In his farewell address in 1796, George Washington called on the People, the true sovereign of the United States, to exercise “vigilance” of “the dangers of parties” and “the baneful effects of the spirit of party”. Though Washington’s letter is read each year on his birthday in the U.S. Senate, Republicans and Democrats seem to agree on this one issue, confining the political system to each other’s philosophy by preventing independent or third-party candidates from winning elections or even participating in the public discourse. Examples: The 2016 campaigns of Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump.

For far too long the stratagem of both parties is not the establishment of, but the maintenance of a political elite whose fictional expertise is to produce further inequalities, an oligarchical control of social necessities, and an increasing amount of private money to control elections. In the confusion of party interests, the national interest, American democracy, has now entered a period of extreme peril. Yet, its revival is crucial, not only to the future of the American republican democracy, but its People as well. But what of reform?

Any attempted at reform must first derive from the people, thereby loosening the death grip of power held by the two major parties, at both the local and federal levels (recommend local and state levels first). Fundamental reform must include, at minimum, shortening presidential campaigns to only during the actual election year (example: 2022, 2024, etc.), and most of all, term limits for both House and Senate members.