The central purpose of the U.S. Constitution is clearly defined in its first sentence, “in Order to form a more perfect Union.” To accomplish this, the Founders wanted to establish a political process by which the best, most creative aspects of human nature were allowed to flourish and grow, while the negative aspects of our nature were constrained. One of the biggest hurdles we would encounter in achieving this goal was the danger, division, and dysfunction caused by adversarial factionalism.
Based on their extensive study of history, the Founders deeply understood that people dividing into factions was a permanent part of human nature. In Federalist Paper #10, James Madison observes that “the latent causes of faction are thus sown in the nature of man.” As such, he concluded that “the causes of faction cannot be removed, and that relief is only to be sought in the means of controlling its effects.”
Ultimately, Madison came to believe that the size and diversity of the new United States and a firm system of checks and balances would thwart the negative “effects” of factions. In Federalist #51, he concludes, “In the federal republic of the United States… all authority in it will be derived from and dependent on the society, the society itself will be broken into so many parts, interests, and classes of citizens, that the rights of individuals, or of the minority, will be in little danger from interested combinations of the majority.”
After two terms in office, George Washington also warned us of this danger in his famous farewell address, stating that if we allowed our political process to be dominated by two powerful factions, the “baneful effects of the spirit of party” would gradually erode our ability to effectively govern the country. Over the past several decades, we have increasingly failed to live up to Madison’s hopeful vision of our society and take heed of Washington’s prescient warning. Indeed, two powerful factions have come to dominate our political process and make our country less effectively governable.
The solution that Madison and Washington were describing has come to be known as pluralism. This is a concept that recognizes that people have different interests and different ways of looking at the world. Further, it recognizes that individual concerns need also to consider that we all live in a wider society and share responsibility for the success of that larger group as well. The win-at-all-costs adversarial factionalism of our current political process is a complete contradiction of the spirit that animated our Founding Fathers. Other great thinkers of this and earlier periods that have greatly influenced our view of government were also committed pluralists. In addition to Madison and Washington, Adam Smith, Aristotle, Alexis de Tocqueville, Edmund Burke, and David Hume all believed in the pluralistic view of society.
In 1835, de Tocqueville penned an admiring characterization of this dual nature of American governance in which the individual and national concerns are synthesized. He called it “self-interest, rightly understood,” saying, “The Americans… are fond of explaining almost all the actions of their lives by the principle of interest rightly understood; they show with complacency how an enlightened regard for themselves constantly prompts them to assist each other, and inclines them willingly to sacrifice a portion of their time and property to the welfare of the state.”
So the key question becomes how we excite the same level of passionate intensity to solve our bigger problems that we all naturally have for solving our own individual ones. In other words, how do we return to the perspective of pluralistic problem-solving that Madison and Washington advocated.
The first step is to fully appreciate that we face complex problems in a complex world. None of the challenges in front of us are simple or linear, even though it is very easy and quite natural for us to think of them in that way. Politics, economics, finance, manufacturing, education, and health care are all perfect examples of complex systems—therefore, by definition, a narrow, one-dimensional, linear approach will never yield solutions. The sooner we move beyond that limited, ineffectual framework and return to Madison’s vision, the better off we will be.
The other main impediment to pluralism is the “I’m right, you’re wrong” dynamic that fuels both sides of the political debate today. It has led to complete confusion on the difference between fact and fiction, true and false, objectivity and opinion. In a debate between one person’s narrative and reality, the former has a distinct advantage because nothing they say has to conform to the real world. No matter how erroneous or nonfactual a person’s view is, they still cling to its validity, not based on evidence, but based on the original assumption that they are right and others are wrong. Again, this applies to both sides of our current debate.
The ultimate solution we seek is a return to the innovative, pluralistic problem solving of the Founding Fathers. They profoundly understood that both individual and wider-group concerns were essential to effective governance. They also understood that by focusing on reality and results, we could forge a better approach than incessant infighting. The American Innovation Party is the contemporary embodiment of that understanding.
By using innovation as our methodology, over the “spirit of party” factionalism, we will begin with a focus on solutions. When we accept that solutions are our principal goal and adopt a method of pluralistic problem-solving to fuel the achievement of that goal, we will fundamentally improve the way we govern ourselves. We will start the conversation with facts and evidence, objectively considering all options, and end with experimentation and the testing of those results. This new approach and focus will transform our divided and dysfunctional political process and get us back to the “spirit of innovation” that animated the Founding Fathers.