the TRIBUNICIAN

Introduction

Political polarization is nothing new to American politics. What is new is the effectiveness and widespread deployment of media tools that are all but weapons of mass destruction. The internet and the various other electronic forms of the mainstream media, the main vectors of the current rhetorical conflict, have been maximally leveraged to deploy the various versions of 'us versus them' and 'hatred of the other' with the assistance of immorally obtained data sets using inhuman algorithmic precision and micro-targeting tactics with the ultimate goal to divide and conquer the American electorate, all in service of political aggrandizement and further worship and realization of the now holy Profit Motive. Ironically, it is the American Constitution, via Article I, Section Four, that enables this manipulation.

The Constitutional Convention Origin and the Federalist Argument

During the American Revolution the political binary dividing Americans was between those that supported independence, the Patriots/Revolutionaries, and those that did not, the Loyalists/Tories. After the Treaty of Paris, the American political binary was represented by elements advocating for Confederal, localist interests and those advocating for nationalist interests. After the Philadelphia Convention this binary morphed into those that supported ratification of the newly written Constitution, the Federalists, and those that did not, the so-called Anti-Federalists. After the ratification of the Constitution the binary continued to evolve, being represented by the now familiar Federalists and the then recently re-branded [Democratic-]Republicans. After the supposed Era of Good Feelings, the binary further developed into National Republicans versus Democrats, then Whigs versus Democrats, then Unionists versus Confederates and so forth and so on until the present day.

Prior to the Philadelphia Convention, the nationalists had won the first battle of this protracted and seemingly endless engagement in February 1787 when the Confederation Congress passed a resolution endorsing the convention that was scheduled for later that year in June in Philadelphia. The political elites and the States they represented were finally motivated to make changes to the Articles of Confederation following the unsuccessful popular revolt of farmers and former Continental soldiers and officers against unreasonable lenders attempting to confiscate their property in Massachusetts that came to be known as Shays's Rebellion.

The Confederal government had failed to respond effectively, if at all, to Shays's Rebellion. It was unexpectedly stopped by the Massachusetts militia ambushing Shays and his comrades in the middle of a blizzard. Shays's Rebellion not only motivated the Confederation Congress to sanction the Philadelphia Convention, but the States also sent delegates to the event (many had failed to do so at the earlier Annapolis Convention in September of 1786 that had been convened for the same purpose).

Despite the sanctioning of the Philadelphia Convention by the Confederation Congress and the vision of a shared purpose for all Americans, a large contingent of Founders and even some Framers refused to support or promote the ratification of the Constitution, the proposed replacement for the ineffective Articles of Confederation. The end of the Philadelphia Convention was the pivot-point where in a twist of irony and a stroke of genius in marketing the nationalists became the Federalists, and the Confederal localists became the Anti-Federalists. The Federalist camp ultimately claimed victory with the ratification of the Constitution by the States in 1788. In a way, so too did the Confederal interests claim victory with the eventual ratification by the States in 1791 of the first ten amendments, which became known as the Bill of Rights.

It was during this heightened period of polarity that James Madison famously pontificated on the concept of factions in the now famous Federalist #10. Ratification of the Constitution was by no means a foregone conclusion at the time. Collectively using the pseudonym Publius, Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and John Jay wrote about the merits of the Constitution via their semi-daily pamphlets that have since become known in their collected form as The Federalist Papers. Personas non grata like Patrick Henry, George Mason, and Samuel Adams argued the contraposition. Both sides used all the instruments of the rhetorical craft, but it was the strength of the Federalist arguments and the respect of its nationally esteemed supporters, such as George Washington and Benjamin Franklin, that triumphed in that iteration of the American political binary and led to the Constitution being ratified by the States.

The Roman and American Parallels

The Roman republic's victory over and elimination of Carthage in the Punic Wars approximately corresponds to the beginning of the period historians refer to as the late Roman republic. Lacking a true near-peer international competitor and having no opportunities for relatively easy territorial expansion Romans began redirecting their collective restless and competitive energy towards domestic politics. This situation is uncomfortably similar to the post-Cold War unipolar world in which the United States finds itself.

Just as the political binary has evolved over time in the American republic, so too did it in the ancient Roman world. Prior to the overthrow of the last king of Rome, the binary was represented by monarchists and republicans. After the formation of the Roman republic, the political binary was represented by the wealthy propertied Patricians and the artisan and working-class Plebeians. By the time of the late Roman republic the political binary morphed into an intensified social and political conflict between the Optimates and the Populares, informal associations of powerful and wealthy Plebeian and Patrician Senators and their families who sought the support and favor of the working-class Plebeian masses and their representative assemblies to exploit for their own purposes. Less like the Republican and Democratic parties of America, they would be more accurately, albeit imperfectly, compared to what Americans call conservatives and liberals, respectively.

It is probably not a coincidence that Madison chose the term factions when writing Federalist #10. Most of the Founders and Framers had a classically oriented education, focusing on ancient Hellenic and Roman culture and learning Greek and Latin while they did so. They were well-versed in the history of both, and many had read Edward Gibbon's then recently released The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Madison likely chose the term factions due to its sinister and violent historical connotations that would resonate among his classically educated political peers.

The term factions is etymologically descended from the Latin verb facere and the Latin noun factio. Facere means to do or to make, and the word factio evolved to mean a group of people acting together. The term factiones was first commonly used in reference to the various color-coded chariot racer teams in the late Roman republic and early Roman empire. The factiones were owned by wealthy Plebeian families (by this time known as the Equites or Knights) and were supported by the landless working-class Plebeians known as the Proletarii, similar to the current American professional sports paradigm. Eventually the term factiones was used in reference to the fanatical and violent Proletarii supporters who were used as political enforcers and domestic terrorists by the Optimates and Populares during the violent electoral campaigns and civil wars of the late Roman republic.

In Federalist #10 Madison writes on the malaise of factions as a constant challenge to stable government. He defines factions as "a number of citizens, whether amounting to a majority or a minority of the whole, who are united and actuated by some common impulse of passion, or of interest, adversed to the rights of other citizens, or to the permanent and aggregate interests of the community". He goes on to explain the two ways of handling the "mischiefs" of factions; either by "removing its causes" or by "controlling its effects".

Madison explained that due to human nature, it is impossible in a republic to remove the causes of faction without impugning the liberty of its citizens:

"It could never be more truly said than of the first remedy, that it was worse than the disease. Liberty is to faction what air is to fire, an aliment without which it instantly expires. But it could not be less folly to abolish liberty, which is essential to political life, because it nourishes faction, than it would be to wish the annihilation of air, which is essential to animal life, because it imparts to fire its destructive agency."

Madison argued that since the first remedy led to tyranny, the second remedy of controlling the "effects" of factions was the key to protecting the new American republic:

"Extend the sphere, and you take in a greater variety of parties and interests; you make it less probable that a majority of the whole will have a common motive to invade the rights of other citizens."

Madison believed that by "extending the sphere", or enlarging the American republic, the diversity of the citizenry and their many desires and intentions would dilute the power and influence of factions. He believed that the size of the American republic's area and population, and the structure and nature of representative democracy in contrast to direct democracy would be the redeeming qualities that shielded the United States from the threat of factions.

Roman political elites and demagogues opportunistically agitated and leveraged the polarized state of the masses during the late Roman republic in pursuit of personal aggrandizement with the result ultimately being that their republic ceased to exist. As American financial and political elites and demagogues walk this same path, so too is the American republic threatened with death. If America fails to minimize or eliminate the power of factions and the political binary, future historians may eventually refer to our current era as the 'late American republic'.

A Possible Solution

Maurice Duverger was a French sociologist and political scientist born in the early twentieth century whose concepts and ideas have become highly regarded and influential in the study of political parties, voter polarization, and elections. His eponymous Duverger's Law states that plurality-rule elections, also known as 'first-past-the-post', structured within single-member electoral districts tend to result in a two-party system. In short, this means that if those conditions are met politics and more precisely elections become zero-sum games, situations whereby one party's gain is the other party's loss. Net change in benefit is always zero, as seen in single-member electoral districts having only one victor in elections. Duverger's Corollary is that proportional voting and representation, in contrast to plurality 'winner-take-all' systems, results in multi-party systems, although the more permissive Duverger's Corollary has been shown to be less accurate than the more restrictive Duverger's Law.

Duverger's Law has evolved from being acknowledged as a general tendency into being recognized as almost a strict rule by those who study political parties, voter polarization, and elections. The observed effects of this law in the American context are that smaller, third parties have a difficult time obtaining electoral victories even though they may have relatively large national membership numbers due to their diluted power at the State and local level. This further results in a downstream psychological effect among the American electorate that produces the perception that voting for these smaller parties is a 'wasted vote', so voters will strategically vote for one of the two main parties in the system, even if those parties' positions on issues are imperfect in comparison to or not aligned with their own positions.

In the U.S. Constitution, Article I, Section Four states:

"The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations, except as to the Places of chusing Senators."

This 'Elections' clause theoretically creates conditions for there to be as many different electoral systems as there are States in the Union. The practical implication is that it has created fifty different, albeit almost identical electoral systems, the majority of which are plurality-rule, 'first-past-the-post' systems that have created fifty two-party systems that have coalesced into a default national two-party system. Ironically, it is a clause in the very Constitution that James Madison championed for in The Federalist Papers that has allowed the current political polarization and the existence and dominance of two supposedly opposing parties manufactured and maintained by a minority corporate faction of wealth and entitlement.

A possible solution to the current tyranny of the two-party system controlled by the corporate faction of wealth and entitlement is a systemic reform of State and local electoral systems with the goal of creating a multiparty or even nonpartisan system. To eliminate the current political binary and the polarization it has spawned and that the corporate faction of wealth and entitlement have agitated and leveraged, Duverger's Law and Corollary suggest the following changes need to be implemented:

• multi-victor, multi-member districts (as opposed to one victor, single-member districts)
• ranked choice voting (as opposed to one person, one vote)
• ballot and debate access determined by voter choice, not party prerogative
• campaign finance reform that removes individual and corporate wealth and the influence thereof from the electoral process

It is the last point that can be argued to be the most important and/or the first that must be addressed. While there are small pockets of change occurring throughout the American republic as various States and localities have adopted open nonpartisan primaries and/or elections with a top two run-off format, and even ranked-choice voting, the size and influence of these electoral districts and States is dwarfed by the monetary influence of the wealthy and corporate interests that could reverse and eliminate these small and incremental changes. James Madison had no way of knowing that his remedy to factions, the scale of the nation and the diversity of its citizenry, would be countered and negated by the effectiveness of the modern media paradigm and its control by the corporate faction of wealth and entitlement.

All the States in the Union have a prevalence of laws and policies that favor the exclusionary, inaccurately representative two-party system that are proposed, encouraged, and funded by the corporate faction of wealth and entitlement. The American People deserve a more fair, accountable, and accurately representative system of elections. To remedy this malady of faction, I propose Congress must craft and the States must ratify a Constitutional amendment modeled on the First Amendment. This new 'Electoral Equality Amendment' might read as follows:

Congress, nor the States, shall make no law representing an establishment of a political faction, or prohibiting the free exercise of political association; nor shall the power to prescribe the times, places and manner of elections be used to grant preference to any faction over the individual candidate, nor to favor a binary system of representation over a multiparty or nonpartisan model.

This phrasing would create 'Establishment' and 'Free Exercise' clauses for electoral competition, augmenting and directing the 'Elections' clause of Article I, Section Four. Using a strategy that attempts to solve the factions issue at the national level is advantageous because it allows for a single focused coherent campaign for ratification, instead of fifty or more isolated disjointed campaigns of change that could be more easily circumvented and misrepresented by the mainstream media owned and operated by the corporate faction of wealth and entitlement. The Constitutional amendment approach also would ultimately provide for a means of Constitutional review for any future laws that might seek by design or chance to circumvent or remove the just and accurate representation of the People.

In his Farewell Address to his "friends and fellow-citizens" written towards the end of his second Presidential term, adding to James Madison's admonitions against factions, George Washington warned of the dangers of the "Spirit of Party":

"The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism. The disorders and miseries which result gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual; and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation on the ruins of public liberty."

Conclusion

For as long as the American republic has existed the political binary has infected our country. America is currently fully entrenched in a culture and party system where everything has become political and/or polarizing. It is a realm of extremes when it comes to political participation. For the most part you either revel in the second-order politicization of every cultural component or you inwardly cringe at the effect of the political fringes on the political center and actively attempt to avoid being politically labeled or mislabeled. It has become an unfortunate constant of the American political landscape. So, it continues, the various iterations and reinterpretations of those that desire change pitted against those that want to conserve the old ways. We are consistently exposed to the prepackaged, manufactured, and amplified divisions that are distributed by those in power and deployed against their perceived lessers with the intent to divide and conquer and remain in power by doing so. What is inconsistent and ebbs and flows with the times is the intensity with which the binary is felt and expressed. The political binary will never leave us unless we take action to eliminate it. We must be bold and do what the Romans failed to do, reform the electoral system so that it no longer favors the rich and the powerful. The American republic needs to craft and ratify an Electoral Equality Amendment, with urgency.

References

• Beard, Mary. SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome. New York: Liveright Publishing Corporation, 2015.
• Dowling, Eveline, and Caroline Tolbert. 2025. "What We Know About Ranked Choice Voting, Updated for 2025." American Bar Association Task Force for American Democracy. March 6, 2025.
• Duverger, Maurice. Political Parties: Their Organization and Activity in the Modern State. Translated by Barbara North and Robert North. New York: Wiley, 1954.
• Hamilton, Alexander, John Jay, and James Madison. The Federalist. The Gideon Edition. Edited by George W. Carey and James McClellan. Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2001.
• Shotter, David. The Fall of the Roman Republic. London: Routledge, 1994.
• The Constitution of the United States: A Transcription. National Archives and Records Administration.
• Tranquillus, Gaius Suetonius. The Twelve Caesars. Translated by Robert Graves. Revised by J. B. Rives. London: Penguin Books, 2007.
• Washington, George. "Farewell Address." September 19, 1796. In Founders Online, National Archives.