It’s a party party, and you’ll cry if you want to! This week, Kevon and Phil take a long time to discuss the history and purpose of political parties. We’re sorry that this is a long one. Future episodes will prove to you that we respect your time.
If you have any questions or comments, leave them on the episode page, send us a message on Twitter, or send us an e-mail.
Mentioned in the Episode
Washington’s Farewell Address – Full Text
Here’s the quote that Phil was referring to (emphasis added):
All obstructions to the execution of the laws, all combinations and associations, under whatever plausible character, with the real design to direct, control, counteract, or awe the regular deliberation and action of the constituted authorities, are destructive of this fundamental principle, and of fatal tendency. They serve to organize faction, to give it an artificial and extraordinary force; to put, in the place of the delegated will of the nation the will of a party, often a small but artful and enterprising minority of the community; and, according to the alternate triumphs of different parties, to make the public administration the mirror of the ill-concerted and incongruous projects of faction, rather than the organ of consistent and wholesome plans digested by common counsels and modified by mutual interests.
However combinations or associations of the above description may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely, in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion.
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