Retired IT Geek. Politically Independent. Fiscally conservative and socially liberal.

Our first president, George Washington foresaw some of the challenges we face today. An excerpt from his farewell letter to the nation:

"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.

Without looking forward to an extremity of this kind (which nevertheless ought not to be entirely out of sight), the common and continual mischiefs of the spirit of party are sufficient to make it the interest and duty of a wise people to discourage and restrain it.

It serves always to distract the public councils and enfeeble the public administration. It agitates the community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms, kindles the animosity of one part against another, foments occasionally riot and insurrection. It opens the door to foreign influence and corruption, which finds a facilitated access to the government itself through the channels of party passions. Thus the policy and the will of one country is subjected to the policy and will of another."

As a nation, I believe we need to come together to reduce the power of political parties and start talking to each other about how to come together to solve the challenges we face.