Hello and welcome to episode 22 of The Spectrum. This was recorded on June 30, 2025. This episode is broken into two parts. The first is a bit of a “state of LGBT+ people” mid-way through the year. I’m going to start at the local level and work up to international. But, what is happening here in Shenandoah County is happening or about to happen all over the country so I think it has relevance to people all over the country. After that I’m going to talk about what I think is at the root of a lot of our political problem today.

I was not able to be present at the June Shenandoah County school board meeting and there were no new policy changes regarding LGBT people, however, it is clear the school board is getting ready to take on the Project 2025 transgender athletics ban. Sadly, they appear ready to jump on this ban but they appear to want some legal cover. It was reported in the Northern Virginia Daily that they wanted to ask the Virginia High School League to draft regulations that they can then adopt. Here’s the mission statement for the VHSL: “The VHSL is an alliance of Virginia’s public and approved non-boarding, non-public high schools that promotes education, leadership, sportsmanship, character and citizenship for students by establishing and maintaining high standards for school activities and competitions” It appears the Board is hoping they can hide behind another organization so they aren’t standing alone in legal jeopardy.

There will be more to report on this, probably in July, but, based on the reporting, the board seems ready to jump in and make more discriminatory policy against transgender students.

Unfortunately, the Supreme Court made it easier for this type of discrimination to take place. The Court ruled that the Montgomery County Maryland school system must allow parents to opt students out of any instruction that even mentions the existence of LGBT+ people. The Court also limited the ability of lower courts to issue nationwide injunctions. This means that illegal policies will have to be fought in every federal court district and that blatantly illegal policies will be allowed to continue despite the clear permanent harm they will do to people.

I can’t find much in the way of good news to report and at the international level the attacks against the LGBT+ community also continue. Hungary’s authoritarian prime minister, Viktor Orbahn, signed several laws over the last decade designed to suppress any visibility of LGBT+ people in Hungary. Most recently, in March, he signed into law a way for police to ban Pride marches. The clear intent is to make it harder and harder for LGBT+ people to exist openly.

If this sounds familiar, it’s because it is the same tactic that the Regressive Party would love to implement here in the US. Currently, they are mostly targeting transgender people but if they succeed, and sadly, the Court has made it easier for them without even ruling on the legality of the policies, it won’t be long before more and more people come under attack.

I won’t pretend it isn’t a scary time in America. I never thought I would see people sitting in American government who seem willing and eager to emulate Nazis. Most of that behavior is targeted toward immigrants and the Supreme Court managed to tap dance around the Constitution so it could let them pretend that birthright citizenship isn’t one of the most clearly defined things in our Constitution. It is clear that the Court is not going to save us. The Supreme Court, like so much of American society has descended into factionalism.

And that factionalism brings me to an important point. Political parties are destroying America.

That’s a pretty brash statement but I think I can back it up. Here’s the quick summary. When loyalty to a political party or individual becomes more important than loyalty to your constituents or the Constitution then you are no longer living in a system governed by the Constitution.

The even shorter version: Political parties are evil.

Note that I didn’t say the Republican Party is evil. All political parties are evil. Evil is a loaded word and I chose it deliberately for its shock value but here’s what I really mean. All political parties work to subvert the Constitution so they can remain in power. When the primary goal of a political party is to do anything it can to keep the other party out of power then it is no longer serving the people but serving it’s own power hungry appetite. And by “it”, I mean it’s leadership. Political parties don’t make decisions. The people leading them do. It’s important to realize that. The people in political parties make decisions that are motivated more by staying in power or removing the other party from power than they are by serving the interests of their constituents. When that happens, leaders of a political party are no longer serving the people but are serving themselves.

I am sure some of the people reading or watching this are ready to respond to this by saying, “Right now in America, there is one party that is evil and the party they support is acting righteously”. I’m sure people on both sides of our political divide are saying it. Some people in political office or running for it might even believe it, but that’s not what I’m talking about. I was before when I compared the Regressive Party  to the Nazi Party but the kind of evil I’m about to talk about is systemic and not ideological.

And, perhaps, if we want to take the emotionally charged language out, we could say that political parties are fundamentally incompatible with the US Constitution. The nature of the political party is to subvert the Constitution. Now, let’s examine why that is.

Our Constitution was written without any apparent intent for political parties to exist. Or at least without any thought as the effect they would have. James Madison is considered to be the primary author of the Constitution but it was influenced by many people including but not limited to Alexander Hamilton and John Jay. 

Nowhere does the Constitution mention political parties. Many of the provisions within the Constitution don’t make sense when seen through the lens of political parties. The great irony is that the factionalism that ultimately developed into the first two political parties started during the the effort to ratify the Constitution.

Politically, the country was divided into a federalist faction that wanted a strong federal government and an anti-federalist faction that wanted less federal power and more state power. This wasn’t to say they wanted no federal power. The Articles of Confederation that preceded the Constitution gave the national government very little power and the country was not functioning effectively. This led to the Constitutional Convention. But, still, they wanted very strong limits on Federal power. 

In March of 1812 Massachusetts governor Elbridge Gerry signed a redistricting plan that was designed to help his political party, the anti-Federalist party, sometimes called the Democratic-Republicans or the Jeffersonian Republicans, remain in power in the state legislature. This wasn’t the first time in history this process happened but some historians have said this was the most blatant use of it so far. So much so that Gerry’s name, mispronounced as “Jerry” stuck to it and and “gerrymandering” because part of the American political lexicon. Gerrymandering – the drawing of districts in such a way as to dilute the power of the opposing political party, clearly subverts the intent of the Constitution but it is a practice that continues to this day and the courts have had only limited success in fighting it. It’s a complex issue to be sure. Drawing a district fairly is a difficult thing in large part because what “fair” means is difficult to define clearly. But, it’s a problem that only exists because political parties exist. Every time there is an effort to reform redistricting, the party in power does everything it can to subvert the process and often successfully. This is a very clear indication that political parties are evil. They effectively disenfranchise voters while maintaining the pretext that the voter has a choice. Studies have shown that gerrymandering can dilute a population that is in the majority and spread it out into districts in such a way that the majority is sure to lose most of the seats. It takes extraordinary circumstances to overcome those structural biases and extraordinary circumstances rarely happen.

The effect of this is that politicians become less responsive to their constituents because they know their seats are safe, especially in states where the party controls the Primary election process. Even in states where the party doesn’t control the Primary process the parties can exert a great deal of pressure on its members to to ensure the choice of Party leaders is chosen.

I think evil is a reasonable word to apply to this process. The people who resort to it are serving themselves and not the people they claim to represent.

I think gerrymandering is the most obvious way in which political parties subvert the Constitution but there are others although many of these are arguably byproducts of gerrymandering.  

How many times does a politician vote against the interest of the constituents in a party line vote? I can’t provide exact numbers, in part because the “interest of the constituents” is sometimes hard to define but it clearly happens. It’s the clearest example of party politicians becoming more responsive to party leadership than to voters because its leadership that controls their destiny. How many times have politicians like Susan Collins of Maine said she had real problems with judicial picks or legislation only to then turn a blind eye and vote for them? Was she voting her conscience or holding her nose and doing what she was told?

Political parties that become immune to real challenge inevitably tend toward corruption. People are drawn to political office as a means to power rather than from a desire to serve. American history is full of examples of political corruption from Tammany Hall in New York to Louisiana to New Jersey and these are just the most famous examples. It seems all but inevitable in American politics that whenever one party becomes too powerful, corruption follows.

But, why is that so? I think the answer to that question also lies in the Constitution. Since our Constitution was authored without any thought to how political parties would operate in the system, it made some structural choices that effectively limit American politics to two political parties. The most obvious one is that the House of Representatives chooses the President if no candidate receives a majority of electoral votes. If there are more than two viable political parties then this is likely to happen frequently. It’s bad enough that we elect presidents indirectly through the Electoral College, but with three or more viable parties, a candidate will rarely reach the needed majority. It is any political party’s interest to ensure there is only one real alternative and the roadblocks to other political parties gaining enough traction to become viable are severe. Throughout American history it’s rare that more than two parties were ever a factor.

Because of that structural bias in the Constitution, it is rare for new political parties to become relevant. Most people understand instinctively that it is almost impossible for a new party to make any inroads. Instead, parties slowly morph over time. The Democratic-Republican party that Jefferson and Madison founded looked nothing like the Democratic Party of today. The Republican Party of Lincoln bears no resemblance to the modern Republican Party. Actually, the Republican Party is the rare case of a party rising to prominence but it might not have happened if the Whig Party hadn’t collapsed. When the Whigs were no longer viable, the Republicans were able to step in and the abolition of slavery provided the rallying cry that brought people to them.

Another way political parties are evil is by subverting the checks and balances that are built in to the Constitution. The Executive, Legislative and Judicial branches of the government are, by design, supposed to be someone antagonistic. Each has a set of powers and responsibilities that are intended to keep the other branches in line. Unfortunately, when loyalty to a political party is more important than loyalty to the Constitution, the barriers that should separate these branches break down. This is clearly visible today where both the Legislature and Judiciary are ceding their authority to the Executive branch. This is a dangerous path because when you give people power they were not supposed to have, they rarely give it up willingly. But, when Party is more important than Constitution the system breaks down. And, since it breaks down from within the only way to fix it is at the ballot box, but when that is gerrymandered it becomes almost impossible. The American system of government is flexible. I’ve seen a compelling discussion of how the framers intended for and expected power to move around. But, that was with the expectation that there would be oversight. Congress and the Court have largely abandoned any pretense of that and this is going to put the flexibility of our system to the test.

A concrete example of how checks and balances break down is impeachment. Four votes of impeachment have happened. Three have succeeded. Two against the same president in the same term of office. None have resulted in a conviction. That is because impeachment is largely a political act and not a judicial one. It gets dressed up like a court proceeding but it’s politics. And now, political parties and party loyalties lie at the heart of it. I doubt Madison and the other framers ever really thought that impeachment would happen but I’m equally sure they thought the people involved with the process would take it seriously and not turn it into political theater. In Bill Clinton’s impeachment hearing 10 Republicans voted for acquittal going against other party members. In 2024, at Trump’s second impeachment, only 10 Republicans voted to impeach. 

Regardless of the guilt or innocence of either of these Presidents, not many Senators were willing to vote agains their party. What is clear from having witnessed all three trials is that politicians on both sides were performing incredible feats of mental gymnastics to justify their positions.  Whether Clinton’s impeachment or Trump’s first impeachment even rose to the level of an impeachable offense is debatable. My own opinion is not really relevant. There is no doubt in my mind that the second impeachment was justified. What is also clear is that the votes of almost every single Senator were known before the trial even started. Political parties had again subverted the constitution and the processes it put in place.

Is the solution to eliminate political parties? A big part of me wishes that were possible but it’s human nature to form associations with like-minded people. In and of itself there is nothing wrong with that. It’s when serving that organization becomes more important than serving the people that it is a problem.

So, I don’t think we can outlaw political parties. Instead, I think we can redirect them to be responsive. Here are some possible ways:

1. Eliminate Congressional districts. Instead, all candidates for the House run in the entire state. If the state has ten seats then the top 10 vote getters are sent to represent the state. This eliminates gerrymandering and it forces the Representatives to be more responsive because no seat will ever be truly safe. 
2. If there are 10 seats, you vote for up to 10 candidates.
3. Eliminate the Electoral College. One vote per person. Majority wins. To allow for multiple candidates, use ranked choice voting (and do this for all offices). Analysis has shown there is no truly fair voting system but ranked choice comes closest. Ranked choice voting would d always end with a majority. And, by definition, it took a majority of people to get to that point. This would move American Politics back to the center and bring a level of sanity that it hasn’t seen in decades.

These all remain with the basic framework we have now. We might also consider going to a parliamentary system. This builds parties into the system but parliamentary systems can be unstable (I’m talking to you, Italy) or they can work well like the United Kingdom. I don’t think there is any guarantee that such a system would work well here.

Really there are three additional things that have to happen and doing them would make even the current system work better. Hold politicians accountable. Demand the truth from them and don’t accept spin or lies. Not from anyone who’s primary goal is to maintain their office and not represent you. Each of us needs to stop identifying with a party and start voting based on our own self interests rather than what politicians tell us our own self interest is. One of the great mysteries of American democracy is how often politicians convince voters to vote against their own self interest. Fixing that demands an engaged electorate but there is no reason to engage the gerrymandering makes your vote meaningless. 

Most, if not all of that requires a Constitutional amendment to implement and that means voting out the politicians that want to maintain the system the way it is because that system works for them and not us.

I’m not a politician and I’m not an expert in political systems. But, I am pretty good at analysis and I think I’ve got a lot of basic truths right here. It’s easy to describe the problem but it’s harder to come up with a solution and even harder to get that solution implemented.

It’s going to take at least one and possibly both political parties splintering to allow room for change. We are the ones who control that. It’s time to vote for politicians who care about the people they represent and not the political parties.

Until next time, take care.