Voting is obviously important. But as citizens of these United States, one of our most sacred obligations is to work hard between the elections.  We need to talk with each other or else we will not be a united community, but only an ugly place were “factions” fight each other. For the Founders factions were one of their biggest fears.  Here are Madison’s words from “The Federalist No. 10”:

Among the numerous advantages promised by a well constructed Union, none deserves to be more accurately developed than its tendency to break and control the violence of faction. The friend of popular governments, never finds himself so much alarmed for their character and fate, as when he contemplates their propensity to this dangerous vice. He will not fail therefore to set a due value on any plan which, without violating the principles to which he is attached, provides a proper cure for it. The instability, injustice and confusion introduced into the public councils, have in truth been the mortal diseases under which popular governments have every where perished . . .

By a faction 1 understand a number of citizens, whether amounting to a majority or minority of the whole, who are united and actuated by some common impulse of passion, or of interest, adverse to the rights of other citizens, or to the permanent and aggregate interests of the community. …

There are two methods of curing the mischiefs of faction: the one, by removing its causes; the other, by controlling its effects….

The latent causes of faction are thus sown in the nature of man; and we see them every where brought into different degrees of activity, according to the different circumstances of civil society. A zeal for different opinions concerning religion, concerning Government and many other points, as well of speculation as of practice; an attachment to different leaders ambitiously contending for pre-eminence and power; or to persons of other descriptions whose fortunes have been interesting to the human passions, have in turn divided mankind into parties, inflamed them with mutual animosity, and rendered them much more disposed to vex and oppress each other, than to co-operate for their common good. So strong is this propensity of mankind to fall into mutual animosities, that where no substantial occasion presents itself most frivolous and fanciful distinctions have been sufficient to kindle their unfriendly passions, and excite their most violent conflicts. But the most common and durable source of factions, has been the various and unequal distribution of property.

Madison viewed “pure democracy” as a dangerous thing.

From this view of the subject, it may be concluded, that a pure Democracy, by which I mean, a Society, consisting of a small number of citizens, who assemble and administer the Government in person, can admit of no cure for the mischiefs of faction. A common passion or interest will, in almost every case, be felt by a majority of the whole; a communication and concert results from the form of Government itself; and there is nothing to check the inducements to sacrifice the weaker party, or an obnoxious individual. Hence it is, that such Democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security, or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives, as they have been violent in their deaths.

Instead of a democracy, he proposed a “Republic,”

. . . by which I mean a Government in which the scheme of representation takes place, opens a different prospect, and promises the cure for which we are’ seeking. Let us examine the points in which it varies from pure Democracy, and we shall comprehend both the nature of the cure, and the efficacy which it must derive from the Union.

The two great points of difference between a Democracy and a Republic arc, first, the delegation of the Government, in the latter, to a small number of citizens elected by the rest: secondly, the greater number of citizens, and greater sphere of country, over which the latter may be extended.

By correctly setting up the ratio of people to representatives correctly, we can achieve the proper balance of government:

there is a mean, on both sides of which inconvenicncies will be found to lie. By enlarging too much the number of electors, you render the representative too little acquainted with all their local circumstances and lesser interests; as by reducing it too much, you render him unduly attached to these, and too little fit to comprehend and pursue great and national objects. The Federal Constitution forms a happy combination in this respect . . .

Once we properly calibrate the Republic, we need to roll up our sleeves and get to work. As mentioned at the top, this is hard work and it is constantly needed between elections. This country will not function unless the people use free speech to engage with each other on difficult issues. How important is this?

As Justice Louis Brandeis wrote, the framers of the Bill of Rights

believed that freedom to think as you will and to speak as you think are means indispensable to the discovery and spread of political truth; that without free speech and assembly discussion would be futile; that with them, discussion affords ordinarily adequate protection against the dissemination of noxious doctrine; that the greatest menace to freedom is an inert people; that public discussion is a political duty; and that this should be a fundamental principle of the American government.”

One last thing. If we fall into factions, including political parties, we will not be able to have meaningful conversations with each other. Instead, we will merely honk at each other. Instead of engaging with each other’s ideas, we will be pushing and shoving each other because power is the main currency of tribes.  That is why the Founders political parties and one of the worst types of factions.