We'd be bringing it into the public sphere where it can be regulated better at least, that's already an enormous improvement. I just think it's insanity to let essentially private and unaccountable organisations have this much power over ordinary people's lives. Laws should be made as part of an authentically democratic process that at least tries to involve the whole socio-economic makeup of the country, not as a result of private intrigues in the party's membership and leadership which represents a much smaller fraction of the population and obfuscates everything to the point that the vast majority of us won't hear about what actually happened until years after the fact when memoirs are published. Would there not be far more democracy if it were exercised directly rather than through the distorting lens of a party?

I'll be honest, I've followed politics in my country since the age I could vote and I'm struggling to think of anything positive other than perhaps improved decisiveness in a crisis that parties bring to the table that couldn't be achieved more transparently and efficiently in a non-partisan system. What they do bring to the table is an enormous attack surface for egotism, corruption, and intrigue.

> We'd be bringing it into the public sphere where it can be regulated better at least, that's already an enormous improvement

In the US, political parties are in the public sphere and extensively regulated, unlike private entities that are not political parties but engage in political campaigning independent of formal parties and individual candidates.

Abolishing formal parties in the US would increase, not limit, the role of unaccountable entities driving political factionalism.

I'm not American, but wasn't the US government itself a non-partisan entity prior to and in the period immediately after independence? Either way, I get that they're regulated in theory as part of the public sphere but that's not the point I'm getting at, the point I'm getting at that in practice these parties often behave as vehicles for private (and often fairly elitist) interests and as a result I think their useful functions should be carried out more directly by democratic parliaments where they can be scrutinised more transparently.

> but wasn't the US government itself a non-partisan entity prior to and in the period immediately after independence?

Yes, the intense factions that sprang up without parties immediately after adoption of the Constitution formed the nucleus around which the first parties formed. Parties are a symptom, not the source.

> the point I'm getting at that in practice these parties often behave as vehicles for private (and often fairly elitist) interests

Yes, elite factions do that whether they are formalized as parties or not.

Banning formalized parties has no effect on that.

> I think their useful functions should be carried out more directly by democratic parliaments

There is no possible configuration of laws which would produce that effect.

How would you prevent someone from creating a Democratic Non-party and Republican Non-party that endorse "non partisan" candidates? Would you ban the endorsements of candidates outright? That would seem to cause it's own issues.

You probably would have to ban entities like corporations, partnerships, and non-profits from endorsing a candidate. It would essentially extend and make permanent the concept of Purdah to those entities. Purdah is the state of affairs during the pre-election period in the UK where entities like local governments and the Civil Service can't say anything that might prejudice the outcome of an election, though I can't argue that it wouldn't be a very draconian policy and doing something completely different to the original intention of the concept.

I don't think having very strict rules about the relationships between corporations/non-profits and politicians is necessarily a bad thing in itself, in fact many would see it as a good thing that further protects democracy from manipulation by private interests. However, I do see the other side of the argument in that it would probably open its own can of worms especially in areas like freedom of speech. The whole idea does start to unravel if your conception of free speech applies to entities like corporations as well as individuals. Unsurprisingly I lean towards the idea that it doesn't, but I can also see some very valid arguments for the opposite as well.

It could well be a moot point however, I'm not sure how well these "not-parties" would do once society had got used to a few elections without parties and experienced the relief that would come from making politics much less adversarial (I suspect arguments between friends and family would be less common without the tribal labels backed by billions of dollars of "enrangement is engagement" for example). We can probably get some idea by looking at extant "not-party" political entities like charities, NGOs, and lobby groups to see how effectively they influence elections today.

> You probably would have to ban entities like corporations, partnerships, and non-profits from endorsing a candidate.

This makes it practically impossible in the US; so long as not coordinated with a formal party or candidate committee, it has been ruled a violation of the First Amendment to even limit expenditures on promotion of a candidate by private entities; to outright ban such actions would be a more flagrant violation.

> I don't think having very strict rules about the relationships between corporations/non-profits and politicians is necessarily a bad thing in itself, in fact many would see it as a good thing that further protects democracy from manipulation by private interests

You cannot “protect democracy from manipulation by private interests”; the concept is incoherent. Democracy is the aggregate of private interests determining the public interest.

> It could well be a moot point however, I'm not sure how well these "not-parties" would do once society had got used to a few elections without parties and experienced the relief that would come from making politics much less adversarial

We’ve had the absence of formal parties, politics was violently adversarial and formal parties emerged from the adversarial factions.

You cannot alter human nature by abolishing formal parties, which are, again, a symptom not the cause of political factionalism.