By Paul Waldmiller
Did you know that in our first American President’s farewell address, George Washington warned to be aware of the allegiance to political parties over the nation? In Washington’s 1796 address, Washington warned of what he called that lack of “national union.” Even during Washington’s time, there was political squabbling within his own presidential cabinet. These individuals disagreed so much that they started their own political parties. Washington often found himself in a position needing to act as a mediator between the two main political parties.
When Washington gave his farewell address, he specifically mentioned his fear of what political parties would do to the United States of America and that was to pull America apart to the point of no longer being the Republic our founding fathers established. Specifically, Washington believed that national unity would be destroyed by political parties and that the regions or States would be better served as a whole without political party factions. From Washington’s own experience of dealing with his cabinet members, he saw first-hand how loyalty to political parties often brought deep division and unnecessary tensions between Americans.
Today, we not only have many political parties in the United States, we also have deep division as to what America should look like. We have a growing American and foreign populace where beliefs in political ideologies and political party affiliation outweigh and are complete opposite of the ideologies of what George Washington warned us against. Infighting amongst Americans regarding political factions appears to be at an all-time high. The “glue” of our nation–patriotism and respect and allegiance to the Constitution–has been worn away by years of Americans allegiances to one particular political party against another while moving away from the Constitution (Even President G.W. Bush referred to the Constitution as “a rag”). Rather than carefully examining political candidates and their political beliefs, many Americans will simply vote for a political candidate because they are representative of one political party or another and this has greatly contributed to the destruction of our nation as a union–just as Washington predicted.