If you enjoyed this essay, as I did, and haven’t already done so, I would recommend getting your hands on a copy of Professor Brands’s “Founding Partisans.”
I'm currently reading it. I found his Substack after i started reading the book. I'm teaching a class on the 1790s for my local lifelong learning program in the spring and his insights and details are providing some good content for me.
"Two lessons can be drawn from this history of American partisanship. The first is that because it has always been with us, it isn’t likely to go away. The second is that since it hasn’t destroyed the republic yet, it’s not likely to."
Partisanship is fundamentally a part of political systems around the world, not simply in the U.S. However, other nations have attempted to create and have created coalition governments that bridge partisan gaps to focus on issues of common concern. It is an unfortunate nature of the way American government has been structured, and that partisans on either side are unwilling to compromise on any aspect of their beliefs, that coalition governments will never be able to function well there.
Thanks for this essay. I've shared it with friends who don't believe me when I say that political parties are essential to a functional democracy.
If you enjoyed this essay, as I did, and haven’t already done so, I would recommend getting your hands on a copy of Professor Brands’s “Founding Partisans.”
I'm currently reading it. I found his Substack after i started reading the book. I'm teaching a class on the 1790s for my local lifelong learning program in the spring and his insights and details are providing some good content for me.
Agree to disagree comes to mind. We can't agree on everything.
"Two lessons can be drawn from this history of American partisanship. The first is that because it has always been with us, it isn’t likely to go away. The second is that since it hasn’t destroyed the republic yet, it’s not likely to."
Partisanship is fundamentally a part of political systems around the world, not simply in the U.S. However, other nations have attempted to create and have created coalition governments that bridge partisan gaps to focus on issues of common concern. It is an unfortunate nature of the way American government has been structured, and that partisans on either side are unwilling to compromise on any aspect of their beliefs, that coalition governments will never be able to function well there.