Parties are fine, just so long as you don’t put their existence into law, but just allow them as part of the natural right of freedom of association. I wouldn’t want to get into a situation where legislators are bound to vote the way the party wants, or where people specifically vote for a party instead of a specific candidate. I’d prefer it if parties weren’t even listed on ballots, actually.
To address the OP more specifically, I agree with Brooks to a large extent. Parties should be consistent over long periods of time and only change when major changes in the country take place. However, right now we have a problem, and that problem is that the parties have failed and enjoy pretty low approval ratings. They need to get their shit together, learn how to govern responsibly. The Republicans are in worse shape than the Democrats, don’t want to seem like I’m in the “both parties do it” camp. They do, but the GOP has been much, much worse. Democrats just need to get over a few pathologies they’ve developed in recent years. Republicans need a total overhaul.
But people also need to get over this individualist mindset (the whole “Bowling Alone” phenomenon). There have been a lot of positive changes in society over the past half century, but that’s not one of them.
Hopefully not. I wouldn’t want to have to join another party (though Europe does a bunch of “Christian Democrat” parties… I wonder if that would catch on across the pond) ;).
I think this is the reason why Democrats are doing better in presidential elections and Republicans in the congressional elections. The hard right is more motivated than the moderate left, but less numerous, so they do better in low turnout elections. The Democrats ended up catering more to the moderate left than the hard left due to the lower number of people on the hard left than the moderate left. The Republicans have the opposite problem, with the hard right outnumbering the moderate right.
I see at least one way out of the situation. If the Republicans move so far to the right that the Democrats begin to win congressional races with a larger coalition, this might force the Republicans to break up. I don’t see the Republicans breaking apart over losing the presidency. I think it will take losing the House again for the Republican Party to truly fracture. Of course I have no idea how far to the right they have to move or how many years we have to wait on demographic changes before the Republicans lose the House.
Because the argument was made using like 2 sentences from Brooks’ Op-ed, not using Brooks as some sort of guru, but rather indicating that the OP’s view was better articulated by those 2 sentences.
Frankly, I could care less about your opinion on Brooks as it pertains to the broader argument.
In addition, not only do I think you are wrong about the broader point, but your link seemed to indicate that not many actually agreed with you.