The potential conflict between General Will and Factional Will was known about from the founding of the Union. James Madison warned of this dynamic in 1787 when he described “the violence of faction” in Federalist No. 10. Faction, for him, was the moment when groups pursue their narrow interest rather than the General Will. His description of the consequences remains strikingly relevant:
The instability, injustice, and confusion introduced into the public councils, have, in truth, been the mortal diseases under which popular governments have everywhere perished; as they continue to be the favorite and fruitful topics from which the adversaries to liberty derive their most specious declamations.
Madison warned that governments fail when the narrative of factions consume the public discourse. His concern feels almost prescient. Instability, injustice, and confusion run rampant in our post-truth era. His worry about “specious declamations” is practically “fake news” by another name.
Today, Factional Will dominates both the discourse of our public councils and the policies they produce. When laws are passed or executive orders signed, they are celebrated as achievements of a party and its platform. This is unsurprising. In a majoritarian system, factions are incentivized to grow until they constitute a majority. Once sufficient political power is consolidated, that faction is able to enact its will largely unchecked. Under those conditions, there is little incentive to compromise towards the General Will rather than implement the faction’s own priorities.
However, the disease of Factional Will has exceeded Madison's preconceptions as it has even managed to consume elections. Voters no longer cast ballots to express their own Individual Wills. Instead citizens vote to advance whichever Factional Will they have aligned with.
TODO:
Voters vote faction first, then individual will second
Losing an election means you have no representation
Candidates can win only if they are perceived to be able to win
"Coming out in the wash" is undemocratic
People who adopt and advance a Factional Will are rewarded.
Elections work to identify the dominant faction
The U.S. has a winner-take-all approach to elections. A slate of candidates runs for a single seat and whichever candidate receives the most votes is given the position. Everyone else gets nothing. It is difficult to imagine a more dysfunctional approach to representation. The idea that one’s representation can “lose” is blatently undemocratic. A contest for representation is akin to suggesting a loving family should select which child’s movie to watch by staging a fistfight.
Thus, voters are given a choice: give your vote to a candidate that is already popular enough to win so it is possible your vote will affect the outcome, or vote for an unpopular candidate where your vote won't count. Naturally, the electorate overwhelmingly supports the candidates from the two dominant parties.
Some argue that representation balances out nationally: your party may lose here but win elsewhere. This logic treats public opinion as interchangeable and assumes only two factions exist, because silencing one group can be offset by silencing an “opposing” one. This framing is fundamentally undemocratic. It replaces genuine representation with the common motive Madison warned against and locks the public into two permanent Factional Wills.
Thus, voters only want to support viable candidates. So they choose the best from the slate of candidates that they believe can win. However, a candidate represents a Factional Will, so the voter is giving a preference between them, which does not me he likes any of the options. The idea that a few Factional Wills can be an adequate proxy for the sum of the electorate's Individual Wills is absurd. However, it is even worse as there is no guarantee that the factional will voters prefer is aligned at all with their Individual Will.