Skip to content
Search

Latest Stories

Top Stories

The debate, the political duopoly and the future of American democracy

Trump and Biden at the debate

Our political dysfunction was on display during the debate in the simple fact of the binary choice on stage: Trump vs Biden.

Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post via Getty Images

Johnson is the executive director of the Election Reformers Network, a national nonpartisan organization advancing common-sense reforms to protect elections from polarization.

The talk is all about President Joe Biden’s recent debate performance, whether he’ll be replaced at the top of the ticket and what it all means for the very concerning likelihood of another Trump presidency. These are critical questions.

But Donald Trump is also a symptom of broader dysfunction in our political system. That dysfunction has two key sources: a toxic polarization that elevates cultural warfare over policymaking, and a set of rules that protects the major parties from competition and allows them too much control over elections. These rules entrench the major-party duopoly and preclude the emergence of any alternative political leadership, giving polarization in this country its increasingly existential character.


That broader dysfunction was also on display during the debate in the simple fact of the binary choice on stage: Trump vs Biden, a set of options that 67 percent of voters said they don’t want.

Outside of politics it seems axiomatic: more options, better outcomes. Choice — and the innovations that create new choices — underlie economic prosperity, individual self-determination and the decline of dogma. But in American politics, we have only two choices, the Republican and Democratic parties — now, and seemingly forever ahead.

Practically half (49 percent) of the country does not affiliate with either party, becoming, in effect, the politically homeless. They include many conservatives dismayed by Trump but unable to vote for the party they’ve always opposed. A new cohort could well join the homeless if Democratic insiders stick with a presidential candidate half the party sees as unfit for the Oval Office.

Like so much else that’s wrong in our democracy, lack of choice goes back to a set of stupid rules, including rules allowing partisan legislatures to draw districts and set hurdles to ballot access, and rules establishing party-controlled primaries. The Electoral College also plays a huge role in entrenching America’s two-party system, and it’s important to understand how that happens.

Looking at other democracies with an elected president illustrates the problem. Most such countries use a two-round system: first, a vote among all candidates, and then, if no candidate wins 50 percent or more, the top two go on to a runoff round.

Researchers have found that this approach facilitates formation of new parties and “entices political parties towards the center of the ideological spectrum.” In the U.S., states like California and Washington use this same system for their legislatures and experience less polarization than other states as a result.

The party of Emmanuel Macron in France, launched in 2016 to challenge the long-dominant left and right parties, is exactly the kind of new political option that a two-round system with a runoff can incentivize. In Macron’s first presidential run, his 24 percent support in a field of 11 was enough to make the runoff round, where he won easily against right-wing activist Marine Le Pen. Following the recent election, where no party won a parliamentary majority, France faces the main downside of a multiparty system: coalition government. But even that outcome seems an acceptable cost to pay for the benefit of a range of options and the opportunity for new parties to form.

The United States also has a two-round system but it’s completely nonsensical. The first round is really a series of separate, simple-plurality elections for electoral votes, in which candidates gain nothing for coming in second or third. That system is very hard for new parties, and many end up not fielding a candidate to avoid the spoiler stigma. The second round also strongly favors the incumbent parties: If no candidate wins a majority of electoral votes, the election is decided by the House of Representatives, in effect by members of the established parties. These rules have stunted new parties from Theodore Roosevelt’s Progressive Party all the way to No Labels.

In the near term, the best chance for presidential election change in the United States is the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, which commits states to giving all electoral votes to the candidate with the most popular votes nationwide. The compact in effect establishes a one-round presidential system, won by whoever has the most votes. A third-party candidate could conceivably win, creating the incentives needed to invest in and build a strong third party.

Deeper (and arguably needed) changes to presidential elections, like a two-round national popular vote system or a proportional approach, would require a constitutional amendment, a seemingly impossible hurdle. But here’s an optimistic scenario that could change that equation. If the Democrats do change candidates, and if voters in the battleground states rally around the new leader, it’s possible the Democrat could win the Electoral College but lose the popular vote, given high enthusiasm for Trump in red states. If that were to happen, then both parties could conceivably be motivated to change the Electoral College, with both having suffered from its flaws.

Of course, much more immediate concerns are on people’s minds right now, including mobilizing the arguments to persuade Biden to step down and constructing a fair, transparent process to select a replacement. In this context, it may seem odd to raise constitutional amendments and deep systemic reforms. But we need a clear understanding of the underlying structural problems that have left us with two massively unpopular presidential candidates and two parties that leave so many Americans politically homeless.

Broken systems create broken incentives and bad outcomes. Yes, bad guys threaten our nation, but bad rules are to blame for their ascendancy. Those bad rules are still not talked about enough.

Read More

U.S. President Barack Obama speaking on the phone in the Oval Office.

U.S. President Barack Obama talks President Barack Obama talks with President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan during a phone call from the Oval Office on November 2, 2009 in Washington, DC.

Getty Images, The White House

‘Obama, You're 15 Years Too Late!’

The mid-decade redistricting fight continues, while the word “hypocrisy” has become increasingly common in the media.

The origin of mid-decade redistricting dates back to the early history of the United States. However, its resurgence and legal acceptance primarily stem from the Texas redistricting effort in 2003, a controversial move by the Republican Party to redraw the state's congressional districts, and the 2006 U.S. Supreme Court decision in League of United Latin American Citizens v. Perry. This decision, which confirmed that mid-decade redistricting is not prohibited by federal law, was a significant turning point in the acceptance of this practice.

Keep ReadingShow less
Hand of a person casting a ballot at a polling station during voting.

Gerrymandering silences communities and distorts elections. Proportional representation offers a proven path to fairer maps and real democracy.

Getty Images, bizoo_n

Gerrymandering Today, Gerrymandering Tomorrow, Gerrymandering Forever

In 1963, Alabama Governor George Wallace declared, "Segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever." (Watch the video of his speech.) As a politically aware high school senior, I was shocked by the venom and anger in his voice—the open, defiant embrace of systematic disenfranchisement, so different from the quieter racism I knew growing up outside Boston.

Today, watching politicians openly rig elections, I feel that same disbelief—especially seeing Republican leaders embrace that same systematic approach: gerrymandering now, gerrymandering tomorrow, gerrymandering forever.

Keep ReadingShow less
An oversized ballot box surrounded by people.

Young people worldwide form new parties to reshape politics—yet America’s two-party system blocks them.

Getty Images, J Studios

No Country for Young Politicians—and How To Fix That

In democracies around the world, young people have started new political parties whenever the establishment has sidelined their views or excluded them from policymaking. These parties have sometimes reinvigorated political competition, compelled established parties to take previously neglected issues seriously, or encouraged incumbent leaders to find better ways to include and reach out to young voters.

In Europe, a trio in their twenties started Volt in 2017 as a pan-European response to Brexit, and the party has managed to win seats in the European Parliament and in some national legislatures. In Germany, young people concerned about climate change created Klimaliste, a party committed to limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, as per the Paris Agreement. Although the party hasn’t won seats at the federal level, they have managed to win some municipal elections. In Chile, leaders of the 2011 student protests, who then won seats as independent candidates, created political parties like Revolución Democrática and Convergencia Social to institutionalize their movements. In 2022, one of these former student leaders, Gabriel Boric, became the president of Chile at 36 years old.

Keep ReadingShow less
How To Fix Gerrymandering: A Fair-Share Rule for Congressional Redistricting

Demonstrators gather outside of The United States Supreme Court during an oral arguments in Gill v. Whitford to call for an end to partisan gerrymandering on October 3, 2017 in Washington, DC

Getty Images, Olivier Douliery

How To Fix Gerrymandering: A Fair-Share Rule for Congressional Redistricting

The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield, and government to gain ground. ~ Thomas Jefferson, Letter to Col. Edward Carrington, Paris, 27 May 1788

The Problem We Face

The U.S. House of Representatives was designed as the chamber of Congress most directly tethered to the people. Article I of the Constitution mandates that seats be apportioned among the states according to population and that members face election every two years—design features meant to keep representatives responsive to shifting public sentiment. Unlike the Senate, which prioritizes state sovereignty and representation, the House translates raw population counts into political voice: each House district is to contain roughly the same number of residents, ensuring that every citizen’s vote carries comparable weight. In principle, then, the House serves as the nation’s demographic mirror, channeling the diverse preferences of the electorate into lawmaking and acting as a safeguard against unresponsive or oligarchic governance.

Nationally, the mismatch between the overall popular vote and the partisan split in House seats is small, with less than a 1% tilt. But state-level results tell a different story. Take Connecticut: Democrats hold all five seats despite Republicans winning over 40% of the statewide vote. In Oklahoma, the inverse occurs—Republicans control every seat even though Democrats consistently earn around 40% of the vote.

Keep ReadingShow less