Party alignment has unfortunately devolved into this “us vs them” pack mentality, and at this point I honestly question the point of parties at all. Why don’t we instead vote on individuals only, and make parties straight up illegal?
There's also a considerable barrier to entry. Louis Rossmann had Larry Sharpe on, who had an interesting talking points in the first three minutes:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HhqTxlxOQBM
I think the key point is that the media wouldn't cover him if he didn't buy ads, and the cost of a poll stood at $40,000. How far can you campaign on a shoestring budget? It's a little easier when you can pool resources through an institution or a party while also gaining the immense benefit of a much more robust network of connections.
Those are some of the infrastructural barriers we've got to overcome, and I can't imagine that movement in that direction would go uncontested. It's quite the uphill battle.
Also, chances are neither of the two parties fit what you want. Especially in the US it is basically choosing the lesser evil..
But yeah, I totally agree, it just seems like very narrow minded allegiance. I think in the US it has a lot to do with conflicting interests of people in high-density places and the rural. I've got a population map overlayed on election results right now, and the data seems to fit that conclusion.
"We" are all held, arbitrarily, in the same group, which is... Absurd. It's like a hostage situation and it seems nobody has recognized that we're being held involuntarily.
“I, candidate for office, align myself to and support the goals of the DNC, GOP, or XYZ” is pretty clearly political speech.
You could nibble away at the edges, maybe eliminate state support for primaries, change funding rules, but I think it’s ultimately not going away and probably not even getting diluted much if we keep the first past the post voting method.