On the Necessity of Breaking with the Zero-Sum Politics of the Democratic-Republican Party

It is interesting how people working more or less independently of one another can often be found in silent dialogue. At Think 3 Institute, Sam Wilson considers the "crisis of the Republican Party" as represented by the tension between tea party activists and neocons, and writes:

The problem with the Bipolarchy is that the major parties now have power independent of their control of elected offices, and every faction that might otherwise form its own party seeks to infiltrate and control the existing parties because they need power to get power. To return to the popular religious metaphor, the Bipolarchy has "heretics" and inquisitions, but not enough schismatics -- maybe because any schism results in something someone calls a cult. What this country needs now is a few good schisms.

At The Whig, Septimus sketches out the advantages that would result from such explicit "schisms" in the Congress:

One of the spurious arguments against supporting a third party is the assertion that nothing would get done with 3 (or 4, or 5) political parties in Congress. But nothing is being done now, and one of the reasons is the zero-sum game that results from only having two parties in the legislature . . . Now imagine a scenario with multiple parties. The various parties could coalesce in different arrangements depending on the issue. Parties could cooperate on one issue, disagree on another issue, without having to bear the entire weight of public opinion of the President . . .

As currently situated, Congress is either in reaction to, or overly supportive of, the executive branch. All Congressional decisions are taken in light of the position of the White House, as Congress is either controlled by the president's party, or is controlled by the opposition. Either way, the party that controls the executive controls the agenda.

Contrast our situation with the theoretical multi-party Congress. The agenda and priorities would be set by the members themselves. The support of, and the influence of, the executive on the legislature would depend on the issue, and members would look more to their constituents. Wouldn't this hypothetical be better than our current blocked-up, overly centralized and presidential-focused system?