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!
