What exactly are political parties?

I've often heard Washington didn't want political parties in the US when he left office, warning his successors of the risks it'd bring but how would the US look like without political parties?

>>3165469
Political parties are organizations of people who seek to pool their resources to win political victory, and yes, they are inevitable in democracies: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_law_of_oligarchy

>>3165469
They are groups who usually share similar ideas and group up to being change to a nation, and then they linger around making false promises and suck up tax payers money.

>>3165480
This is correct, although Washington acted like a Federalist.

It depends on what type of government you have. I'm most familiar with the American system. In America a political party is essentially a formalized alliance between politicians who share similar core values. Getting anything voted into law requires a huge number of votes in the House and Senate. Getting support can be difficult since everybody has their own personal goals plus the issues that their local constituents want them to deal with. They are representatives, remember, they represent the will of a segment of the population. So how are they going to get their local issues resolved if nobody else in the country really gives a shit?

Answer: join a party. These parties have a platform of core issues that members agree are important and should be voted on, and in exchange for members supporting that issue the party also supports them with their individual issues and goals to an extent (as long as they do not conflict with the party's platform or the goals of its most central figures). Basically it's scratch my back and I scratch yours. You vote along party lines and the party is likely to write your issue into the bill as pork (a term for added on random bits of legislation to large pieces of legislation that have nothing to do with the rest of it and are just some politicians pet project that had to be included in order to secure his vote).