Thank you for that very interesting and thorough historical perspective. I would like to pass along a proposal I encountered here in Medium from Dave Volek. He calls it “tiered democratic governance.” I looks to me like a way to get partisanship out of local politics, at least.

More broadly, I think one way to look at the present political situation is to say the we are witnessing the slow demise of the Age of Ideology. Ideology was invented in Europe to replace theology for governing governance, but is proving as inadequate as theology was for that task.

Both ideologies and theologies are based on beliefs. Beliefs perpetuate ‘us vs. them’, which is the basis of partisanship.

That points toward the direction in which we need to go: an ethic of justice to govern governance that involves no beliefs. That suggests the need for an ethic that would be strictly rational, involving no beliefs. For an ethic of justice to be strictly rational it must follow from observation within material existence. Such an ethic would be truly universal.

As it happens, I have discovered that such an ethic exists: mutual respect in effecting choices. I call this approach to justice “Real Justice” (a “5 min read” here in Medium). A society governed by that ethic would maximize liberty as a practical matter. Democracy would be reinforced. The outcomes of the existing economy for society would be transformed, as in “For Crying Out Loud, ACCEPT That A SOLUTION Actually EXISTS” (a “2 in read” — including options for further reading — also here in Medium).