The Anti-Partisan Manifesto Has Arrived!
The book that could change everything is unveiled at last
What if a modest manuscript launched by an obscure blog changed America? We’re not talking about change in the vacuous, feel-good sense, like the kind that parties promise every election or where people in all manner of groups are charged to go out and “make a difference.” We’re talking about transformational change, as in changing the structure and character of life. This would be change of the sort where, years from now, Americans will ask each other, “Remember the way we used to do things and how things used to be? What in the world were we thinking?”
In this case, “the way we used to do things” would refer to the way things are now, where our political system is grounded on division of our republic into two perpetually warring political parties. And “how things used to be” would apply to the parties’ endless, raging fight that seeps into every corner of life.
True, we’ve never known democracy apart from parties, but the Constitution never mentions them, and our foremost Framers initially took a dim view of them. Governance of a free country without parties seems unfathomable only because we have no other frame of reference.
However, if it came to pass, attitudes would soon be reversed, and, within a few years, Americans would be shaking our heads at our past, partisan lunacy. Grandparents several decades from now would swear in vain to disbelieving grandchildren that people actually used to believe that the best way to order our government and society was for people to divide themselves into teams that were in endless, vitriolic conflict and thus invariably ended up hating each other.
To this end, I humbly submit The Anti-Partisan Manifesto: How Parties and Partisanism Divide America and How to Shut Them Down. The book introduces the philosophy of anti-partisanism, which calls for a reinvention of democratic politics. Specifically, it seeks the elimination of:
political parties
ideologies
adversarial political factions (i.e. the existence of opposing political sides)
Instead, anti-partisanism promotes:
cooperative politics
stakeholder-centered governance
solutions-oriented policymaking
results-based policymaking
Meanwhile, the Manifesto itself features:
the equivalent of over 400 pages of printed book content
13 chapters, a preface, a conclusion, three appendices and notes (suggestion: read the appendices first, as they preview the book’s content)
the official introduction of a brand-new political philosophy with 23 core principles
proposal of 11 new Constitutional amendments
proposal of dozens of changes to federal law
anti-partisan analysis and policy resolutions for some of the most controversial issues in contemporary politics, including abortion, climate, change, guns and 15 more
a template for crafting anti-partisan solutions to any policy issue
Let’s get this out of the way now: The Anti-Partisan Manifesto is unlike any other work that has been written—ever. Since their invention in the U.S. in the late-18th century, political parties have had their critics, but just a scant few. Going chronologically, the biggest party detractors in history have been George Washington, Simone Weil and Jeff Gebeau.
Washington punctuated his presidency in 1796 with a farewell address that largely warned of the perils of parties. Weil, a French philosopher and mystic, penned On the Abolition of All Political Parties in 1943, which was, until now, the only published work wholly dedicated to attacking the existence of parties.
However, yours truly goes far beyond than either luminary. Washington, the national patriarch, was focused on the devastating impact of parties on national unity. Weil, the spiritualist, emphasized the metaphysically destructive effects of partisan politics on individuals. The Manifesto goes much further, spotlighting the link between the toxicity of parties and their inherent function: trying to win elections and policy fights.
But, the Manifesto is also much more than a dissertation on a new political philosophy. It also lays out a legislative road map of current laws that would have to be changed and new laws that would have to be passed in order to create the political system it envisions.
In plain terms, the Manifesto is a manual for the democratic overthrow of the U.S. government.
Please note the word “democratic” in the sentence above before you report me to Homeland Security or refer me for a January 6-style tribunal. Anti-partisanism calls for a wholesale revision of democracy—a revolutionary end, to be sure, but one that is meant to be accomplished by democratic means.
If you think back to your Government and Civics classes, you’ll probably recall that making changes to the American system of government is quite hard. It requires amending the Constitution, which requires the support of two-thirds of both the U.S. Senate and the House of Representatives, plus three-fourths of U.S. states (38). It’s only been done 27 times in our history and only 17 times in the last 223 years.
Considering that we are locked in a 50-50ish nation, the notion of amending the Constitution even once more seems fantastical, never mind the thought of doing it a bunch of times. Like the voters who elected them, our lawmakers are deeply split, to the extent that they can barely pass bills or perform even the barest minimum of their other responsibilities
Being able to revise the nation’s founding document would require unprecedented national consensus. An idea would have to be presented that has the potential to become so popular and so transformational that uber-majorities of Americans unite behind it.
Enter anti-partisanism. Enter The Anti-Partisan Manifesto.
Anti-partisans pursue solutions, where partisans pursue victories. Anti-partisans seek cooperation, where partisans seek conflict. Anti-partisans want to accommodate all stakeholders, where partisans pick and choose which stakeholders to accommodate and which to dismiss.
Or, as stated in the Manifesto:
Anti-partisans want to create the best possible quality of life for everyone—for everyone to win, in other words. Partisans seek to create the best possible quality life for their side only and for everyone who is not on their side to lose. There is no moral framework under which the former isn’t far superior to the latter in virtue, from the teachings of prophets to rules posted on the walls of kindergarten classrooms that direct those inside to do things like share, work together and respect each other.
If it catches fire, anti-partisanism is the kind of idea that could upend and scramble our national politics. Its massive appeal could inspire independent (i.e. anti-partisan) candidates to start to run in and win elections until parties eventually wither away and anti-partisans attain the congressional and state legislative supermajorities that would be necessary to comprehensively update the Constitution, along with federal law.
But, the Manifesto provides even more than just a rationale for establishing an anti-partisan system and a blueprint of how to do it. It also shows how such a system would work in practice by examining an A-to-Z list of some of the most bitterly contested issues in politics today and proposing some of the most original and creative policy solutions in response.
Why the Manifesto is self-published
The answer to this question is partly related to the facts of the publishing business and partly an editorial decision. In a nutshell, traditional publishing (which is still a possibility, down the road) is a process that can take two years or more and typically requires an author to first get signed by a literary agent and then by a publisher, after which editors may chop up the author’s manuscript until it’s unrecognizable, when compared to its original form. And since the Manifesto is the definition of an original work, it’s rather important to preserve the original form.
But, beyond industry realities, there are two other reasons why self-publishing this particular work seems right. First, when I came up with the title, I was thinking of two historical texts, one obvious and the other not. The obvious titular inspiration came from The Communist Manifesto, the pamphlet written in 1849 by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels (of course, the similarities end there, as communism is an ideology, and anti-partisanism rejects the concept of ideology; it’s an anti-ideology).
The other writing that that inspired my title does not have a similar name. Nevertheless, at least to its author, the Manifesto evokes thoughts of Martin Luther’s 95 Theses, his exhaustive list of doctrinal criticisms of Catholicism. In 1517, Luther famously posted his theses—which might have been called “The Protestant Manifesto”—on a Catholic church door in Wittenberg, Germany by driving a spike through it. I occasionally daydream of doing the same with “The Anti-Partisan Theses” (i.e. the Manifesto) on the door of the White House or the Capitol (I even toyed with using that concept for the cover design).
The other reason why self-publishing the Manifesto seems to be appropriate is that, as indicated, the kind of transformation that it advocates could only be sparked by an outside source—outside the partisan process, outside the Beltway, outside the mainstream, outside the bubbles. It has to come from the grass roots.
The Manifesto was written, researched, edited, formatted, typeset, designed and published by a nobody, an everyman, a small business manager with a basic four-year degree. It doesn’t get much more grass roots than that.
Why the Manifesto is $9.99
A more succinct question would be why is it only $9.99? And the sole answer to that query lies in the way that Amazon pays self-publishing authors.
In print, the Manifesto would retail somewhere between $19.99 and $39.99. I would price it higher too, if Amazon didn’t penalize it (see link).
Yet, there’s something about the price that also feels right. As said, if an anti-partisan revolution ignites, it will be lit in the grass roots. The fact that the manual to the revolution will be available to everyone for ten bucks therefore seems appropriate.
* Portions of this post have been adapted from my book The Anti-Partisan Manifesto: How Parties and Partisanism Divide America and How to Shut Them Down (2024), which is available NOW!
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