John McWhorter and ‘Woke Racism’

Hello, and I hope the holidays are going great for you and yours!

In late October, I was on a panel with Columbia linguistics professor John McWhorter on Bill Maher’s show in Los Angeles. I was impressed with John both during the show and backstage, and bought his book ‘Woke Racism’ immediately afterwards.

John’s book is about how a belief system – battling racial power differentials between whites and blacks – has become the dominant culture in much of media and academia, and how this is not actually helping black people who are struggling with very real issues. In particular, John calls out the bullying and, in some cases, firing of people who have been accused of a racially insensitive statement or action. He argues that the fixation on statements and attitudes does little to advance real policies that would benefit black people, such as ending the war on drugs or investing in quality reading instruction early on.

John also argues that many people are now pushed into a culture of fear of being called a racist, which has now led to many being afraid to express themselves lest they be attacked on social media or elsewhere. John finds this to be illiberal and counterproductive.

I enjoyed John’s book a great deal and thought it made a very important and compelling case. John graciously agreed to appear on my podcast, and our conversation was one of my favorites to date. He talks about how this belief system has become powerful, its internal contradictions, how it actually is hurting black people and much more. You can see it here.

There are very real inequities in American life. I made the case for giving everyone $1,000 a month during my presidential campaign, which I thought would help those with the least the most. John argues for other solutions that I agree with, such as broad vocational training.

Perhaps that’s what I liked most about John – he’s about solutions to the real problems we see around us. Let’s fix the problems as quickly as possible, which includes doing away with a culture of attacking other people as being somehow less worthwhile than we are.


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The End of Build Back Better

On Sunday the news came out that Joe Manchin would not support the Democrats’ Build Back Better bill. “I am a no on this legislation.” He made the announcement on Fox, after refusing to take a phone call from the White House.

I found this to be awful news on its face, largely because of my enthusiasm for the child tax credit, which I wrote about last week. This all but guarantees that 62 million Americans won’t get their check in January, and jeopardizes it for the months afterwards. The most successful anti-poverty program in years might be discontinued in less than a year after lifting 3.8 million children out of poverty – many families will slide back into difficult circumstances.

It’s my hope that the enhanced Child Tax Credit is brought back to the floor as soon as the Senate comes back in January – the best case scenario is that it passes in some form and is back in February. The team at Humanity Forward will be working non-stop to make this happen.

But this episode also indicates that the dysfunction within the Democratic Party is even higher than I would have thought.

Joe Biden’s strength is meant to be his relationships on Capitol Hill. Joe Biden and Joe Manchin were colleagues in the Senate for decades as Democrats. They worked together countless times. They had a call last week that was meant to usher Build Back Better forward after months of negotiation.

Whatever happened, the meeting didn’t have the desired effect. After Manchin’s announcement on Fox, the Biden White House issued a public statement accusing Joe Manchin of going back on his word and said that he should change his mind again.

The Biden White House’s statement struck me as counterproductive – if you need a guy to come back to the table, characterizing him as dishonest publicly doesn’t seem like the right approach, regardless of what you might feel. Keep in mind that Trump won West Virginia by 39 points, so Manchin is in a position where the politics are complicated at best.

Joe Manchin said on Monday, “It’s staff driven” of the White House on a radio interview, which could easily be seen as a dig at the President.

Again, these guys were colleagues for years. Massive legislation was proposed along party lines via reconciliation because bipartisanship is nearly nonexistent. That legislation is on life support –at best - because the Democrats didn’t have the unanimity they needed. Families home for the holidays are unsure of whether the check they just received in December was the last.

I hope that the Child Tax Credit emerges again early next year and will be doing all I can to assist. But it’s clear to all that a new dynamic is necessary in Washington D.C. The people don’t care so much as to who said what in what meeting. They just want help that isn’t tied to the back and forth of politics in the Beltway. That, right now, is too much to ask.

Right now is the perfect time to contribute to the Forward Party to fix our broken politics – donate $5 today to let people know that we can do better than this! And Happy Holidays!

The Child Tax Credit

Hello, I hope that the holiday season is going great!

The Child Tax Credit has been in the news this week, for excellent reason. If there’s one thing that everyone agrees on as a public policy triumph from the past year it has been the enhanced Child Tax Credit. It’s lifted 3.8 million children out of poverty and improved the lives of 62 million Americans directly, not counting the millions more who work at day care centers, groceries and small businesses who have benefited from the buying power in the hands of families. You might be one of these families.

I’m incredibly proud of the role that Humanity Forward played in both the relief checks and the child tax credit – I personally lobbied more than 60 members of Congress in 2020 and our organization spent millions helping to make the case.

I had hoped that Congress – with the backing of 448 economists – would make the Child Tax Credit permanent. But I was pleased that at a minimum it was extended for a year in the approved Build Back Better bill, particularly because I figured it would be very difficult to discontinue after that period.

Now, the package is stalling in the Senate, and if the bill isn’t approved by December 28th, it is likely that the January child tax credit will be delayed or missed. This is upsetting – imagine tens of millions of families around the country of relatively modest means not getting support that they have benefited from and relied upon for months.

If you keep up with the goings-on in Washington D.C,, there is one key person in whether this bill passes, when and in what form – West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin.

Joe has a different set of political considerations than most any other Democrat. Trump won his state by 39 points. While West Virginia has the 6th highest poverty rate in the country, the politics are complicated. There is a lot of value to Joe in having a point-of-view distinct from the Democratic Party. Joe has openly talked about leaving the party if he’s not wanted, and the fact is that the (D) next to his name may not be a major boost for him electorally. It’s also one big reason why you don’t see many attacks on Joe Manchin from other Democrats – they know they’re fortunate to have a Democratic Senator at all from West Virginia.

It’s also true that Democrats were lucky to have even 50 senators – they came within 15,000 Georgia voters of having only 49 and Mitch McConnell as speaker.

Even when Washington D.C. does something wonderful that improves millions of lives, it runs aground of institutional dysfunction.

How do I mean? The Child Tax Credit right now is a victim of polarization. It is built into a larger Democratic package that no Republican will vote for. If it were a separate bill, a number of Republican Senators would vote for it – the approval rating of the enhanced Child Tax Credit is over 70% in some polls including a majority of Republicans, and Mitt Romney in particular has championed a version of it.

In a more rational system, a handful of Republicans would make common cause with Democrats and renew the Child Tax Credit to ensure no missed payment while the other parts of the bill get hashed out. But that’s not the system that we have. We have a two-party system that is so divided that any kind of cross-party collaboration is nearly unthinkable.

It’s an infuriating shame. Millions of children lifted out of poverty in a way that’s widely popular, and our country’s dysfunction is so deep that it may not last. Can you imagine being a part of a body of leaders that could make such a profound difference for so many families and not taking action? Politics is overriding all else. Millions of families around the country may not know why they don’t get a check in 4 weeks. But they’ll miss it. We all will, just as we miss being a country that does the right thing for its people regardless of party or partisan politics.

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Right now is the perfect time to contribute to the Forward Party to fix our broken politics – donate $5 today to let people know that we can do better than this. Happy Holidays!

Civil War in 2024?

Recently there have been a couple pieces – that are excellent – that believe that we may be in for the effective end of American democracy in 2024 through some combination of a contested or stolen election, civil unrest, and a transition to an autocracy under Trump. Robert Kagan wrote a very cogent piece in the Washington Post making this case. Barton Gellman wrote a cover story in the Atlantic this past week. And Bill Maher put out a widely circulated video.

Here is the argument – Trump has spent months undermining people’s confidence in election results. 55% of Republicans think that the election was stolen. Numerous red states have been passing laws putting the authority of certifying the vote in the hands of the state legislators as opposed to state officials. A number of state officials who certified Biden’s victory have resigned. Kevin McCarthy will likely be the House Majority leader. In 2024, Trump will either get enough votes to win, or it will be close enough where Republicans will simply certify the win, leading to protests and widespread political violence.

Is this realistic? Well, the backdrop is certainly there. Political stress is presently at Civil War levels according to Peter Turchin:

In this context, the January 6th insurrection isn’t a culmination or a one-time event but a sign of things to come.

It’s typically up to the media to announce and certify election night results. At this point, only 15% of Republicans say they have high trust in media. For Democrats it’s 69%. For Independents it’s 36%. One can easily imagine various right-leaning media outlets at least expressing ambivalence about whether a result had been reached, but given these numbers people could disbelieve regardless of the media treatment.

First, let’s stipulate that Trump is running and will likely become the Republican nominee. He’s already raised well over $100 million and has 65% approval among the primary electorate. His strongest potential opponents – Ron DeSantis, Nikki Haley - will defer to him and allow him to run opposed only by folks like Chris Christie and Mike Pence. Trump will announce shortly after the midterms next year and roll the field.

Who will his Democratic opponent be? The most likely option is Joe Biden, though Joe will be 81, almost 82 on Election Day 2024. The other major choice is Kamala Harris, who is polling 6 points worse than Joe. Or they submit it to a primary and some new figure emerges.

The temptation for the Democrats will be to run Joe again. They don’t want a fractious primary that makes them seem divided. Joe will be the incumbent who defeated Trump once.

One thing that many don’t understand is that Joe’s victory in 2020 was razor-thin; 44,000 votes in 3 states – Arizona, Wisconsin and Georgia – decided the race. Joe’s massive popular vote win was driven up in blue states like New York and California, and that margin is irrelevant. Recent polling had Trump up by 8 in Arizona, 10 in Wisconsin and 3 in Georgia.

Joe will also likely be saddled with a Republican Congress after 2022. The in-power party traditionally loses 10 -15 seats in off-cycle elections. Right now the Democratic majority is only 5 seats, likely to be reduced by redistricting. Note also that Democrats surprisingly lost 13 seats against Trump in 2020, in what they were hoping was a wave election. Betting markets have the Republicans retaking the majority in the House in 2022 as a 74% likelihood.

I recently spoke to a political operative who regularly conducts focus groups with Democratic voters. Voters said that they saw Joe as a ‘bridge’ candidate or President – using Joe’s own words. But when they were asked who should run for President after Joe, they were unable to say. No one really knows who or what Joe is a bridge to.

The Democrats are in a tough spot for 2024. Their President will be almost 82. People are not excited about the Vice President who was meant to embody the future of the party. No one is sure what comes next.

When someone asks me what I think will happen, I think the Dems will run Joe again, health permitting. I also think that’s a mistake. He will, simply put, seem like the physical embodiment of an aging and failing establishment. His health and age will be a nonstop talking point. Watching him campaign will be difficult.

This week on the podcast, Zach and I talk about the likely figures Democrats could call upon in 2024 to face Trump – Joe, Kamala, Pete Buttigieg, Amy Klobuchar. In this day and age, I think that anyone who feels like Washington D.C. establishment will probably lose to Trump. I suggest that the best way for Democrats to defeat Trump would be to enlist someone from outside their comfort zone who feels like an Independent – someone like Mark Cuban – who would soak up some of Trump’s anti-establishment energy. Dems could also consider enlisting a moderate Republican Romney-type in a unity ticket against Trump.

These seem like dramatic moves. But they are precisely the kind of moves that Democrats should be considering if they are serious about avoiding a Trump victory in 2024. You already lost to him once in part by anointing Hillary Clinton in 2016. Business as usual by the Democrats could lead to catastrophe in 2024.

Democracy is in for a massive challenge in 2024. Will we be up for it? It starts with sizing up the seriousness of the threat and the need to approach things differently than we have in the past.

When the Economy Itself is Political

Hello, I hope that you had a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday! Evelyn and I spent it with family and friends eating turkey and pumpkin pie.

This week on the Forward Podcast I sit down with one of my favorite journalists, Derek Thompson who writes about economics and technology for the Atlantic. He also has a brand new podcast called “Plain English.”

I asked Derek a simple question: “What is going on with the economy?” We discuss the growth numbers, people leaving their jobs/the Great Resignation, remote work, inflation and much more.

One turn of the conversation in particular troubled me and blew my mind: the recent Michigan consumer confidence survey showed an extreme difference between the way Democrats and Republicans think the economy is faring. The latest reading for November had Democrats at 88.4 and Republicans at 37.8, a record difference of 49 points (D+49). Independents were at 70. Derek noted that there has never been this big a gap in terms of the way people perceived the economy based on their party affiliation.

Now, you could argue that maybe people in blue areas on the coasts are genuinely experiencing different/better economic conditions than people in redder areas. But the gap in perceptions was the opposite in October 2019, with Republicans at 119, Democrats at 71.6 and Independents at 100 (R+47). You’ll recall that Trump was the President then.

Yes, Democrats are 49 points more optimistic now, and Republicans were 47 points more optimistic last Fall, with each swing the biggest on record. Apparently, how we feel about the people in charge determines how we feel the economy is faring.

If you turn on Fox News right now, you’ll see relentless blaring about skyrocketing inflation and economic distress. On the other side you’ll see very different coverage. The Democrats are often talking down inflation while the Republicans treat it as unprecedented.

As usual, as Derek points out, the reality is somewhere in the middle. Inflation is real and serious and painful, but not as apocalyptic or unprecedented as it’s being made out to be in some circles.

It should be emphasized that the gaps in party perception of the economy being this big is unprecedented. For example, as recently as 2016 the gap was less than half its current level over 5 surveys (D+21).

Michael Grunwald wrote in Politico in 2020: “There is a line of thinking that America has entered a kind of postmodern political era where the appearance of governing is just as politically powerful as actual governing, because most Americans now live in partisan spin bubbles that insulate them from facts on the ground.” Passing laws, solving problems, and measuring impacts don’t matter as much as arguing for your version of reality with aligned media outlets reinforcing your preferred narrative.

I know, this is dark stuff. Our country is getting so unmoored that there are two distinct versions of reality that determine people’s perceptions of day-to-day economic conditions. We imagine that the two parties will wage a contest based on policies and how we are doing. Instead, the argument itself is replacing governance.

What does this mean? First, we should acknowledge the situation that we’re in; we are in a time when people’s feelings about who is in charge are now so strong that they override other inputs.

Second, there is a need to amend our media landscape so that there is some type of objective reality that can be used as a starting point. Today, it’s a lot to expect all Americans to be on the same page. But if a critical mass of people can agree on certain facts in a polarized country, they can be the swing group.

Last, if you want to know how the economy is doing, apparently you should ask an Independent.

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Where the Action Is

Hello, and Happy Thanksgiving! I hope that you are lined up to enjoy a wonderful holiday with friends and family. Evelyn and I are hosting family members – we’ve ordered a turkey to make sure that we don’t mess it up.

I’m writing about something you may have seen in the news; I’ve endorsed David McKinley for re-election to Congress in West Virginia. I’m very excited about it.

First some background - Congressional district lines are being redrawn, as they are once every 10 years in line with population changes in the Census. The way the math works is that the number of House seats – 435 – remains constant but the population shifts. Some states gain seats – this time Texas gained two seats and Florida, North Carolina, Colorado, Montana and Oregon gained one seat each. Some states lose a seat – this time New York, California, Illinois, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia each lost a House seat.

Nationally, this probably makes the House a bit more Republican, as the states that gained seats are a bit redder.

Congressional lines are being redrawn in every state around the country regardless of whether the seat count remained the same or not. This process is controlled at the state level. In a handful of states – like Virginia and Washington – there is a bipartisan redistricting commission. This is, of course, vastly preferable. But for the most part it’s state legislators and party officials drawing the lines. If you are the party in control, you want to help your side by making formerly competitive seats ‘safe’ and reduce the number of competitive seats.

It turns out that neither party likes actually competing. The number of swing districts is declining fast, with 5 competitive districts already swapped out for a very blue or very red district. The 83% of non-competitive seats will rise to 90%.

That is life in a duopoly.

A lack of competitive races means that the vast majority of the action will be in the party primaries. That’s where 9 out of 10 of the races will be decided.

West Virginia lost a Congressional district. That means that two current members of Congress – David McKinley and Alex Mooney – will square off for one seat. It being West Virginia, as you’d imagine, both are Republican.

I met Rep. McKinley during the summer of 2020. Humanity Forward was looking for Republican members of Congress to co-sponsor a cash relief bill during the pandemic. David stepped up. He decided to co-sponsor the initial bill with Lisa Blunt Rochester, a Democrat from Delaware.

A Republican from West Virginia and a Democrat from Delaware made quite a formidable demonstration of the depth and breadth of support for cash relief. David’s leadership was one big reason that Americans got stimulus checks.

David led again when he became one of only 13 Republican House members to support the bipartisan infrastructure bill that just passed Congress. He knew it would help his constituents in West Virginia, in part because he’d worked in construction. He knew what the jobs, livelihoods and improvements would mean to the people around him.

Of course, this being 2021, he’s being criticized for doing what he thinks is right by Alex Mooney, his opponent, who has been backed by Trump.

David McKinley is exactly the kind of representative we need in Congress. Someone who has his own moral compass and will do what he believes is in the best interests of the people of West Virginia.

I’m supporting David McKinley’s re-election and I hope that you will too. His primary is on May 12th, less than 6 months away. In a race like his, every donation will make a huge difference.

Thanks for reading. I hope that you have a wonderful holiday with loved ones!! I’ve been looking forward to this holiday myself for a while now. I’m ever-thankful for the YangGang. :)

Yours gratefully,

- Andrew

Where the Leaders Are

Who do you trust in American life? 

I’ve been thinking a lot about this for the last number of years.  Recently, it has been around the pandemic – who do Americans trust for their medical advice?  But it’s been on my mind for a while. 

I’m 46, so the list of people that comes to mind for me is a little bit dated:  Oprah, Warren Buffett, Tom Hanks.  In an earlier generation you would have listed TV journalists like Dan Rather or Tom Brokaw.  Today, by the numbers Joe Rogan has to be up there. 

Of course, our politics shapes who we trust and admire.  The most admired Americans according to Gallup are the Obamas and Trump, with various other political figures making the list separated by party.  After them it’s a steep dropoff. 

On the podcast with Zach this week, I noted that we have something of a leadership vacuum in American life.  I have a theory as to why that is.  The market forces are so strong today that they shape our behavior in just about every aspect of our lives and careers – certainly in politics and the media.  Success means doing what the market demands.  If you do more of it, you do better. 

Yet true leadership probably, in many environments, would mean the opposite.  Think about the brave whistleblower or the conscientious objector. 

There is an essay penned by William Deresiewicz in the American Scholar delivered to cadets at West Point that laid out the case very convincingly: 

We have a crisis of leadership in America because our overwhelming power and wealth, earned under earlier generations of leaders, made us complacent, and for too long we have been training leaders who only know how to keep the routine going. Who can answer questions, but don’t know how to ask them. Who can fulfill goals, but don’t know how to set them. Who think about how to get things done, but not whether they’re worth doing in the first place. What we have now are the greatest technocrats the world has ever seen, people who have been trained to be incredibly good at one specific thing, but who have no interest in anything beyond their area of exper­tise. What we don’t have are leaders.

What we don’t have, in other words, are thinkers. People who can think for themselves. People who can formulate a new direction: for the country, for a corporation or a college, for the Army—a new way of doing things, a new way of looking at things. People, in other words, with vision.

Take the time to read the essay in its entirety – it’s powerful stuff.   

We like to think that the person who goes against the grain is then prized and elevated.  Sometimes they are.  But just as often, we read a headline about them and then they disappear, or there is no headline.  The truth is that going along and getting along, as Deresiewicz puts it, is not just the path of least resistance – it’s often the path to market-based rewards. 

Leadership, in my mind, often means walking away from short-term rewards and staking out your own path. 

The Forward Party is now about six weeks old.  One of the joys of the past six weeks has been meeting like-minded people who have been operating in the political wilderness for a number of years.  People who have been agitating for non-partisan open primaries like John Opdycke or ranked choice voting like Rob Richie, or for a fairer more representative government like Nick Troiano or Josh Silver, or for a better set of political incentives like Katherine Gehl.  These are people who have been making a difficult case for years with little reward.  Most of them left the well-lit marketplace of politics to fight for a cause that few cared about because they believed it is the public good. 

They are, in other words, people with real vision.  Leaders.  Some of the best I’ve met. 

Making common cause with them is a lot of fun. 

One of my knacks, I believe, is that I recognize leadership when I see it.  I’m attracted to it and emboldened by it.  I hope you are too. 

Of course, you don’t need to start an organization to be a leader.  Sometimes, just sending your friend an article or starting a conversation is exactly the right step.  Every person I've met who has professed excitement for the Forward Party has been phenomenal.  I can't wait for there to be more of us and to get us all together in an arena or conference hall.  

The country needs more leaders in a very difficult time.  Let’s provide them. 

- Andrew

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From Without or Within

I did an interview with Bari Weiss last week, and she asked me a question that I’ve been getting a lot for the past number of weeks: 

“Do you think you’re better off trying to reform an existing organization, or building something new?” 

Now, coming from Bari this is kind of a loaded question.  She famously left the New York Times to produce journalism on her own (her letter of resignation is legendary), and I’m sure many people asked her the same thing.  She also is now part of the founding team of the brand new University of Austin, so she has a penchant for trying to build from the ground up. 

I laughed and said that I’m a fan of both approaches, but I’m more of a build it up kind of person. 

It’s true.  And it made me reflect – how many times have we seen a major organization reform from within? 

America has faced a cascading loss of trust in many institutions over the past number of years.  The media, schools, and our political leadership come to mind.  You could also throw in the Catholic Church, Wall Street, or big tech.  Most recently with Covid, perhaps the CDC. 

Which of these institutions has seen meaningful reform or rejuvenation? 

It’s hard to say.  Most of the time, reform now takes the form of optics.  In a time of rapid news cycles, the most common plan is to hunker down and wait for the storm to pass and for people to get upset about something else.  Maybe you make a commitment to improve.  Maybe you try to recruit visible figures – say women or an underrepresented minority – who can help shield you from a certain sort of criticism. 

Genuine reform or accountability has been absent in most areas.  It is fueling our mistrust. 

Of course, the question posed to me was probably about politics.  And we certainly have seen political movements overtake political parties in the past number of years. 

Most conspicuously, Donald Trump took control of the Republican Party in 2016 in the primaries.  At the same time, Bernie Sanders vied for control of the Democratic Party with Hillary Clinton and lost narrowly.  The 2020 Democratic primary could be seen similarly, with Bernie losing narrowly again versus Biden. 

Donald Trump and Bernie both represented a certain form of institutional revolt - this set of establishment figures is not working for me, and I want to move on to something different. 

I drew a similar conclusion when I was writing ‘Forward’ – our political system is designed not to deliver results for us but to disappoint, divide and frustrate.  It’s why I now see the most urgent mission as reforming our decrepit political system so that it is more genuinely representative.  There shouldn’t be only 2 major parties – there should be 3, 4, 5, 6 or 7.  The Democratic Party and Republican Party each contains at least 2 parties at this point: Progressives and Moderate Democrats on one hand, Moderate Republicans and conservatives/Trumpers on the other.  Our country would almost certainly be functioning better if each of these parties could act independently, as you’d see different coalitions being built and a higher resistance to authoritarianism.  In an era of non-partisan open primaries and ranked choice voting, you’d see a much better set of incentives. 

Republican members of Congress are being criticized for voting for infrastructure, despite the party being historically for it, simply because it might help the other side.  What’s up with that? 

It’s the system itself that needs to be changed.  That’s a vision that will energize the people.  62% of us want to move away from the duopoly. 

Was it plausible to try to takeover and reform the Democratic Party?  I met thousands of Democrats when I was running for President.  They were, by and large, great people.  That’s not a trait exclusive to Democrats – most of the people I met on the trail were great. 

One interesting facet of the Democratic Party that I’ve noticed is that they tend to have an expectation of a certain sort of candidate and then back into it.  You saw it in Buffalo – the ‘wrong’ candidate won so at least some Democrats decided to run it back.  Bernie got sandbagged both times in different ways.  The DCCC and the DSCC have been known to put their thumbs on the scale to favor certain candidates – mainly those they think can raise money and seem ‘electable’ by their calculation or who won’t rock the boat. 

You do have to say this for the Republicans – there is no wrong candidate.  Now, this has its own set of issues.  

I have nothing against people who believe operating within a system is the best approach.  A lot of good can be done from within various organizations.  We need great people everywhere.  And sometimes it’s very difficult to do anything but work within a given context because crafting an alternative is too high a bar. 

But I am more of a “Build It” guy.  I think that’s what this era needs.  And the right movement can draw millions in a very short period of time.  

Let's build what the country needs.  

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This week on the podcast Zach and I discuss the infrastructure bill, Zillow, new universities and more.  And the Forward Tour is coming to New York City this Saturday at City Winery – it’s going to be a great event!  Zach and Evelyn will be there so you know it’ll be good.  I’ll take photographs and meet everyone and sign books.  Looking forward to seeing you there or tell your friends!  

The Duopoly is Unique – and Not In a Good Way

Hello, I hope that you had a great Fall weekend!  We had a full one ourselves that included celebrating marathon-running friends and a Memorial Service for a friend’s mother who was taken far too soon. 

This week on the podcast I spoke to political scientist Lee Drutman of New America.  Lee wrote a book that came out earlier this year called “Breaking the Two-Party Doom Loop: The Case for Multiparty Democracy in America.”  In it, Lee breaks down why we should expect polarization and dysfunction because of our current setup.  In our podcast, Lee notes: 

“The US is really the only two-party system among advanced Democracies, and a bunch of countries use this system called proportional representation . . . and that allows for multiple parties to flourish.  That actually seems to work pretty well because then parties bargain together and coalitions are fluid, and those countries seem to be a lot better at solving problems.” 

It was invigorating talking to Lee because he’s spent years studying other democracies around the world, as well as years in D.C.  The fact that he’s reached these conclusions is a powerful statement.  Lee previously wrote a book on lobbying, which led him to painstakingly research the workings of Washington D.C.   It turns out that the U.S. is virtually alone in having a two-party system and then expecting it to work.  We truly are living through the greatest design failure in the history of the world. 

You can see some of Lee’s many articles on the duopoly in Vox, The Atlantic, Five Thirty Eight, and elsewhere here.

Lee champions the Fair Representation Act – a measure to convert to multi-member districts with proportional representation – as a way to transition to a multi-party system.  I agree, but acknowledge the difficulty of getting it passed through Congress.  In the meantime, Lee believes ranked choice voting and organizing a third party are immediate and practical steps we can take all over the country. 

People imagine that upending the duopoly is impossible.  But when enough people get together, the impossible becomes inevitable.  That’s where I think we are heading. 

Even in the past month, I see many more people waking up to the fact that our system right now is not designed to deliver results but instead to inflame us against each other and disappoint.  It’s also terribly subject to authoritarianism in part because the genuine loyalty either party commands is so low. 

Can we do better?  Of course we can.  We just have to keep spreading the word that other democracies have figured this out.  If they can, we can too. 

The social psychologist Jonathan Haidt said in a recent article in Politico, “The worst number of political parties to have in a country is one.  But the second worst number is two.” 

He’s right.  Let’s get that number up as quickly as possible. 

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The Forward Tour is coming to New York City this Saturday at City Winery – it’s going to be a great event!  I’ll take photographs and meet everyone and sign books.  Looking forward to seeing you there! 

Lessons from Virginia

Tuesday night the political world was stunned by the victory of Glenn Youngkin as the next governor of Virginia.  Youngkin is a Republican who won a state that Joe Biden had won by 10 points just 12 months earlier. 

There are a number of takeaways.  First, the political climate seems very negative for Democrats nationally.  In New Jersey, a state that Biden won by 16 points, the governor’s race was neck-and-neck.  Biden’s current approval rating hovers around 43% with 71% of Americans recently saying that America is on the wrong track.  The enthusiasm among Democratic voters in VA was low, despite Obama, Biden, Harris and virtually every other Democratic luminary showing up in Virginia to rally the troops. 

The likelihood of Republicans winning back the House of Representatives in 2022 seems like a near-certainty if the election were held today.

Second, the dominant messages from Democrats – defeat Trump and managing Covid – are no longer working.  Terry McAuliffe tried to tie Youngkin to Trump, to little success.  The American public is tired of hearing about Covid, and candidates can’t run on it any longer. Democrats need a positive agenda that they can point to that might excite people. The stalled infrastructure and reconciliation bills certainly didn’t help as they gave a sense of a party arguing with itself rather than delivering results. 

Third, it pointed a path to a Republican future post-Trump.  Glenn Youngkin reminds many of Mitt Romney – a buttoned-up private equity executive who came across as moderate in terms of personality and social views.  Youngkin ran on education issues and curbing Democratic excesses – and that was enough to eat into the Democratic margin in suburbs.  Rural voters flocked to Youngkin in huge numbers.  A moderate Republican can retain the base while competing in swing districts, at least in Virginia. 

The results in Virginia, most of all, pointed to the fragility of any electoral results and the low loyalty voters have even after casting their vote.  Again, Virginia went to Biden by 10 points just months ago, and all of the signs have pointed to Virginia as a blue-leaning state as demographics have changed and suburbs expanded.  Yet Youngkin won.  The pendulum will keep swinging back and forth while people get more and more fed up. 

I can see very clearly the path to 2022 and 2024.  After that, it’s not clear what happens, because one of the products of this dynamic is that people grow more and more dispirited. 

A friend said to me, “The Democrats’ main emotional appeal seems to be fear.  But you can’t be afraid all of the time.  It wears off.” 

That’s as good a lesson as any to take from Virginia.