Alt-QAnon: Political Parties as WRAITHs

One of the easiest to prove examples of the "collective" forming an "intelligence" "greater" (haha) than its constituent parts is the institution of the political party.  A political party has certain views that are expressed in general terms in a platform, and candidates who wish to win public office normally have to pick a party and agree to support the platform.  I learned in high school that the platform of the Democratic party places primary emphasis on the value of "equality" whereas the Republican platform places emphasis on "liberty."  Many of the policies of the parties can be traced to these core values; for Republicans, one can see "liberty" in the extreme belief in "free markets," minimal regulation (except where regulation suits the donors), and gun ownership; for Democrats, one sees equality in the "free education and health care for all" and "soak the rich" messages.

But what is the party?  Who directs it?  It has a chairperson typically, but that person can change.  Clearly the Clintons had considerable influence over the Democratic party for many years, and Donald Trump managed to gain considerable control over the Republican party as well.  But it's still a quid pro quo -- those people have influence because they are thought to control votes, which is what the party feeds on. 

All is well and good if nothing unexpected happens.  The politicians act, speak, and vote in consonance with their party's platform, and typically accept whatever donations they can that do not require them to act inconsistently with the platform.  The overarching "intelligence" of the organization provides structure -- which may be subject to change, as occurred in the Trump takeover -- and within that structure the politicians do what they do -- pontificate, speechify, vote for measures that please or at least don't offend their donors, and most importantly, run for reelection, which is something they seem to spend most of their time doing.

Things get interesting when something unexpected happens.  Like an impeachment proceeding.  this is where the party takes over almost completely and the individuals -- who were never much more than drones in a hive to begin with -- get in line behind the party. No matter how strong or weak the case against the president, all but a very few of these individuals will line up not for the best interest of the country -- to try to arrive at a collective determination of whether or not that person is fit for office -- but for the good of the party.

We've seen that twice now.