In Defence of Parties

[Kirkhill]

Party Animal | Washington Monthly

Martin Van Buren, father of the Democrats, knew that the Founders were wrong about partisan politics.

washingtonmonthly.com

“Founder of the party system” might not sound like a heroic epithet just now, when one of our parties has degenerated into a personality cult and the other is in disarray. But while Van Buren was not a heroic figure, he was a necessary one. America’s First Politician reminds us that democracies survive not because citizens sacrifice their interests in the name of the public good, as the Federalists insisted they do, but because organized groupings called parties effectively represent those interests. Parties are a fallen institution, but we are, after all, fallen beings.

I found the piece interesting but the flaw I detect in it is that the Van Buren - Jackson era described is the same era as that described by de Tocqueville as an era of "small platoons".

The US society was not so much fractured as splintered and each little splinter was separately organized. There were societies and clubs, associations and congregations, churches and parties. There were even nascent unions and co-operatives. Those splinters shifted and moved, agglomerating, coalescing and dissolving over time.

It only with the rise of modern communications (I blame Samuel Morse) that momentary regional passions became permanent national, and then international, causes.

Van Buren's Tammany Hall Democrats were only one faction among many. Britain too had many factions but not nearly the degree of splintering found in the US. The establishment faction had a much tighter grip in the United Kingdom of Great Britain (singular) than it did in the United States of America (several).

To get back to 18th century democracy ideals then it is necessary to find a mechanism to encourage both the formation of those local splinters, de Tocqueville's small platoons, and the means by which those small platoons, those splinters, can coalesce and be heard substantively.

....

Radical idea - the Senate as a house of small platoons, a house of the self-identified, of churches and unions, clubs and associations.

 

[johnedward]

Great points, Kirkhill. I agree that the rise of modern communication reshaped political organizing. The idea of the Senate as a "house of small platoons" is intriguing, local factions could bring more diverse representation, but balancing that with national unity might be tricky. It’s definitely worth considering how such a model could address today’s political fragmentation while fostering broader civic engagement.

 

[Kirkhill]

Great points, Kirkhill. I agree that the rise of modern communication reshaped political organizing. The idea of the Senate as a "house of small platoons" is intriguing, local factions could bring more diverse representation, but balancing that with national unity might be tricky. It’s definitely worth considering how such a model could address today’s political fragmentation while fostering broader civic engagement.

Thanks for the response.

It got me to reconsider my words. I used the terms "fractured" and "splintered" when I was casting about looking for something else. I think the better term might have been "cellular" in the organic sense.

Fractured and splintered convey the sense of a whole divided. The parts need not be functional in and of themselves.

Cellular, to me, better conveys the sense of each part being a fully formed and operational structure that can act independently. Those cells have their own organizing principles, often in the form or their own constitutions. Those could be Anderson's Constitutions of 1723/1738, or Roberts Rules, or Citrine's, Kerr & King's or Wainberg's, or even Erskine May.

The small platoons became training grounds for parliamentarians in the arts of debate and organization.

...

Your point about the difficulty of balancing competing interests is well taken but surely the whole point of a parliament is to create a "safe space" for vigorous, and rigorous, debate where those competing interests can get a civil hearing and be resolved amicably? Or if not amicably then at least in a manner acceptable to all.