It's my Party and I'll Die if I want to

I cannot recall a time when across the world political parties appear to be in disarray as they fight amongst themselves for an identity and the policies that match it. I recall a pop song from the 1960s, but its not the crying but the dying that worries me. Are there alternatives to Party Politics?

There was a time, I would suggest between the 1940s and the 1980s when parties had clear differences that enabled voters to choose, even if they often had mixed views on the policies of rival parties -for example, approval of social policy but not economic policy. In the UK it was Labour vs Conservative, in the US Democrat vs Republican. In Germany the SPD vs the CDU, in France the Gaullists vs the Socialists, and in Italy the Christian Democrats vs the Community Party. Left and right also formed the basis of party politics in the Netherlands, Belgium, Sweden and so on.

I think the changes that took place are most associated with Reagan and Thatcher. Reagan is viewed as the President that began the end of the New Deal Administration that had dominated US politics since FDR, while Thatcher ended the Post-War 'Keynesian' consensus that had shaped policy since 1945.

And yet, for someone who said 'Government is the problem, not the solution', Reagan's Govt in Command left the US with the largest public deficit in its history, though Dick Cheney's response was to confirm 'Deficits don't matter' (tell that to Paul Ryan). The Neo-Cons, horrified by Reagan's arms control agreements with Gorbachev, launched the 'Project for a New Century', but again failed to curb public spending and dismantle 'the Fed' and its agencies, while Clinton built his platform on Reagan-lite, thus creating an identity crisis in the Democrats they have never really got over or in any way repealed, given that Obama and Biden were/are clones of Clinton, though Joshua Green offers a different perspective, as discussed here-
“Where Is the Party Heading?”: Inside the Populist Awakening of Bernie, Warren, and AOC | Vanity Fair

And yet again, the Neo-Cons failed, and gave rise to the Tea Party, and the Tea Party failed and gave rise to the 'Freedom Caucus' and the Adoration of Trump.

In the UK, Thatcherism may have found in Tony Blair it's true heir, she thought so, but the Labour Party has never recovered from the contradiction of election success based on the betrayal of everything Labour stood for as a Socialist party of the Working Class....meanwhile...

Such has been the devastating impact of Brexit, the Conservative Party is now split into Six factions where once there were two = One Nation Tories, and Free Market Liberals. Now we have the One Nation Caucus, the New Conservatives, the Common Sense Group (!), the Northern Research Group, the European Research Group, and now with Liz Truss in command, the Popular Conservatives, or PopCon as they like to be known, and please not PopCorn. There, I said it.
'Shut. Up': Former Tory Minister Launches Bitter Attack On Liz Truss (yahoo.com)

But where are the policies with all these factions? For Brexit, against Brexit. For US Isolation from global politics, US must act in global affairs. Policies on housing, education, transport, health, the environment, are, in their details reduced to costs that are too much of a burden for ordinary people, with uncertain outcomes, though tax cuts, subsidies and straight out fraud mean the very rich are even richer than they were in 1980s, and fund the 'think tank'/lobbying groups that shape public policy for their own benefit, at the expense of the general public who pay for it all. For Brexit in the UK, try Project 2025 in the US.

With parties either incapable of making coherent policy statements -Trump is the master in spending 90 minutes on a platform without clarifying a single policy, just as in the UK we have no real idea what Keir Starmer thinks Labour's priorities are should they form the next Govt- the basic question is now, What are Political Parties for?

And, if Liberal Democracy is indeed in its most serious crisis since the 1930s, must we concede that most people no longer believe in it, and are ready to embrace a new variant of the Fascism that corroded politics in the 1930s, lingering in Europe into the 1970s, but shaping the foundations of modern Turkey and the Fascist Governments of Israel?

The record of failure that has led people to abandon liberal democratic politics, seems to be taking us backwards in time, but to an era that was also a failure -or do the New Wave Fascists believe they have learned from the past, and it will be different this time around?