People assumes that the underlying structure of a political party is an effective mechanism for getting power simply because a couple of parties have a lot of power. But at the grass roots political parties are just very pretentious social clubs.  Trying to compete on that level seems prone to failure.<p>It is much easier to try and influence the direction of one of the incumbent parties by taking over the leadership (Trump) or just purchasing influence.  So you get parties that are completely detached from the underlying ethos that their members naively assume exists.  But actually a large party has no more ethos than a golf club or a frat house.