The PartiExit Manifesto-Phase One

You never change things by fighting against the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the old model obsolete.
-Fuller, R. Buckminster

A Brief Summary

Introduction: Our political process is broken beyond repair. It is now up to the American Citizens, all of the Citizens no matter their color, race, gender,sexual orientation or religion to rise up and do something about it before it is too late.

The Problem: Is the two major political parties using the divide and conquer strategies of fear, anger and hate of the other side to win elections. This specific approach is tearing the nation apart, deteriorating the people's trust in each other, our norms and institutions.

The Solution: Uniting all the American Citizens and putting the country before the party. By becoming independent registered voters, we can reset, renew and restore our Republic, based on respect for the constitution, rule of law, shared values, common interest, civility and consensus building.

The Challenge: How do we wake up enough American Citizens to the reality that they alone are the ones that have the real power in our Republic-based democracy? How do we help remind them of who we really are, where we came from and the price that was paid for our rights and freedoms? How do we show them that we have so much more that unites us as a people and a nation, than divides us and that we are our best when we are united as one?

The Citizen Led Programs Being Introduced

1-PartiExit: Is a grassroots Citizen Rights movement designed to emulate the success of the British Brexit movement. It is based on getting all of the dissatisfied and unhappy Citizens to reject the traditional party affiliations and to become independent registered voters in order to take immediate control of our dysfunctional political process and begin to reset the Republic and it's constitutional-based democracy.

2-The Party of One (TPO): Is an independent, nonpartisan political process and infrastructure that is a key part of the PartiExit movement. It will allow for independent registered Citizens to have a place that they can call home. A place that will put issues and problem solving, not ideology and rhetoric, as their top priority. A new political process that will work with the (TPO) Political Position to serve as an alternative to the two party system and assist in selecting, vetting and voting for the very best independent candidates and get them elected into office, on a local, state and national level.

3- (TPO) Political Position: is an inclusive independent membership club that is part of the Party of One that is positioning itself into becoming the largest independent political organization that focuses in on shared common issues within the United States of America. It seeks to remove all of the things that prevent us from coming together as American Citizens. It encourages the Citizen to take an oath into recommitting themselves to the Republic, to the Constitution and to the rule of law. It allows the Citizen to prioritize their family and country above all else, while putting the Citizen's immediate concerns front and center of the political process.

4-(TPO) Citizen Assembly: Is a consensus-building process that brings together groups of Citizens from diverse backgrounds and communities for a preset amount of time, in a specific location, to deliberate on an issue or issues of local, state, national, or global importance. With the objective of generating constructive dialogue that leads to consensus among the Citizens, in hopes of bridging the divide and differences within our communities and country. The use of citizens' assemblies to reach decisions in this way is related to the traditions of deliberative democracy and popular sovereignty in political theory.

Introduction

Our political process is broken beyond repair. The government and our representatives no longer work for us. Gridlock, high levels of corruption, record breaking debt, people of all walks of life and their children being killed in their schools and in the streets, is becoming too frequent an occurrence. We are putting desperate people and their children fleeing from poverty and violence in cages and our political leaders refuse to do anything to alleviate these despicable situations. Americans are waking up to a new reality that we have become a nation full of indecisive, fearful and helpless Citizens with little recourse. That being the case, we must begin to ask ourselves the hard questions: Where do we go from here? What will we be leaving for our children tomorrow? What will our future legacy be?

Let us be very clear on this, the greatest threat that our country is facing since the civil war is the dividing of the Citizens into separate tribes and putting them against each other which is ripping the nation apart. The biggest purveyor of that evil is none other than the two major political parties who are more concerned with winning elections than solving the people's problems. Do we continue down this path of insanity of doing the same things over and over again and expecting a different result? First, the Democrats fail us, so we turn to the Republicans and then they let us down, so we turn back to the Democrats. Always putting our faith and our hopes that a new and improved political party leader will rise up and unite and save us. Instead, do we finally say "Enough is Enough" and assume personal responsibility for ourselves, our families and our country and get off of this vicious partisanship merry-go-round?

In order to do that we must first start off by asking ourselves, "Can our frail and badly damaged Constitutionally-based Republic, with its democratic political process be saved and fixed?" Based on the depth of our history and the strength of our character as American Citizens, especially when confronting great adversity, we would say "Yes". If handled with the urgency that it merits, it should not even take that long to accomplish. It really is quite simple because the most successful revolutions are built on the simplest of ideas. Ours is for all Americans Citizens to denounce, eliminate and remove all of the things that are creating divisions within our society, politics and government. This starts with the greatest dividing factor of all, the adversarial winner-take-all political party system.

What we propose is for all of our Citizens to leave the two-party system, thus making them an irrelevant factor in our future society, political process and government. This approach will help create a vacuum within our political process that we will immediately begin to fill with independent registered voters and independent candidates who are better prepared, educated, and engaged within our representative democracy and understand what it means to be "Governed by Consent".

We will accomplish this by uniting all of the concerned American Citizens who are willing to rise up and begin to work together to solve all of our individual and collective problems. We can do this by getting all of them on the same page, looking at the same thing, at the same time. When we accomplish this, we will be able to move on and fix our political process within months if not weeks, with a new and improved Citizenship, ready to reset, renew and restore the great American Experiment and American Dream.

The Political Party System

The main problem is that we have allowed the two major political parties, with their ideology-based agenda, to have total control over our political process and government for close to 200 years. This particular partisan leadership no longer works. At one time or another, there was a respect for the norms, institutions, process and oath of office that allowed for the members of the two parties to come together and offer bipartisan solutions to the people's problems.This type of cooperation no longer exists, is never coming back and is only getting worse. Today's parties are now more interested in winning elections to help their party's agenda and financial supporters instead of representing what is in the people's best interest - the very same people who put them in office and pay their salaries and healthcare.

We have now entered a dark period where identity and revenge-politics is the norm and the Constitution and Rule-of-Law are secondary to party loyalty. This blind loyalty to what is best for their party often times goes against what is best for their constituents and the country in general. Everything now is about winning elections in order to be able to hold on to the power and control of our government. It is a period that prioritizes winning above all else and by any means possible, even to the degree of accepting outside interference as long as it favors their party and ideology positions.

This toxic partisanship is weakening our Constitutional checks and balances and blurring the line of separation of powers and church and state. The independence of our justice department is being compromised, along with the military and the freedom of our press. We no longer have any real oversight, unless we have a divided government, but if we have a divided government, passing any productive legislation becomes a real challenge due to this partisanship. We are constantly waking up to a daily bombarding of Constitutional crisis, chaos and a stalled government that does not, cannot, or will not defend our democratic elections.

To quote George Washington "You cannot shield yourselves too much against the jealousies and heartburnings which spring from these misrepresentations," and "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," as written within his farewell address. So, here we are, as the Republicans and Democrats are busy fighting each other for power and control of our government and country, it is the people's democracy, Constitution, freedoms and rights being trampled beneath their feet.

"We the People" are left with no other alternative but to invoke the provision stated in the original "Declaration of Independence" — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

How do we do this? How do we stop all of this madness and preserve all of the things that the founding fathers got right, while at the same time removing all of the things that they got wrong in the original design of this great nation? We will start by first and foremost acknowledging the challenges that we will be facing and then set out a plan that allows each and every one of us to be able to become part of the solution, one Citizen and one step at a time. We will work on building from the ground up a new independent political process with a personal political position model that will make the old political party model obsolete.

In order to accomplish this vital objective, we have designed a powerful and specific Citizens rights movement that works in conjunction with several comprehensive programs. These programs will immediately begin to help unite the people based on shared concerns and issues. We will, at the same time, be identifying the cause of our problems and begin to address them, while providing new ways to replace them with something better.

Uniting the Citizens Under an Independent Banner

Here is where the solution lies. The reality of today is that more Americans now identify as Independents than as either Democrats or Republicans. As of August 2019, Gallup poll found that 30% of Americans identified as Democrat, 26% identified as Republican and 42% as Independent. This is the highest percentage of Independent voters in more than 75 years of polling, yet, they do not have a direct voice, a say, or place to call home in our American political process. This needs to be fixed. Because of their Independence, the party system penalizes them by not allowing them to participate within the party's closed primaries. Because of the trends of Citizens becoming independent and the lack of a real alternative, the timing of this idea could not be better.

The Challenge Confronting Us

The biggest obstacle that we are facing as American Citizens is that we have forgotten who we really are, where we came from and the price that was paid in lives, blood and treasure to get to where we are today as American Citizens. Those very same rights and freedoms that we so easily take for granted. To be able to educate them on a systemic level of their responsibilities, duties and commitment to our Constitution, our children and our country. It is imperative that they understand this because they and they alone, are the ones that have the real power and authority within our Republic-based democracy to fix it.

Our objective is to get enough Citizens who are concerned to wake up to the reality that our country is at a crossroads that we have reached. If we are not careful, what is happening today will take us back to a darker time, or it can also take us forward to complete the promise that all men and women are created equal in our individual and collective quest for Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness. We will take the first step of that journey through the creation of a Citizens rights movement that will pick up where the Civil Rights movement left off and help to complete this Great American Experiment.

Remembering Who We Are! What Makes Us Different!

We are Americans not because of where we came from, or where we were born. The color of our skin does not matter, or how we worship, or who we choose to love. We are Americans because we believe in an idea. An idea so powerful that it not only created a new nation, but literally changed the world forever. An idea based on strangers coming together to share core values that we all could unite around. An idea that would set us on a journey to become a more perfect union. That is the story of America and Americans.

Unfortunately for us as Americans, the meaning of "core values" can be seized, manipulated and wielded by either side of the political aisle. We as an American Citizens Rights movement will be attempting to remind and reclaim the concept of what it truly means to be an American by reclaiming what our "core values" truly are from those who would seek to take them over and bring them back to its rightful place.

The idea that we share certain basic values is valuable and empowering. It's an insight that can bridge political chasms rather than deepen them. Based on our research and history these are the seven primary core values that we as Americans uphold as the set of basic beliefs on which our American government was founded and continues to operate today.

Liberty

Is the value that proclaims that people should be free to think, speak and act as they choose as long as they do not affect freedom and the rights of others. We may not agree with what other Americans may feel or say, but we will defend their right to feel that way and speak their mind freely.

Self-government

Is the value that declares that citizens have a say in how their government is run. That they are "Governed by Consent" through their political representatives. They are the primary source of the government's authority. They participate actively in the political process and the government exists to promote their well-being.

Equality

Is the value that holds that all people should be treated fairly and with dignity and be able to embrace opportunities for education, economic success, political involvement and a fulfilling life - as stated in the United States Declaration of Independence.

Individualism

Is the value that is committed to independence, self-sufficiency, private initiative and personal economic growth. The ability to get ahead through our individual efforts that leads to achievement, status and success.

Diversity

Is the value that teaches us to respect and embrace the fact that all people are unique and important no matter what their race, gender, culture, heritage, belief system, sexual orientation or socio-economic status.

Unity

Is the value that maintains that the United States is one indivisible nation and that Americans are a people bound by unbreakable ties.

PartiExit Movement

The PartiExit is an inclusive Citizens Rights movement and membership organization based on emulating the success of the Brexit movement. It will do for America what the Brexit movement did for the UK, with a couple of exceptions. The first being that in the UK, Brexit rode the wave of fear, anger and hate into taking control of their country's direction and government in order to attempt to leave the European Union. PartiExit will also ride on the wave of anger and frustration of the US Citizens to unite them but into using courage, compassion and love to counter the rise of fear, anger and hate in America in order to unite the Union.

The second exception being that once the Brexit movement successfully mobilized millions of British Citizens into action that forced their government into accepting their mandate, the leaders of the movement failed to have in place an actual plan to successfully implement their vision, thus thrusting the entire country into chaos. The difference between Brexit and PartiExit is that PartiExit already has a comprehensive short and long-term plan to take the country to a better place.

The PartiExit is a grassroots Citizens right movement designed to unite all of the American Citizens based on social issues and concerns that they as Citizens share and have in common. It gives the Citizens a way to directly fix it in a constitutionally legal, peaceful and constructive manner. All just by getting enough Citizens to simply leave the political parties and their toxic and dysfunctional systems. No party members. No political parties. No more ideology-based problems. No more legislating social change. It's that simple.

The objective of the movement is to immediately get between 100,000 to 500,000 American Citizens to switch their party affiliation to independent. With this simple act it will immediately send a chill down the backs of every single politician and their respective party's collective spine. This small action will create a powerful reaction, while putting both parties on notice. It will let them know that things are about to change very quickly. By weakening and eventually eliminating their base of support from underneath them, we can open up the entire political process to a world of new possibilities of alternative solutions and more positive inclusive change that we will be returning our country back to the days when government was of the people, by the people and for the people.

So the next question should be, "If we do get rid of the political parties and their political infrastructure, what would we replace it with?" That will come with the second phase of the movement with the introduction of the "Party of One" and it's (TPO) Political Position. The Party of One is what we would have had within our country if the party system did not exist in the first place. It will be the new and improved way to elect the very best independent candidates on a local, state and national level.

The Party of One (TPO)

Let's start off with what it's not. The Party of One (TPO) is not a new political party, third party, or any type of party at all. It is an independent political process and infrastructure that belongs to all of the American Citizens who are willing to stand up and be counted. It will seek to eliminate partisanship and ideology from our politics and government once and for all. It will work to build its very own independent technology-based political process throughout each city, county and state, which will dislodge the party system as the center of power, while creating a more powerful Citizen's civic currency.

The Party of One (TPO) will be establishing its presence in the form of (TPO) Chapters within the capital of each state throughout the nation. It will then set out to recruit members within each state to help build out an infrastructure with mini chapters within their counties, towns and cities that will offer local representation. This will help the independent candidates running for office as it provides a platform that will connect them directly with independent voters. The third phase of this approach will work by introducing what we call the (TPO) Political Position which puts the ultimate authority to decide within our country not within a political party or their leaders, but within the Citizen themselves.

(TPO) Political Position

Within a traditional political party, the voter is a member of an exclusive membership club and an extension and follower of the political party and their specific ideology-based mindset. The political party leaders set the platform and political agenda on a local, state, national and international level. They win elections by raising massive amounts of dark money from PACs and special interest and corporate groups which creates powerful conflicts of interest, while indebting them to their financial supporters and forcing them to have to promote their specific agendas. In many cases even over their constituents' best interest. They are partisan-based so they have a built in enemy to rally against at all times. It is an expense, time consuming and divisive process. A small handful of political party leaders control every aspect of the political process, infrastructure and the government.

With a (TPO) Political Position, the voter is a member of an inclusive independent membership club that is an extension of the founding principles upon which the Republic was built on. It is based on being a strong independent leader of one's life and decisions. The independent Citizen will, through a Citizen Assembly format, set the Citizen's platform and political agenda on a local, state, national and international level. They will win elections by removing the money and partisan factors from our process and infrastructure and will also use a technology-based system to connect with the voters with potential independent candidates.

It is an inexpensive, convenient and time saving process that will allow the voter to focus on real issues and the best candidates. It is nonpartisan, so it can potentially unite the majority of Citizens based on shared common interest. This approach will help to reclaim our being "Governed by Consent" in our representative system of government. This position rejects any type of ideology. It is focused on solving the Citizens' most pressing political, social and economical issues. This approach will promote and encourage a greater level of Citizen participation, while allowing the Citizen to be in control of the political process and their government.

(TPO) Citizens' Assembly

In America we have a representative democracy. When we cast our vote, we transfer our authority to a representative who then wields decision-making power on our behalf. In this way, we avoid the complexity of direct democracy where each citizen casts a vote on every issue, large or small on the surface. This seems quite convenient, but unfortunately, it removes the Citizen from having a say in what eventually ends up being decided on, on their behalf. This results in having to live with the consequences of decisions made by others, which may or may not hold their best interests at heart.

The (TPO) Citizens' Assembly along with the Party of One infrastructure aims to reinstall trust in the political process by taking direct ownership of the decision-making process from the political parties and give it back to the people. To that end, the (TPO) Citizens' Assemblies intend to remedy the "divergence of interests" that arises between elected representatives and the electorate, as well as "a lack of deliberation in legislatures", while also allowing new ideas and voices into the discourse. We urgently need innovative ways to solve our individual and collective problems and that is why we are proposing setting up a (TPO) Citizens' Assembly as the first step in getting the conversation going in hopes of bridging the divide within our country.

The (TPO) Citizen Assembly process will work through the use of a technique known as deliberative polling. Representatives of the Party of One will select a representative sample of Americans to come to a single location and spend four days discussing the merits of the issues at the heart of American politics today. Gun violence, health care, immigration, the economy, foreign policy and the environment. They answer survey questions about their views on those topics, both before and after their weekend of deliberation, along with a discussion about the independent candidates running for office and who they feel offers the best ideas on solving these problems.

In addition to deliberation among their peers, participants will also receive briefing materials laying out arguments for and against each of the policy proposals they had been surveyed on before the event. In addition, the (TPO) Citizens' assemblies will attempt to provide access to experts on the matter, ranging from politicians, to analysts, to scientists. By incorporating the views, information and arguments of experts and then asking the participants to engage in collaborative discussion, (TPO) Citizens' Assemblies aims to educate the people selected and ultimately, produce a vote or result representative of the educated public interest. This information will be used in the creation and updating of The Party of One's political platform and Citizen agenda.

The key component of the Citizens' Assemblies is its deliberative nature. Deliberation allows for the education of participants, who formerly may be uninformed on the specific issue of interest. Deliberation allows for representation of the common person while attempting to remove the issue of ignorance or apathy, which typically goes hand in hand.The size of a (TPO) Citizens' Assembly is very deliberate and designed to capture a representative cross-section of the population in question. The size will depend on the purpose, demographics and population of the community the assembly aims to represent in order to capture statistical soundness. The citizens' assembly concept is kept relatively small in order to make it more manageable and to enhance the deliberative process.

So, by now you might be wondering with all of these new political initiatives being proposed within our present political process, how will this affect our Constitutionally-based Republic? Here is a quick summary that will hopefully answer all of your questions.

Nothing Will Change in How Our Government Functions

With the Party of One, (TPO) Political Position and Citizen Assembly, nothing will change. Our country will remain a Constitutional Republic based democracy with separation of powers and three separate and equal branches of government. We will still have the rule of law as our guiding principles. We will still have Constitutionally-mandated freedom of the press. We will still have a President, a Senate, a House of Representatives and a Supreme Court. The Citizen with their Constitutionally protected access to vote will still have their representative government with a stronger say in how they are being "Governed by Consent".

The only difference will be that instead of the president having from day one a strong conflict of interest of divided loyalties and responsibilities of being - on the one hand - the leader of a particular party - and on the other hand - the leader of the nation, they will now have only one role, one loyalty and only one responsibility. The leader of the entire nation without any competing interest. The same will go for the rest of the branches of government. No longer will we have competing chambers within the Senate and the House of Representatives within congress. Just one united bicameral congress that will represent all the constituents.

What will also immediately change and disappear with the political parties and their divisive ideologies are the following things: partisan gridlock, gerrymandering, divided government and majority and minority leaders in the Senate and the House. No more blue or red dividing the people's representatives. Only red, white and blue Americans. This approach will assist our representatives in being able to work together in generating consensus that works for everyone in restoring everything back to its rightful place and becoming once more the United States of America. The real and true leaders of the free world.

Everything Changes in Who Will Lead Our Country

The Party of One with its (TPO) Political Position and (TPO) Citizen Assembly will help to restore the original founding fathers' vision of E Pluribus Unum. The problem with today's political leaders is that individuals like Donald Trump, Nancy Pelosi, Mitch McConnell and Chuck Schumer, get to decide everything at any moment or time of their personal choosing. They can prevent or block any legislation from moving forward, even if it is bipartisan or the people really want it.

Our objective is to prevent this abuse of concentrated power by making sure that the other branches offer a strong independent check that will minimize the ability of one individual or group from acquiring too much power. It will potentially allow the independent Citizens to have more input in providing the vision and direction that the country will go in. They can work together to define what it will be and then provide it to their independent, local, state and national representatives, whose job will be to implement it to the best of their abilities.

The Party of One independent political infrastructure will also be attempting to remove the dark money factor from our political process, through the use of technology-based solutions and independent social media formats. The independent candidates will now have an alternative to the traditional more expensive advertising venues that presently requires them to spend a lot of time and effort in raising a lot of money in order to compete, while indebted to the special interests funding them.

This new Party of One technology-based approach will provide a place where the independent Citizens can go to read about the independent candidates, their qualifications, background, experience, ideas and community-based rating. This rating will be based on the candidate's personal, political and social history and track record of involvement within their specific communities. As an impartial independent organization that will be providing the venues and infrastructure upon which the candidate will compete in, the Party of One will not be endorsing or supporting any particular candidates.

The main objective is to provide an open, inclusive and transparent forum where independent candidates can go and get in front of the American Citizens and offer their visions, proposals and very best ideas as an alternative to the two party system. We seek to provide an easier way to access the very best candidate and then get them in front of the biggest audience possible, without having to spend a lot of money. It will be more of a merit-based system with a more intimate and personal connection between the Citizens and the candidate.

The Party of One will not be involved in the selection of the specific candidates, nor will it be involved in any aspect of the daily operation of government. What it will do is provide the structural guidance and systems of accountability that will allow the Citizens another layer of oversight at all levels to be able to keep the political process and government honest and transparent.

Our goal is not to be officially part of the government itself, but to reaffirm what is stated in the Declaration of Independence which says, "Governments are instituted among the People, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed." This means that the government gets all its power from the people. The people set up the government and that is what we intend to do. We intend to make sure that it works, not just for a select few, but for everyone.

Supporting Historical Information

A lot of people may very well be thinking that what we are attempting to do is impossible. The thought of introducing a nonpartisan independent alternative to the political parties that have dominated our country and political landscape for close to 200 years is an exercise in futility, a pie in the sky dream. And yet In political science and political history, there is such a thing called a realigning election (often called a critical election, political realignment, or critical realignment) is a set of sharp changes in party ideology, issues, party leaders, regional and demographic bases of power of political parties and the structure or rules of the political system, such as voter eligibility or financing. The changes result in a new political power structure that lasts for decades, replacing an older dominant coalition.

For the most part the shifts in these types of critical elections have been attributed to the realining of the voters from one party to another and yet there is another factor in today's political environment in play, that we believe will be timely in helping our cause tremendously, it is called dealignment, in political science, it is a trend or process whereby a large portion of the electorate abandons its previous partisan (political party) affiliation, without developing a new one to replace it. It is contrasted with realignment.

Many scholars argue that the trends in elections in the United States over the last several decades are best characterized as dealignment. It is also believed the United Kingdom has become dealigned from social class over the past three decades. We believe that It is based on the results of this type of dealignment that has led to the growth of the independent registered voter that seeks to find a place to call home and yet the party system no longer appeals to them. That is where we believe the Party of One (TPO) will provide them with the sense of belonging that they so badly desire to be part of, a place that they can call home.

Here are four examples from a historical perspective that this type of political realignment has been achieved.

The PartiExit and the Party of One will be able to help answer the question that has plagued us from the very beginning of our founding Who do the representative, really represent? The Political Party Leaders? The Special Interest? Or their Constituents?

Conclusion

We at ParitExit would want everyone to understand that we are first and foremost proud American Citizens that are very concerned with what is happening to our country at this moment and time. That we can no longer stand idly by as our country, its institutions and reputation are being systematically destroyed. That we take seriously whether through birth or taking the oath, our commitment to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.

That being said, we also want to acknowledge that America is the one place on earth where it is not about where you are born, the color of your skin, how you choose to worship, or who you choose to love. It's about the assent to an idea, an idea so powerful that it not only changed our country, but literally the world forever. The idea that all men and women were created equal and were endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights.

We recognized that we as a country and a people have not fully lived up to it then and we still have not applied that fully up to now. But that idea that we can be a more perfect union is ingrained within the minds and hearts of each and every American Citizen. That we as independent Citizens will not stop pursuing that idea until the day that each and every one of us wakes up to an America where you will not be judged by who you are or how you look, as much as the content of your character as a free American Citizen.

Thank you and God Bless America.

- Francisco J. Garica
Founder of the PartiExit/Party of One

• To learn more go to partiexit.us
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