Much like what I hit on with the Antifa question, slapping a label on yourself makes you feel like you belong. And though you may identify yourself with a few qualities, you'll probably grow more into the stereotype as you age along with the label. Especially when facing adversity, people are often going to camp more inside their label. When dealing with political parties is something completely more extreme to this idea. Any multiparty political system is seeking to solve what democracy is inherently known for, complications and confusion. Democracy (the overall western ideas of politics, not stuck to it alone) is complicated, riddled with bureaucracy, rules and restrictions. Instead of attributing everyone to their own interest, as our population is in the billions, we create parties where common ideologies come together because strength in numbers. It's not a bad idea, where politics is just alot of different scales of problems. Whether you solve it one way, another way, or a different one. Excluding extremes, there's only a specific number of parties that can exist if you're covering all bases. Letting those parties choose a member to promote in a primary, where people then vote on which party has a better candidate. I only wish it weren't so limited to choices. Naturally, people will look to have bigger support, so they combine forces with another group that shares mostly the same ideas. In America, this has dwindled down to essentially 2 parties. In order to create opposition, they push eachother to complete opposites of eachother. The further away they push, the more extreme they become, forcing people to follow their party because they're dumb loyalists. This hasn't been the case in the past at all. Republican barely means what it meant in the past, about small government creating peace and liberty for everyone. A more libertarian angle that fights for the individual. However over time, they combined with people who cared for social policies as well, and in the late 1960s Republicans gained a new front in fighting not only an authority front, an economic front, but also a social front as well. Together, we pair economic ideas and tie them to authority or social ideals as well, without them ever being linked naturally. The two party system splits the individual into camps where they might not be comfortable, but with our drive to conform with our friends and breed loyalty to any idea or cause, the multiparty system (as the two party system is the extreme) is inherently dangerous. It's taboo to think outside of your party and if you really do have different thoughts, you must decide which thought is more important. In that light, having to sacrifice your ideas and join hand in hand with people who might be comparatively vile, just because they say "x bad and y good". People like a sense of belonging, they strive to add their name to history. For once in a blue moon, we live in a time of mutual peace. No countries are at extreme war with eachother, no huge movements to push for change is happening (you think it is but..) and people seek to breed that belonging. Instead of actually thinking forward, they instead strive to go to war. "I want to die in a war because it'll bring my life meaning" is a theme. We're able to throw ourself in a political orgy because we just want to fight for a cause, we want a badge of honor, we want to have friends who agree with us. In the age of the Internet, the age of information, we're soaked in our own self righteousness. Parties are gatherings of ideas that, together, can create a change in someones eyes. Gathering specific ideas together, ones that people often agree with, parties empower the user to actually make a difference. It's the weapon to pierce bureaucracy and actually have an answer when problems arise, have a solution to create a better world. In the eyes of the party, our world is great when we're in charge. However, if the other parties are in charge, the devils work is at hand and we must retaliate. So what the fuck am I trying to say? The party system when dwindled down to only a few groups can be dangerous, but when left without a party, people naturally seek to include themselves with one. The plight of man once more.
Ay man, pro tip: there's a key called Enter. It makes new paragraphs. JESUS CHRIST WTF IS THAT WALL OF TEXT I AIN'T READING THAT.
