but the entire parasitic architecture that feeds off them—elections bought by PACs, budget processes gamed by committee puppets, loyalty oaths masquerading as legislative agendas. All of it falls. Back to the constitutional bones.
And that’s exactly what we need.
- No more laundering influence through congressional caucuses.
- No more Treasury tricks, rewarding allies and punishing dissenters.
- No more elections rigged by emotional branding and party-line hypnosis.
We’d have to rebuild. From scratch. From truth. Not chaos, but clarity.
A government where people run on principle, not platforms. Where we elect individuals, not tribes. Where compromise isn’t treason and courage isn’t career suicide. Imagine that—choosing leaders based on integrity, not how many buttons they can pin to their lapel or how many hashtags they can trend.
But be warned: if we don’t cut the rot out completely, it will regrow. Nastier. Meaner. Stronger. Institutionalized corruption has a survival instinct, and it’s counting on our laziness. If we let it fester, don’t be surprised when it metastasizes into something far more authoritarian wearing a democratic mask.
And for the legacy politicians and judges? Let them pick fruit. Maybe make that mandatory. A little hard labor for those who spent decades harvesting taxpayer trust and turning it into personal clout wouldn’t hurt. Let them explain trickle-down economics while trickling sweat off their brows.
The future doesn’t need more factions. It needs a moral spine. We don’t need unity through conformity—we need integrity through independence.
So yes—cut it out. Rip the whole diseased system from root to crown and give this republic the honest reset it deserves.
Before it gets a chance and spreads.
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Categories: Opinion
A convention of States would be a start.
How does an Article 5 Convention of States, allowing state legislatures to call for a convention to propose amendments to the U.S. Constitution, work without political parties? A convention can propose amendments on any topic, not limited to the issues that prompted the convention. What amendment would you propose? What amendment would we end up with?
In fact, 19 States have already passed applications for a federal constitutional convention, although none have ever come to fruition. Although, State-level constitutional conventions have occurred more than 230 times in the United States.
In Vermont, state constitutional conventions involve the General Assembly proposing amendments, which then require approval by both the Senate and House of Representatives across two legislative sessions. If approved, the proposed amendment is then put to a statewide referendum, and if approved by a majority of voters, it becomes part of the Constitution.
The latest happenstance in Vermont was the Reproductive Liberty Amendment.
But how would you propose to ‘eliminate factions’ by amendment? Would we be allowed to peacefully assemble in groups and discuss our options? Or would we blind-fold ourselves and throw darts at a wall filled with post-it-notes?
Re: “Take a good look at the image.”
Which one? The cracked political icons nested in the AI generated dystopian cityscape? Or the bearded political word-salad gardener?
So, Gaylord Livingston wants to eliminate political parties but says nothing about the details of a tangible alternative. Nothing.
How does he know his nebulous alternative political landscape won’t enable more ‘influence laundering’? What’s a ‘treasury trick’? What’s ‘party-line hypnosis’?
Make ‘legacy politicians and judges… pick fruit’? Who’s going to ‘make’ them do that… Mr. Livingston?
People who have little, if any, idea how something works always blame the proverbial acorn that happens to hit them on the head. Cut down all the oak trees! Perhaps Mr. Livingston should stick with writing B1 Bomber and F111 Fighter technical manuals, as he did for the military.
Or just maybe… Mr. Livingston has an ulterior motive… like so many others… selling his new book about voting in dystopia.
Another country heard from …… I’m not sure what country that would be .
That would be CHINA, and the cultural revolution of 1949 that killed millions of “dunces”:
“And for the legacy politicians and judges? Let them pick fruit. Maybe make that mandatory. A little hard labor for those who spent decades harvesting taxpayer trust and turning it into personal clout wouldn’t hurt. Let them explain trickle-down economics while trickling sweat off their brows.”
Right out of the Little Red Book.
Watch and learn from these people.
Regarding the cultural revolution, from no less than Wikipedia:
“Tens of millions were persecuted, including senior officials such as Liu Shaoqi, Deng Xiaoping and Peng Dehuai; millions were persecuted for being members of the Five Black Categories, with intellectuals and scientists labelled as the Stinking Old Ninth. The country’s schools and universities were closed, and the National College Entrance Examinations were cancelled. Over 10 million youth from urban areas were relocated under the Down to the Countryside Movement.”
Picking fruit, no doubt.
Trial by jury, yes. Re-education, no.
“It’s a big club and you ain’t in it.”
Notice how every big wave of optimism (Obama for the Dems, Trump for the MAGAs) ultimately leads to disappointment? Obama simply continued (and expanded) Bush II’s policies of drone warfare abroad and domestic surveillance at home. Trump promised to end two wars and is now managing three. Rather than cancelling all mRNA shots, he announced new ones (for cancer) on the first day of his new term. Meanwhile privacy is being shredded with the rollout of Real ID, a national citizen database, and $500 billion to fund data centers “to keep up with China,” the world leader in surveillance and totalitarian control.
Meanwhile, “Make America Healthy Again” is now about . . . everyone having a “wearable” device within four years. To monitor their health. Sure it is.
On and on it goes, and yet people still choose one corrupt party or the other. Many don’t seem to understand that voting for the lesser of two evils cycle after cycle still takes us down the ladder, not up.
Re: “Many don’t seem to understand that voting for the lesser of two evils cycle after cycle still takes us down the ladder, not up.”
What ‘ladder’ are you talking about?
Metaphorically speaking, I’m talking about improvement for the nation (“up”) vs. more decay (“down,” which is the long-term trend to my eyes).
Improvement?
A better Economy? Better Education? Better Healthcare? Fewer wars? A new kitchen?
A Constitutional Convention? To do what, precisely?
Or are you talking about social, political, and personal development?
It seems to me that the economy is doing okay. Unemployment is low. Inflation is declining. There are jobs for anyone who wants to work.
Healthcare is pretty good – although some seem hell-bent on creating dysfunctional issues like gain-of-function virus research, gender dysphoria surgeries, and increased drug use for corporate profit. If you want to see dysfunctional healthcare, live in Canada.
Hey, we’re spending more on Education than ever before – although we seem to be paying the wrong people to get the job done.
And Military conflict – while the threats are omnipresent, it seems to be under control for most of us. We’re not sending troops for permanent deployment anywhere. Yes, we may blow up an adversary’s nuclear weapon capability from time to time. Or send troops to LA because of rioting. But we’re not in any so-called ‘forever wars’ like Afghanistan and Iraq.
Could things be better? Of course. Things can always be better. But the down-in-the-mouth pessimism put forth by word-salad gardeners like Gaylord Livingston, is in itself in desperate need of improvement. The problem is, Mr. Livingston seems to prefer to wallow in his dysphoria. For him, and most others of the same ilk, if there isn’t excessive dysfunction, there’s nothing for them to do. So, he and others prefer to shoot themselves in the foot to justify their mental anguish and call it progress.
No thank you. As Thoreau opined in his Civil Disobedience missive: ‘If I knew for a certainty that a man was coming to my house with the conscious design of doing me good, I should run for my life.’
And as Michale J. Fox opined: “I am careful not to confuse excellence with perfection. Excellence I can reach for. Perfection is God’s business.’
If these omnipotent moral busybodies would just leave us alone, leave us to our own devices and stop confiscating our property, we could demonstrate, as the Vermont Constitution demands, that “previous to any law being made to raise a tax, the purpose for which it is to be raised ought to appear evident to the Legislature to be of more service to community than the money would be if not collected.
In other words, with friends like Gaylord Livingston, who needs enemies?
The United States is one of only 2 countries in the world that allow direct to consumer advertising for Rx medications (the other being New Zealand). Last year big pharma spent 14 Billion on DTC advertising. Maybe that 14 billion on commercials is a contributing factor to rising healthcare costs?