The party system is failing America. It is as simple as that. The political parties are dividing our country in unprecedented ways. (I wrote an article highlighting the actual statistics and those can be found here). But, I believe that there is a incredibly simple solution to ease these tensions. Just change the focus of the parties. The parties operate in a very top-down manner, this means that the goals, policies, the organization is all centered and started at the top and as it goes down to a more local level it becomes their duty just to help bolster the party and spread their message. If they were to change the focus at the top, this message would trickle-down, so to speak, to the rest of the party voters.

Political parties are very sensitive organizations, they are sensitive to change within the political realm. Their primary and only goal is to get people elected that represent an ideal for their beliefs. If politics becomes more radical, then candidates will also become more radical, and this works in reverse too. If politics becomes more centrist, then parties will likewise become more centrist. The only outstanding variable is the media. The media is a powerful influence on our perceptions, of what we think, and how we feel, which makes it a very powerful institution.

Media, being a private industry, is also encouraged by a profit motive, they want to make money and continue to grow. There is nothing necessarily wrong with this, most industries are encouraged by a profit motive, that is the backbone of our American economy. However, the issue with this particular industry is that this encourages this culture of information without substance. People want to know what's happening with politicians, in the world, and in their country, but they don't actually care. They report on what sells or what gets them the most views which change the purpose of news from information to entertainment.

This also shifts the focus of news from actual important events in our world, to a sort of horse race journalism that only focuses on the politicians, not policies, not implications, not events. Just on people. So political outsiders can capitalize on this, because they get more media attention for being "anti-establishment" which only garners more votes. This was how Trump got elected, because every media station was reporting on the crazy things he said and did and this made his name incredibly popular. He started this early in his campaign to give a strong first impression, whether good or bad, which kept him in people's mind as he was reported on over and over again, and he only had to make a strong first impression on enough people. And people who don't know who to vote for, recognize his name, and are statistically more likely to vote for him.

The very issue with politics is that since the media has such a big impact on setting political agendas and by influencing perceptions on politicians, it forces political parties to adapt to the media, rather than vice versa. This has always happened but with the spread of social media, television, and even internet memes, it now can spread much faster and can spread throughout specific circles rather than actually reaching everyone which they used too for a long time until the media started to become privatized in the 80's. This spreading within circles is potentially dangerous for two reasons; it reinforces your own views and, therefore, makes them stronger and it also develops an us versus them mentality.

It is well documented in psychology that when you reinforce a behavior or belief that it grows stronger and this is no different with political ideology. They experience all kinds of reinforcement when they join these media bubbles. A prominent example of positive reinforcement is that people often experience praise for their views in the same circles which just makes those beliefs stronger; or, likewise, they experience negative reinforcement because it removes all people that can challenge and antagonize them and their views, which makes them hold their beliefs more strongly but with less knowledge and substance behind it. They also develop a mindset that this view is right and this view is wrong by breaking up people into groups that are objective from the outside but when actually looked at closely are very different at individual levels, making it easier to dissociate with actual people, thus making it easier to pretend their views are unimportant.

Now that each party's base is becoming more and more steadfast in their views and increasingly isolated in a world which prides itself on connection, parties have room to become more radical. This can create problems with terrible policy, like the trade policies pursued by Donald Trump or the healthcare plans presented by Trump, Sanders or Clinton. Radical doesn't always mean bad, but when policies become blind to the world in the name of partisanship, that always spells something bad.

My policy to fix this really isn't a policy at all. The government cannot regulate all aspects of parties nor media without potential authoritarian means being used which is the opposite of our countries values. Rather, it's a change in the way party leadership should view American politics. Instead of using the media as the setter of political agendas, use it as a medium to spread political agendas. I believe this can be done by party officials by simply setting more superordinate goals. Superordinate goals are goals that everyone can strive for as they are of more importance and these kinds of goals downplay individual differences in ideology or standing, and create a greater sense of community. They have been proven time and time again to reduce tensions and intergroup conflict.

This might look something like instead of focusing on ending illegal immigration, changing the focus to creating a sustainable system of immigration and customs. The original idea can easily separate democrats and republicans from having an idea that both parties can agree on, although it doesn't state a specific policy approach leaving room for compromise that helps both parties. This is a simple change but it has the potential to make a big difference because a statement that originally causes controversy, now incites agreements. This doesn't end or blur the party lines by making it unclear which party holds beliefs, it simply changes the way they present their ideas.

This cannot stop everything, but it can help at the national level of politics which eventually will reduce a lot of the problems talked about earlier. It is simple, but it is something that needs to be done by the next generation of leaders to help repair the broken system in place today.