Kevin Frazier will join the Crump College of Law at St. Thomas University as an Assistant Professor starting this Fall. He currently is a clerk on the Montana Supreme Court.
Imagine going to an ice cream shop known for its flavor selection. You walk in and immediately see that the shop lives up to its reputation. Flavors from different parts of the country and even different parts of the world are lined before you. Rocky Road catches your eye. Oreo, though, also looks tempting. The guy behind the counter asks for your choice - you switch at the last second and ask for two scoops of fudge brownie. But the scooper scowls and reports, “I can only offer chocolate or vanilla.” Shocked, you ask why. He quips, “The name of the store is ‘Two for You.’ The owner picks two flavors for us to sell each day and today you get chocolate or vanilla.”
Our political “flavor” preferences are also all over the place but the “owners of the shop”-- the individuals and entities with the most sway over our democracy– have forced us to pick from two choices many find either unacceptable or subpar. Some citizens would even claim to be allergic to one or both of the choices.
This effective limitation of political parties--and, consequently, of the range of possible political outcomes--is a societal choice. As with the ice cream offerings above, this artificial and forced limitation is unnecessary and unproductive. Just as a profit-seeking shop owner would try to cater to as many customers as possible by offering an array of flavors, a participation-motivated democracy would enable and encourage citizens to select from a broad range of political identities– after all, you’re far more likely to engage in a system that reflects your views and presents the possibility of advancing your policy priorities. The alternative -- the choiceless choice between two parties that may be as distasteful as salmon-flavored ice cream -- will motivate people to leave the ice cream shop (i.e., not vote, not pay attention, and question the legitimacy of our democratic institutions on the whole) or make a choice and leave disappointed (i.e. vote, but unwilling and with increased frustration).
The solution should be somewhat obvious using the ice cream shop analogy. Though the current two-party menu seems fixed, there are means for the people to provide with more choice. Alaska, for example, has adopted the Final Five voting system to elect its officials. In that system, all candidates compete in an open primary, which means that the two major parties have far less control over who makes it to the general elections. The top five finishers in that open primary then compete in the general election, with the winner being determined through ranked-choice voting (RCV). In a ranked-choice election, voters rank the candidates by order of their preference. If Alex, Bob, Cindy, David, and Emma made it to the general election, the RCV process would proceed as follows: if no candidate received a majority of the first place votes, then the candidate who received the fewest first place votes, let's say Alex, would be eliminated; with Alex eliminated, another tabulation would occur to see if any candidate received a majority of the first place voters--if not, the candidate with the fewest such votes would be eliminated; this process would continue until a single candidate earned majority support. Relatedly, cities across the U.S. --from San Francisco to New York City --have implemented different versions of RCV with the same goals of expanding voter choice, increasing candidate diversity, and increasing the odds of a more representative electoral system.
But my goal here isn’t to advocate for one reform over another. Proponents of these systems and others often fight over which “take-over” strategy of our democracy is best -- the real fight (and the corresponding resources used to sustain that fight) should instead be focused on claiming ownership in the first place. Any effort that returns democratic choice to the people, rather than the two parties, is worthwhile.
My goal is instead to remind Rocky Road fans - the independents and non-affiliated folks, fudge brownie supporters - the greens and libertarians, and everyone else that would opt out of a chocolate/vanilla binary that we, the people do not have to accept an artificially narrow democratic system. Political communities of all stripes have successfully made a dent in bringing down a two-party system that diminishes choice and participation--thereby decreasing our democratic potential. A better democracy is possible -- one with more choice, more representation, and more participation.
image of U.S. President Donald Trump is displayed on a digital billboard in Times Square in New York on April 8, 2026.
Trump is stuck between two realities. Neither serves the American people
Normally, I worry that events may overtake a column. But not so with the Iran war.
I don’t worry about running afoul of a headline or Truth Social post from the president because what is said about the situation is no longer very relevant to the reality.
On April 8, Nick Catoggio, my Dispatch colleague, dubbed an earlier stoppage with Iran “Schrödinger’s ceasefire.” This was a reference to the famous thought experiment by the physicist Erwin Schrödinger, who was trying to explain the weirdness of “superpositionality” in quantum physics. A cat in a box is both dead and alive at the same time until you open the box. Schrödinger meant to illustrate the absurdity of the idea that particles aren’t any one thing, but a “cloud of probabilities.”
The Trump administration is stuck in a word cloud of probabilities of his own making. The war is over. The war is on. The war isn’t a war. We have a deal, but we don’t have a deal, but we’re about to have a deal. We destroyed Iran’s military. No, we left it intact. We want regime change. No we don’t. We already accomplished it. We “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear program a year ago. We had to go to war in February to prevent nuclear war. The Strait of Hormuz is open, closed, or something in-between. No deal without “unconditional surrender.” Let’s make a deal!
This everything-all-at-once vibe can be disorienting, particularly since most Americans didn’t have a war with Iran on their bingo cards until the shooting had already started. President Trump didn’t prepare the country or consult with Congress beforehand because he thought it would all be a smashing success in a matter of weeks.
The miscalculation that started it all: killing Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and much of Iran’s senior leadership, on the first day of the war. To “the great proud people of Iran, I say tonight that the hour of your freedom is at hand,” Trump announced on Feb. 28. “When we are finished, take over your government. It will be yours to take. This will be probably your only chance for generations.”
I support regime change in Iran and shed no tears for Khamenei or his goons. But when you start a war by killing the regime’s top leaders, it’s not unreasonable for the remaining ones to conclude that you really intend regime change.
Khamenei was a murderous fanatic, but he was a fairly cautious one. He liked to threaten closing the Strait of Hormuz or attacking our regional allies, but he was reluctant to actually do it, fearing it would invite a regime change war. The mullahs and IRGC goons believed, not unreasonably, that if they lost their grip on power, they’d be lynched by the Iranian people they’ve brutalized for decades.
By starting with a regime change war, Trump removed any reason for the regime not to go for broke. When you have nothing to lose — particularly when you are a millenarian religious fanatic — a Persian Alamo strategy makes a lot of sense.
So Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz and attacked its neighbors.
But it turns out this wasn’t the Alamo. In the contest of wills, Trump blinked. The Iranian regime’s tolerance for punishment proved — so far — to be greater than Trump’s and that of our gulf allies. Militarily we could finish the job, but that would require ground troops and much greater economic turmoil. In a conflict Trump launched unilaterally without the prior support of Congress, NATO or the American people, Trump doesn’t have the political capital for that.
But that’s only half the problem. Trump wants the war over, but he doesn’t want to pay — militarily, economically, politically — what that would cost. So he wants to make a deal that ends it. But there is no deal available that wouldn’t come at an equally undesirable cost. Any deal that looks like what President Obama struck with the Iranians would be too embarrassing to bear. But the Iranians are convinced that they can get just such a deal, and they’re willing to drag things out as long as it takes.
The result: Trump’s in a box of his own making. He thinks he can talk his way out by simply asserting a reality that doesn’t exist. When the financial markets get nervous, he announces a breakthrough that is, at best, a possibility. When the Iranians agree to a deal that looks similar to one Obama might negotiate, Trump goes back to his threats.
It can’t go on forever. But I’m sure it’ll last until long after this column is forgotten.
Jonah Goldberg is editor-in-chief of The Dispatch and the host of The Remnant podcast. His Twitter handle is @JonahDispatch.