Can we A/B test politics?

I was discussing the problem of partisanship with some friends recently. And as we were discussing the seemingly insurmountable divide between the two parties and their beliefs, I had an idea.

If the divide is insurmountable, what if we stop trying to surmount it?

My proposal is simple — give Republicans and Democrats exactly what they want.

Jakob Owens Unsplash

In my proposed Utopia, everyone must register as either a Democrat or a Republican. You are given an ID with your party on it. And how you operate within the world is based off of this.

Some examples:

• You are a Republican, your taxes are lower but you have to pay tolls on all roads, and if you need to call the fire department, you are billed afterward.
• You are a Democart, your taxes are higher but you have universal healthcare and access to abortions.
• You are a Republican, your taxes are lower but you are ineligible for medicare, social security, unemployment, and you must pay for your own private insurance.
• You are a Democrat, your taxes are higher but childcare and college are free.

The list goes on…

You would only be allowed to change parties once every three years. This would help prevent people from jumping back and forth.

My hypothesis is that after 12 years, one party would have vastly more people than the other. We would then know which form of government actually works.

Obviously, there are a huge number of policies that couldn’t be implemented unilaterally for one party because it would impact members of the other party. For example, if only Republicans are allowed to purchase firearms, those firearms would still endanger registered Democrats.

To help solve this I propose a second concept. All Democrats in red states and Republicans in blue states will be given funding to move to a state that aligns with their views.

This would also help deter people from changing parties to freely.

You wouldn’t be allowed into states of the other party. We could put large walls between states. In fact, why not just make them two countries. Hm, I think I’m on to something…