As an addendum to the earlier long rundown about how the United States has been unraveling, I should further clarify what political parties _are_ in the USA, because my European friends from parliamentary countries (not sure about you with your 'washminster' hybrid model) are continually astonished when I explain the matter. A UK voter, to be a member of a political party, pays a fee, fills out an application, and then can cast votes for the party's 'list' of candidates for the Parliament in Westminster. The party has the prerogative of ousting individual voters as members in extreme cases of unsuitability. Parties have official recognition, and form coalitions following each major election to seek enough seats to support a stable government, embodied in the Cabinet and the PM, approaching the Queen in her capacity as head of state to propose a new 'government' (cabinet with PM) when a working coalition has enough votes to survive vote-of-confidence polls. In the USA, voters often speak of being 'members' of some political party, but that is entirely misleading. No party _really_ has official recognition at all. The Founding Fathers had no idea they would arise after independence and drafting of the Constitution. When parties spontaneously arose as an emergent effect of the government framework adopted, the Founding Fathers were dismayed and condemned them as the sin of 'faction', which of course did nothing to dismantle them. A USA political party is a self-governing and self-perpetuating private association that backs and helps raise funds for certain candidates affiliated with the party. Once in office, a politician may drop that affiliation if he/she wishes. Some such as Senator Bernie Sanders and Senator Joe Lieberman have disaffiliated themselves with their original parties and declared themselves 'independent', yet generally 'caucused with' (voted and worked with) their former parties. My state, California, has lately had better (in the sense of less misleading) official terminology than most: In registering to vote, I can (and did) declare a 'party preference', in my case the Democratic Party. By doing so, I pay no fees to the Democratic Party or anyone else, and have no obvious power to contribute to setting California Democratic Party policies or priorities. (They'll happily accept my money, but I'll get only 'trust us' in return.) My declaring a party preference permits me to vote in 'primary elections' for 'partisan offices' among Democratic Party candidates to choose which of the set of Democrats for a given 'partisan' office (e.g., governor of the state of California) shall become the party's standard-bearer to advance to the subsequent 'general election' competing against the standard-bearers of other parties. Currently and for over 100 years, the only two USA political parties with significant potential to hold office have been the Democratic Party and the Republican Party (the latter nicknamed the Grand Old Party aka GOP). Minor parties exist in many states, e.g., in California _four_ other parties routinely generate enough primary election votes that California is willing to pay for ballots for them in primary elections, but none is strong enough to win any office except extremely rarely, hence affiliating with them (declaring a 'preference' for a minor party in primary elections) is an ideological statement rather than a pragmatic choice. (This is because of a phenomenon called Duverger's Law, http://linuxmafia.com/~rick/lexicon.html#duverger, 'The simple-majority single-ballot system favours the two-party system.') Minor US parties tend to be laboratories for development and promotion of ideas, lacking as they do the ability to (normally) win offices. California's arrangements to de-facto 'recognise' political parties if they have recently roused enough primary votes (and to gain initial recognition upon submitting enough voter names on a petition) is an uneasy compromise in recognition of political reality even though the parties are NOT, when all is said and done public institutions but rather private committees. The parties predated California's formation as a state in 1850, so they had to be accomodated. The rationale of how the state treats them is that primary elections occur anyway for reasons having nothing to do with the parties, e.g. for non-partisan offices and voter initiatives, so adding ballot support for 'recognised' parties effectively costs almost nothing more, and if enough voters wish a given party to have such a de-minimus subsidy, why not? Under California's election regulations, each party may decide whether or not 'no party preference' or other-party-preference voters may elect their primary ballots and participate in selecting the party's candidates advancing to the general election. Each party can adjust its policies in this area before any given primary election. For the June 2016 primary election, California's Republican Party permitted ONLY voters with registered Republican Party affiliation to vote in its primary. The Green and Peace & Freedom minor parties adopted parallel policies (only our voters may vote in our primary). California's Democratic Party permitted its own and no-party-preference voters to participate in its primary races. Minor parties American Independent and Libertarian adopted parallel policies (our own and unaffiliated voters may vote in our primary). Few California voters really understand that odd setup. I documented it as part of my comprehensive guide to the June 2016 primary election, here: http://linuxmafia.com/~rick/election-2016-06-07.html#primaries Each of the 50 USA states regulates and almost-sort-of-recognises political parties in its own idiosyncratic way, but California's is the one I know best and care about, so it's the one I've studied and documented. I as a Democratic Party-preference voter remain entirely free to vote for the Republican candidate for a 'partisan' office (e.g, governor, state treasurer, and many other state, Federal, and local offices) in the general election following a primary election -- or in theory for the Libertarian, Peace & Freedom, American Independent, or Green candidates, too. On occasion, I have voted for a Republican Party candidate over the Democratic Party one in a general election, specifically in cases where the Republican candidate was the 'clean government' option and the Democratic candidate's history was more suspect. (This has happened often enough to mention, but not often.)