>This is not necessarily an argument against party politics in general -
>but certainly against the party politics US-style, here and now.
The US doesn't seem to really have participation of political parties in electoral politics in the usual sense though. As was demonstrated by the recent election of whatsisname in California.
Rather than the Repuplican Party endorsing its candidate for office, as would be standard practice anywhere else, an independent was somehow allowed to run as a Republican. This is quite normal as I understand it, the US voters are unfamiliar with the concept of members of political parties having the right to endorse candidates of their choosing. Instead any ratbag can try to grab the nomination. And anyone who is prepared to publicly claim to be a supporter of that party (you don't even have to be a member of the party) gets the right to vote on who will be the candidate.
Obviously true political parties can't function as part of the electoral process under such conditions. It would be quite impossible for a new political party, with new ideas, to ever get a foothold. All their political foes have to do is stack the nomination process and impose a candidate on them with unacceptable policies, the political party would be and is irrelevant to the electoral process. There is absolutely no safeguard against this, in fact it seems to be the whole idea of the system, to subvert political parties.
It amazes me that people can't see the problem. People talk as if political parties actually have a role, or *could* have a role in electoral politics in the US. If they can't even decide who their candidates will be, then they have even less influence of the policies if elected officials than they do in other places. Which is little enough.
But at least in Britain say, the labour party can expel an elected official from the party and disassociate the party from the actions of that politician. Refusing the person the right to run as a labour candidate in the future. Neither the Democrats, the republicans or any other political party can do that in the US. Political parties are mere window dressing to the electoral system in that jurisdiction. They have no actual role in it. So why chatter on as if they do?
Bill Bartlett Bracknell Tas