The primary REAL purpose of any political party power structure is to maintain and enlarge its power. That's what wrong with the idea of political parties, and that is what makes them corrupt. They seek power, first and foremost, and they do it by attacking competing parties in any way possible...fair or foul. That's what you see happening. Your media sources and pundits mostly encourage that divisive process.

The best thing that could possibly happen would be to abolish all political parties from here on in, have only independents run for public office, and form a legislature from those elected independents after the election. They could then elect from amongst themselves a president, and a vice president...whoever they collectively decided was best for those jobs...in a free vote of all elected members.

Legislation could then be proposed by any seated member, discussed and debated by all seated members, and voted upon.

This would be a far more honest and responsible system than a party-based system. It wouldn't be immune to corruption...but it would be far less prone to it. Most importantly of all, it would stop dividing the public into 2 hostile factions who detest each other! And that is the major problem with your present system...it is based on hostile divisions.

"A house divided against itself cannot stand."

I hear Americans endlessly fighting their usual partisan battles and I think, "Yeah, right. It's like listening to people on the Titanic bitching about how to arrange the deck chairs, while the ship plows on steadily toward the iceberg."

We have the same problem in Canada. The political parties themselves have ruined our democracy and turned it into an unrepresentative joke that is held in contempt by the vast majority of the voters.