Today the United States is far from united. Only partisans unite on their side of an issue. Votes in Congress are often strictly along party lines, the result is a nation fractured along ideological lines.

Unfortunately, ideology is an all too reflexive substitute for reason, thinking, or mindful decision making. One result has been that many ideologues vote their ideology, even when that vote is contrary to their best interests.

Ideology comes in many disguises. One common form is as a system of ideas. Even this rather simple kind bears dangers. For example, the “system” is rarely systematically thought out and often evolves according to events. Thus, often, one idea cancels out others, and an idea becomes a blind belief. Such contradictions go unnoticed when ideologues seize on a few “big” issues that concern them the most, and they consequently ignore all the other issues included in the ideological collection. For example, Republicans have traditionally opposed increasing the national debt, blaming Democrat’s social welfare policies as the cause. Yet with the GOP tax cut approved by Mr. Trump, the national debt has increased by $2 trillion.

Another form of ideology is equally common but far more dangerous. It exists when the values and beliefs of a powerful and thus dominant social group are said by its ideologues to be in the best interests of everyone else (whether or not others believe or accept them). And thus with their power, they impose their favored interests on those lacking socioeconomic power enough to resist. An example is the plutocrats who control or sway votes by using their wealth (e.g., Koch brothers). Their ideology, in part, is that a rising tide raises all ships. Thus, their self-serving ideology holds that the richer they get (for example, due to tax cuts, or valuing the corporate bottom line over fighting global warming), the better off all less fortunate members of society will be. Acceptance of their ideology (e.g., politically supporting tax breaks for the 1%) is an example of voting against one’s own best interests-unless you have been duped into believing that the better off the plutocrats are, the better off you are.

It is difficult to account for how people come to join one party over the other. It seems unlikely that they have researched the history of both and judged their comparative merits. This history is long, with the Democratic party (at first called the Democratic-Republican party, for states’ rights, against a strong Presidency) of Thomas Jefferson and James Madison squared off against Federalists John Adams, Alexander Hamilton and a coalition of bankers and businessmen. (As elitist intellectuals, Federalists lost their attraction to public opinion, and the GOP didn’t organize until 1854 to oppose slavery).

Both sets of ideas for the new government recognized the challenges at hand. Democrat Hamilton wrote: “The great art of lawgiving consists in balancing the poor against the rich in the legislature and in constituting the legislative a perfect balance against the executive power, at the same time that no individual or party can become its rival.” Federalist Adams wrote: “The essence of free government consists in an effectual control of rivalries. The executive and the legislative powers are natural rivals; and if each has not an effectual control over the other, the weaker will ever be the lamb in the paws of the wolf. … Rivalries must be controlled or they will throw all things into confusion; and there is nothing but despotism or a balance of power which can control them.”

Nonetheless, the Founding Fathers believed that politics should not devolve into formally organized parties. Washington warned against what he called “the baneful effect of the spirit of party,” because “party” meant only a part, not a united whole. However, Federalists and Democratic-Republicans agreed on little and engaged in spirited intellectual battles.

About this discord, Washington wrote that it served “always to distract the public councils and enfeeble the public administration. It agitates the community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms, kindles the animosity of one part against another, [and] foments occasionally riot and insurrection. It opens the door to foreign influence and corruption, which finds a facilitated access to the government itself through the channels of party passions” (e.g., Russian interference in the 2016 election).

With Jefferson’s defeat of John Adams’ run for a second term, the new president asked “Let us . . . unify with one heart and one mind. Let us restore to social intercourse that harmony and affection without which liberty and even life itself are but dreary things.” “Originalists” who claim to read the Constitution in terms of the Founding Fathers intentions would do well to observe the warnings of those quoted above and put blind ideology away in favor of thoughtful case-by-case judgments — as independents do.

Thomas A. Regelski is an emeritus distinguished professor at the State University of New York at Fredonia. Send comments to tom.regelski@helsinki.fi.