I don’t always agree with everything this guy says, but he forwards a lot of thought-provoking articles:
https://ghionjournal.com/personalities-vs-institutional-nepotism/amp/?__twitter_impression=true
Excerpt:
The article I wrote last Wednesday about Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has captured a lot of attention and generated an unexpected level of passionate debates. While I am heartened that the majority of the conversation was civil and did not devolve into food fights, there is a part of me that is a bit deflated that most of the dialogue centered on Alexandria and overlooked the central point of the article. This is par for the course when it comes to our political system, we are so focused on personalities that we keep missing the bigger picture.
The highest hurdle that we must overcome if we truly are to affect change as a people is to get over our conniption to turn politics into an extension of our tribal predisposition. As long as we are splintered as a society and view justice through the lens of self instead of inclusiveness, we will keep getting a government that serves the whims of the powerful and disregards the desires of the public. This is why political parties are truly the enemy of the people, the number one interest of all parties is to sustain their influence and access as concerns of the citizenry take a back seat to institutional demands.
If we are to make a dent in the wall of corruption and nepotism that has infested our governance, we must find a way to minimize the role that parties have over all of us. I’m not breaking news when I note that political parties are an anathema to a true democracy. The founders of America, men like George Washington and James Madison, warned about the perils of factions and how parties could subvert the will of the people. James Madison discussed the evils of factionalism in Federalist #10:
“The latent causes of faction are sown in the nature of man; and we see them everywhere brought into different degrees of activity. . . . A zeal for different opinions concerning religion, concerning government and many other points . . . an attachment to different leaders, ambitiously contending for pre-eminence and power; or to persons of other descriptions whose fortunes have been interesting to human passions, have, in turn, divided mankind into parties, inflamed them with mutual animosity, and rendered them much more disposed to vex and oppress each other, than to cooperate for their common good.”
More than 200 years have passed since James Madison admonished Americans not to walk into the wilderness of factionalism, sadly, we have become the exact society that warned us to not become. We keep having attachments to leaders as we turn people into demigods, this in turn prods our elected officials to contend for pre-eminence and power instead of serving the needs of the public. The folly of mankind makes rational thinkers seem like prophets, Madison was only speaking common sense when he detailed how a people divided into parties are easily inflamed with mutual animosity and oppress each other instead of cooperating for the common good.
