Let’s get this (multiple) party started

There was talk during the recent election about the Republican Party splitting apart. That’s died down now that the candidate they loved to hate has won them the White House, but the idea still has merit.

If you look closely at the Republicans there are actually three parties – the Establishment GOP, the Tea Party Obstructionists and the anti-establishment Trumpeteers.

The Democrats, meanwhile, had a hard time deciding whether they were Clintonian Centrists or Bernie Sanders Socialists, and settled on dragging Hillary Clinton too far to her left, where she seemed to be uncomfortable. It clearly didn’t work out for them this time.

Then there were the Libertarians and the Green Party, so that if each was considered separately, you’d have at least seven distinct political parties with their own identities, goals, values, platforms and agendas. I’m an Independent who doesn’t identify with either the Republicans or the Democrats, so I’d be totally in favor of this.

Imagine if all seven parties nominated candidates in future elections. You’d throw out the Electoral College and the candidate with the most votes would win. Period. In this past election, for example, the seven candidates might have been Jeb Bush, Establishment GOP; Ted Cruz, Tea Party; Donald Trump, Trumpeteers; Bernie Sanders, Liberal Democrats; Hillary Clinton, Centrist Party; Gary Johnson, Libertarians; and Jill Stein, Greens.

I don’t know who would have been elected out of that group, but voting for Jill Stein would not necessarily have hurt Clinton while benefitting Trump. Bush and Cruz would have given Republicans someone other than Trump to vote for, cutting into his total. Bernie Sanders would have stayed in the race against the other six and might very well have been the president-elect.

If all seven parties sent representatives to Congress, all Americans would have a chance to be represented by somebody who shared their political philosophy, and the two parties we have now that don’t play well together probably would lack the votes to obstruct legislation, shut down the government or create the gridlock that has plagued our country for years.

In such a coalition Congress, it would become less important which party the president represented, because he or she would have to work with a legislature comprised of seven sets of representatives. It would force the parties to cooperate, form alliances that might change from issue to issue, compromise on big-ticket legislation and actually get things done for the country instead of the party.

And oh, by the way, we’d need term limits, too.

So the way I see it, it’s time to get this (multiple) party started. We just came through the worst election in the history of this country, so there’s no better time to make a change. C’mon, who’s with me?