Call for a United Party (September 2025)

Most Americans across the political spectrum agree on one thing: the system isn’t working. Whether it’s “Make America Great Again” on the right or “Abundance” on the left, both sides are acknowledging that the government is failing to deliver. This is a sharp break from the “return to normal” majority that elected Biden just five years ago.

The big question is what comes next. Around the world, when governments fail to deliver, the trend has been to embrace strongmen who promise to cut through dysfunction. While leaders like Trump, Bukele, and Orban have gained popularity, history shows that concentrating power in one person rarely ends well and I doubt we're the exception.

If we plotted solutions to our failing system, Trump would be the solution on the centralization of power end of the spectrum and maintaining the status quo would be in the middle, but what would be on the democratic end of the spectrum? In other words, what's the opposite of Trump?

The answer is clearly some more extreme version of democratically reforming our government from within. Why hasn't there been more talk of this as a country? It could be because we are so polarized that it feels impossible. Our two parties act like equal and opposite forces: each pulls 50% in a different direction, leaving us stuck in place, resentful and increasingly divided.

But Americans agree on more than we think. Over 70% of us support the right to vote, equal protection under the law, background checks for firearms, renewable energy, and safety net programs like Medicare and Social Security. Even if we only focused on the issues where we agree, we could actually solve certain problems, which would be better than the stalemate we have now. So why don’t we?

The overarching issue is that life is getting worse, not better, for many Americans and hard times either unify or divide a society. Unfortunately, at the present moment we're letting them divide us. Perhaps I'm naieve but I don't think Americans are consciously choosing to be divided. I believe the majority of us would prefer to be united but incentives are driving us apart.

1. Party incentives: Our two-party system makes third parties challenging; any new party is a spoiler.

2. Media incentives: Media companies profit by amplifying outrage and foreign bots deepen divides.

3. Fundraising incentives: Politicians give preference to wealthy donors in order to fund campaigns.

What’s the alternative? Here's an idea:

We elect a leader under either the Democrat or Republican party - it doesn't matter which - whose only promise if elected is to hold a secondary election where everyone in the country can vote for delegates in key issue areas and to then empower those delegates to execute the will of the people. For example, people could elect a delegate with traditionally democratic values to run healthcare and one with traditionally republican values to run defense.

Instead of electing one leader that you have to agree with on everything, you would be electing someone to run a more democratic process, enabling the country to design a third party that more accurately reflects their beliefs. And while this form of delegative democracy requires a little more work from people, not everyone has to vote in the secondary election and it's much less work than traditional direct democracy where people vote on complex policy.

By running under one of the existing parties (which isn't dissmilar to how Trump ran as a Republican), you'd avoid the third party trap. This new party could focus on long-form content and word-of-mouth grassroots organizing, which would stand out in an era of social media addiction. And most importantly, the party's elected leader would have to commit to empowering the delegates the people vote for, irrespective of their preferences or the party donors.

This is the first political idea I've felt excited about in a long time. I've given up hope that any one person can fully represent the will of such a large and diverse country, but it does seem possible that someone could unite us by giving more power back to the people. At the very least, an experiment like this feels more American than electing autocrats, maintaining the status quo or preparing for collapse, which can't be the only options.