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.