Why I am an Independent

So I was filling out a voter registration card the other day for Upstate New York so we can vote when we move up there. At the bottom of the card you declare party affiliation. I checked that I am unaffiliated (I won't tell you what my wife checked). I take pride in being an independent. I came across the following quote given by George Washington at his 1796 farewell speech:

"The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism. The disorders and miseries which result gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual; and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of public liberty."

Political parties are destroying this nation (along with overspending), pitting American against American. Why don't we focus more on what is right versus who is right?