IVN is joined by Nate Allen, founder and Executive Director of Utah Approves, to discuss Approval Voting and his perspective on changing the incentives of our elections.
Podcast: Seeking approval in Utah
Site Navigation
Search
Latest Stories
Join a growing community committed to civic renewal.
Subscribe to The Fulcrum and be part of the conversation.
Top Stories
Latest news
Read More
U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth testifies during a Senate Committee on Appropriations hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., on July 21, 2026. Hegseth is crafting a strong and masculine identity for his audience as he reportedly contemplates a presidential run.
(Alex Wroblewski/AFP/Getty Images/TNS)
Politicians Can’t Just ’Give the People What They Want’
Oct 16, 2026
For reasons that will baffle my many detractors, I am often asked for advice about being an opinion journalist. One of my standard responses is: You have to be willing to disappoint your biggest fans.
What I mean is that if you start to see your job as telling fans what they want to hear, you risk becoming an entertainer rather than a thinker, and eventually you become a caricature. I’ve seen it happen numerous times. Patrick Buchanan was a brilliant columnist and a serious person. But over the course of his career, he listened too much to the people who said, “Go Pat, go!” and too little to friends who said, “I think that’s taking it too far.”
In journalism — or what passes for it — you can see the same arc most acutely in talk radio and TV hosts, who define their roles as telling the audience what it wants to hear rather than what it needs to hear. In the early Trump era, many prominent pundits were fairly conventional conservatives. When the audience veered towards populism and MAGA, the hosts followed the advice widely attributed to the French 19th century politician, Alexandre Auguste Ledru-Rollin: “There go the people, I must follow them, for I am their leader.” (In fairness, he didn’t say it, critics ascribed it to him.)
But the most dangerous realm for this dynamic isn’t political journalism. It’s politics. Politicians often are captured by their true-believing base. It’s most commonly seen among “conviction” politicians, who make a name for themselves on a single issue or idea. Congressman and Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan’s deep populist support was enough to earn him the Democratic nomination three times (1896, 1900 and 1908), but his support wasn’t wide enough to ever win.
Segregationists like George Wallace, socialists like Norman Thomas, and even Buchanan himself offer similar examples of the problem. Sarah Palin, Bernie Sanders, Kari Lake and Ron Paul provide more recent cautionary tales.
One of the key problems is ego. Politicians see huge crowds or read favorable media coverage and assume their people are the people. In the U.K., socialist Labor politician Jeremy Corbyn was wildly popular among people who liked Jeremy Corbyn. He brought his superfans into the party, but his superfans didn’t represent the broader electorate or even the traditional rank and file who fled the party in droves.
At a campaign event for Lake’s 2022 bid for an Arizona U.S. Senate seat, she asked the crowd, “We don’t have any McCain Republicans in here, do we? All right, get the hell out.” John McCain was one of the most dominant political figures in Arizona, winning six back-to-back Senate elections. Thinking that she didn’t need support from Republicans, or the Democrats and independents who voted for McCain, was a pristine example of mistaking intensity of support for quantity of support.
But I started with journalism to illustrate a point. Jesse Watters, a reliable water-carrier for President Trump, is Fox News’ most popular prime-time host, averaging about 2.7 million viewers per night. That means on any given night, roughly 346 million Americans aren’t watching. But if you’re Trump, you might think Watters is representative of the American people.
Now Watters’ audience does matter, not least because GOP primary voters and small donors are undoubtedly more likely to watch. And because of idiotic “reforms” to our system, many politicians now care more about the primary electorate than the general electorate, because the greatest threat to incumbency is in party primaries. Also, primaries are what matter for the nomination.
The result: Politicians orient themselves to small, intense slices of the electorate. This polarizing dynamic is further intensified by social media. Politicians and activists mistake the “vibes” of X and TikTok for the real world. They become intensely “online” and responsive to the feedback they’re fed by social media algorithms.
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth recently told Jack Posobiec, the exceedingly online conspiracy theorist and right-wing troll, that the Pentagon would livestream the execution by firing squad of Nidal Hasan, the Fort Hood shooter. I have no issue with Hasan being executed, but a livestreamed execution of a man in a wheelchair is grotesque. Hegseth, who is reportedly contemplating a presidential run, cares about appearing strong and manly to Posobiec and his audience. Posobiec, if you didn’t know, is an open superfan of Spanish dictator Francisco Franco, hosting “Franco Fridays” on his podcast.
It seems that Hegseth’s pandering to a tiny sliver of the electorate won’t yield a political snuff film. Even Trump and JD Vance are leery of the idea.
But, who knows, maybe if Watters starts pushing it, they’ll change their minds.
Jonah Goldberg is editor-in-chief of The Dispatch and the host of The Remnant podcast. His Twitter handle is @JonahDispatch.
Keep ReadingShow less
Recommended
Congress approval is at a record-low 10%. Moderation and consensus-building, not partisan theatrics, are how Washington gets problems solved.
Richard Sharrocks / Getty Images
Reclaiming the Politics of the Possible
Oct 15, 2026
Washington is stuck in a cycle of performative conflict. The incentives seem to reward outrage, not outcomes that last; purity tests, not problem‑solving. So it’s no surprise that after three shutdowns in less than a year, public approval of Congress collapsed to just 10 percent this spring. (Gallup, April 2026.) But the country we live in — where many middle-income families report persistent financial strain and businesses are navigating unprecedented technological upheaval — cannot be governed by theatrics. Breaking this cycle requires moderation, consensus‑building, and a cooperative approach to governance.
This is not a call for centrism as an ideology. Instead, this is a call for transformative leaders to embrace moderation as their governing strategy, recognizing that in a pluralistic country of nearly 350 million people durable solutions require broad and stable alliances. Ultimately, this is a call for the 240 million of us who are eligible to vote in November to elect consensus-builders instead of bomb-throwers, and healers instead of arsonists.
The Cost of Governing by Extremes
The consequences of zero‑sum politics are no longer abstract. They show up in the daily dysfunction of our federal government.
When Congress is locked in partisan trench warfare, even routine responsibilities become crises. Budgeting devolves into brinkmanship. Oversight becomes a weapon, not a safeguard. And businesses and households face policy whiplash whenever control of Washington changes hands: executive orders are reversed on day one, regulations are rewritten with each new administration, and laws passed on party-line votes are left perpetually exposed to repeal.
This is not sustainable, nor is it what voters want. Nine in ten Americans say compromise is crucial to getting anything done; only fifteen percent think fighting for their values matters more than actually finding a solution. (Walton Family Fdn., Nov. 2023.)
Moderation Is a Method
Moderation is often caricatured as mushy centrism — a bland midpoint between two poles. But in governance, moderation is something else entirely. It is a pragmatic operating system for our politically diverse republic.
Moderation means building coalitions broad enough to survive changes in political power. It means crafting federal programs that states with different political cultures will actually carry out, rather than resist or litigate. It means acknowledging that no party has a monopoly on good ideas, and that the best solutions often emerge from negotiation rather than unilateral action.
Perhaps the most practical argument for compromise is that laws built with support from both parties tend to endure, because the people who helped write them do not spend the next election cycle promising to tear them down. A bill that clears the Senate’s 60-vote threshold almost always carries the fingerprints of the chamber’s minority — and that shared ownership is what protects it when power changes hands. Compare the Americans with Disabilities Act, which passed with overwhelming bipartisan majorities in 1990 and has been settled law ever since, with the Affordable Care Act or the 2017 tax cuts: each passed on a party-line vote, and each spent years as partisan fodder.
In poll after poll, Americans prefer practical, incremental, cross‑partisan solutions. (Gallup, March 2026; Morning Consult/Next American Era, July 2026.) We want leaders who can disagree without demonizing one another, and who can legislate without turning every issue into a referendum on national identity.
But there is a catch, and it helps explain why gridlock persists: most voters want the other side to bend more than their own. In one recent Pew Research Center survey, roughly three-quarters of both Democrats and Republicans said it was very important for the opposing party’s leaders to compromise. However, fewer than half said the same about their own party’s leaders. (Pew, Oct. 2025.) Genuine moderation asks something harder: holding one’s own side to the same standard expected of the other.
Consensus-Building Is Not Naïve — It’s Necessary
Congress, by design, requires collaboration. The framers created a system that forces negotiation through federalism, bicameralism, and checks and balances. So when certain lawmakers denounce compromise as weakness, they are actually disparaging one of the overarching objectives of our nation’s Constitution.
The House’s Problem Solvers Caucus is proof the system can still work: several dozen Democrats and Republicans (in equal numbers) are bound by a promise requiring broad support from both parties before the group will endorse any bill. The Problem Solvers played a pivotal role in negotiating and passing the bipartisan infrastructure law, the CHIPS and Science Act, and the 2023 debt-ceiling deal.
What to Look for in November
Voters who want consensus-based leadership don’t have to take candidates at their word: they can look at the record. How often has an incumbent cosponsored legislation with members of the other party? Independent scorecards like the Lugar Center’s Bipartisan Index measure exactly that. Does a candidate belong to (or indicate a desire to join) a cross-party working group like the Problem Solvers Caucus? And when asked about a major issue, can a candidate name a single idea from the other side that deserves support or at least consideration? Candidates who cannot answer that question are telling you how they intend to govern.
Voters can also back reforms that would make consensus-based leadership the rule rather than the exception. Independent redistricting commissions, now used in a number of states, reduce the number of seats so safe that an incumbent’s only real threat is a primary challenge. Open or nonpartisan primaries give the broader electorate, not just each party’s most motivated voters, a say in who appears on the general-election ballot. None of these is a cure-all. But each one changes the incentives that today reward outrage over outcomes.
The voters who would be empowered by these reforms are not a fringe. Fully a quarter of Americans say neither party represents their interests well, majorities say both parties are too extreme, and the share viewing both parties unfavorably has nearly quadrupled since 2000. (Pew, Oct. 2025 and May 2026.) More than a third of eligible voters sat out the 2024 election (Pew, June 2025), many of whom feel neither party speaks for them. This “forgotten middle” is arguably the most important constituency in American politics, and certainly the most neglected. Give them something to vote for, not just someone to vote against, and they will show up.
The Politics of the Possible
The challenges ahead — like economic shifts, energy security, climate resilience, Social Security solvency, and our ballooning national debt — cannot be solved by one party alone. They require political leaders who are willing to work across fault lines, resist the gravitational pull of extremes, and restore both houses of Congress to their intended roles as deliberative bodies that thrive on collegiality and efficacy.
If we want a government capable of solving real problems, we must choose leaders who recognize the need for cooperation as a feature – not a bug – in the operating system the founders crafted nearly 250 years ago; who understand that principles actually get translated to policy through coordination, not combat. This is the politics of the possible. The founders built the operating system. Now it’s up to us to run it.
D. James Jones is the Chief Operating Officer of New Statecraft Institute, a DC-based think tank that conducts independent research and analysis of American public policy. He also serves as Senior Advisor to Resonant Public, a public affairs firm. He can be reached at djames@newstatecraft.org.
Keep ReadingShow less
Emily Scherer for The 19th; Getty Images
California’s New Law Aims To Close a Housing Gap for Domestic Violence Survivors
Oct 13, 2026
Domestic violence survivors often struggle to find housing, and California’s “Unseen and Unheard Housing Act” will help make more housing available to meet their specific needs.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed the bill Sunday requiring cities and counties to factor in domestic violence survivors when planning for future housing.
The state’s 540 local governments are required to submit a plan for land use every five to eight years, depending on population size. The plan analyzes and proposes ways to meet community needs around climate change, health, economics and equitable opportunities. Within that is an assessment of housing supply and demand, which is required by law to include overviews of housing for seniors, people with disabilities, farmworkers, women-led households, households with five or more members and the unhoused.
Now cities and counties will have to account for the needs of domestic violence survivors, too.
“Our hope is that this bill will significantly increase the supply of permanent housing for survivors, and will bring funding, attention, and action to address the invisible crisis of domestic violence survivors falling into homelessness when they leave their domestic violence situations,” said Jennifer Willover, housing policy analyst at the California Partnership to End Domestic Violence, which coordinates domestic violence advocacy and response across the state.
Domestic violence and housing go hand in hand. Some victims choose to stay in a home with abuse in order to keep them — or their kids — housed, while others find there is no place to go when they need to escape violence.
Domestic violence is often a precursor to homelessness: 17 percent of unhoused cisgender women experienced intimate partner violence — most often physical — in the six months prior to homelessness, according to a 2024 report.
Among unhoused survivors of recent domestic violence, 40 percent said the abuse was a factor in leaving their prior housing. Twenty percent said it was the main reason.
According to DomesticShelters.org, at least 70 percent of California’s 165 domestic violence services organizations provide emergency housing. But those stays are typically only one to three months; longer-term support is much more difficult for survivors to find — and funding for it is drying up.
Stable housing in the months and years after fleeing abuse is hard to come by. Cost is an enormous barrier, and survivors don’t always have income or money of their own. According to the National Network to End Domestic Violence, many abusive partners exert financial control over victims, such as by forbidding them from working, refusing to put assets in their name or not allowing access to bank accounts.
The Bureau of Economic Analysis ranks California as one of the highest cost-of-living states, and rent in the most populous cities can be thousands of dollars a month. Credit checks can also make it harder to find a place to stay if an abusive partner coerced a victim into taking out loans or opened credit cards in their name.
This new law doesn’t provide any solutions, but it elevates the needs of domestic violence survivors who make up a large share of the population. Recent research from Tulane University showed 61 percent of women, 45 percent of men and 84 percent of gender-nonconforming people reported experiencing intimate partner violence across their lifetimes.
California’s New Law Aims To Close a Housing Gap for Domestic Violence Survivors was originally published by The 19th and is republished with permission.
Keep ReadingShow less
empty classroom with desks and chalkboard
Photo by Ivan Aleksic on Unsplash
Who Gets a Seat?: Florida’s New Bans on Undocumented Students in Public Higher Education
Oct 08, 2026
Each year, roughly 8,000 undocumented students graduate from Florida high schools. In 2026, Florida became the newest state to pass a regulation prohibiting this population from enrolling in state public colleges and selective universities. In June 2026, Florida State Board of Education passed Rule 6A-10.0240, which requires all 28 Florida College System institutions to certify admitted students as citizens of the United States or have lawful presence. In September 2026, a separate state board extended a similar ban to Florida’s most selective public universities.
Throughout the United States, there are three states that have historically upheld similar barring policies: Alabama and South Carolina ban undocumented students from all public colleges and universities, while Georgia bars them only from its most selective public universities. Florida’s restrictions are administrative rules and regulations, not state laws passed by the Legislature. Similar bills died in committee during Florida’s 2026 legislative session.
What do Rule 6A-10.0240 and Regulation 6.001 restrict?
Rule 6A is categorized under the enrollment eligibility requirements for the Florida College System Institutions. The policy details that prior to being granted admission to any Florida College System institutions, students must provide proper documentation or proof of United States citizenship or lawful presence in order to successfully enroll in the institution. The rule applies to the 28 public colleges in the state but does not include public universities or private institutions. Some of the institutions under the Florida College System include Broward College, College of Central Florida, and Daytona State College. The rule does not apply to the 12 public universities in the State University System of Florida, which are overseen by a separate body called the Board of Governors.
However, on September 3, 2026, that Board of Governors voted unanimously to adopt a similar restriction for Florida’s selective universities. The board amended Regulation 6.001, its general admissions policy, so that anyone “present in the United States unlawfully” cannot enroll as a new student, beginning in the 2027-28 academic year.
Regulation 6.001 applies only to universities that did not admit all academically qualified applicants in the two most recent academic years. In other words, it covers selective public universities that turn away some qualified students. Currently, all 12 state universities use selective admissions. Students who are lawfully present, including international students on F-1 and J-1 visas, are not affected.
Together, the college rule and the university regulation mean that undocumented students will be barred from most of Florida’s public higher education system starting in 2027.
What Support are the New Rules Receiving?
Those in support of Rule 6A and Regulation 6.001 argue that taxpayer-funded public institutions should be reserved for students who are U.S. citizens or lawfully present in the country. Governor Ron DeSantis has described the June rule as putting Florida students and residents first. “I would rather have that spot go to a Florida resident,” DeSantis told reporters.
Other proponents of the new rules argue that they are simply formalizing expectations for students that already existed. Governor DeSantis has said that colleges never had a policy allowing students to be in the country without documentation, and that the rule simply requires them to verify status.
Supporters also argue that the state should not use public funds to benefit people living in the country without legal permission. After the Board of Governors vote, Lieutenant Governor Jay Collins called the September university rule “common sense.” He argued that Florida taxpayers should not pay for opportunities for people who entered the country illegally.
Supporters see the changes as the next step in a broader set of state policies. In 2025, DeSantis pushed lawmakers to repeal House Bill 851, the 2014 law that gave certain undocumented students in-state tuition rates. After the repeal, DeSantis described the enrollment ban as a natural follow-up, since the state no longer offered undocumented students tuition breaks.
Opposition to the New Rules
Some of the concerns shared by supporters of Rule 6A and Regulation 6.001 come under the assumption that undocumented immigrants are not taxpayers. However, critics point to data that show Florida raised about $1.8 billion in tax revenue from undocumented immigrants in 2022.
Many opponents also contend that the new rules contradict Florida’s state constitution which states that every child should receive adequate provision for education within the state’s borders. The new bans would affect undocumented students who are dual-enrolled in high school and college. The Florida Policy Institute (FPI) theorized that the state’s trend towards passing more restrictive policies will lead to undocumented students abandoning educational pathways, rendering them “locked out of higher education”.
Additionally, critics argue that the restriction on access to higher education will pose an economic burden to college and university systems. FPI stated that the new ban would lead to a loss of tuition and fees revenue, with an estimated loss of $15 million statewide. Opponents highlight that Florida colleges have struggled with declining enrollment rates and that the new rules will contribute to the declining enrollment.
Critics also argue that the State Board of Education overstepped its authority. Under Florida law, agencies may only adopt rules that carry out powers the Legislature has given them, and current law does not require college students to prove lawful presence. Critics add that the Legislature considered and rejected similar restrictions during its 2026 session.
Finally, critics argue the changes are openly discriminatory, prioritizing exclusion over opportunity. A coalition of immigrant advocacy and legal groups called the college rule “cruel” and urged the state to reconsider.
Future Outlook
Rule 6A-10.0240 and Regulation 6.001 are the latest in a series of restrictions on undocumented students in Florida higher education. Both take effect in the 2027-28 academic year. That gives colleges and universities about a year to build systems for checking students’ immigration status.
The changes have raised several questions about implementation. Rule 6A lets each school set its own verification procedures, and the Legislature’s Joint Administrative Procedures Committee, a bipartisan panel that reviews agency rules, warned that this approach gives each school too much discretion and could lead to different results at different colleges. The State Board of Education also has not clarified whether DACA recipients are covered under rule 6A.
The rules’ long-term future may depend on how these questions are answered. The Florida state legislature, which rejected similar bills in 2026, could write the policies into law, limit them, or leave them in place during its 2027 session.
This nonpartisan policy brief, written by an ACE fellow, is republished by The Fulcrum as part of our partnership with the Alliance for Civic Engagement and our NextGen initiative — elevating student voices, strengthening civic education, and helping readers better understand democracy and public policy.
Camila Rojas is an undergraduate student at Barnard College of Columbia University.
Keep ReadingShow less
Load More