For a while I have been interested in politics and how the different government structures can affect the way politics play out. It is interesting to think about how the different structures cause different outcomes in the United States, Israel, France, or other democracies that have varying degrees of separation of powers, different ways of electing legislatures, and different roles for politicians. For example, Israel uses proportional representation to elect a Parliament, whereas the United States uses single-districts for two chambers. One of the most interesting things to me is how to reduce extreme polarization in the United States, which has been probably the most significant phenomenon of American politics in my memory. Drutman points out that the single-district structure promotes polarization as the parties get stronger and gerrymander their own districts.
For most of the book, Drutman is tracing the evolution of American politics to the point we arrived at today. This was a little tedious as someone who is generally familiar with it, but necessary. It is not only useful as an explanation of the facts themselves, but the description of the country's political evolution implies a sort of progress that situates this book in a historicist frame of mind. It contextualizes the fact that the position we are at in our politics is not one point flowing in a sea in which we could go back to the 1950s; rather, we are in a political situation that is the direct result of a political evolution that was always likely to lead to this point. Or at least I think that's what he's saying. He argues, citing Ted Lowi, that in modern politics, it is not possible for two parties to collapse all the meaningful policy choices into two parties, with one offering the government view and the other the opposition. Lowi argued for three parties, and Drutman argued for four, for reasons I will explain later.
Drutman points out that when they were formed, the dominant two parties were "incoherent and inchoate," and so they did not represent the threat that the founders initially feared that parties would bring. It would appear that this lulled the country into a false sense of security; that the threat was still there, but it would be delayed for several lifetimes before it could come to fruition, in which two parties could divide the country into warring halves, each convinced they represent the true will of the majority. From Drutman's perspective, there was no avoiding this outcome. And so, among those who are against parties, indifferent to parties, and for parties, Drutman is sort of reluctantly pro-political parties in government. He thinks they cannot be avoided, and so it is "mistaken and counterproductive" to try to fight the existence of parties in politics. They serve an important role for the voters, helping them distinguish between different policy platforms. The anti-partisan ideal at the founding that voters would study candidates closely and pick candidates based on their individual attributes has not occurred anywhere in the world so far as I know. It is for that reason that I think that the single-member district ideal at the founding is also defunct. It makes less sense to have single-member districts when voters are just voting based on the "R" or "D" next to a candidate's name anyway. That said, a single-member district still does retain the benefit of representing a small geographic area with its particular interests and concerns.
Drutman presents his argument from the end result, and reasons backwards how to get there. He argues that we should have a four party system. A two party system fails to conform, in his mind, to the complex alternatives inherent in modern government. It could function at a time when the parties organized themselves on something other than ideology and policy, as they did prior to the 1960's and 70's. Before that time, parties were regional and had little control over individual candidates, who could win elections by differentiating themselves from their party. But as times changes, parties now exert significantly more control over candidates, forcing most politicians into one of two party lines. So whereas we once had infinite options for policy, we are now left with two now that policy proposals have conformed with the parties into two options on most issues.
Second, the modern two party system is one of "pendulum politics." From the 1930s through the 1970s, Democrats controlled the House. This meant that Republicans had to compromise to get things done. Similarly, a Republican was usually in control of the Presidency in the 1970s and 80s, so Democrats needed to compromise. But today, we swing in a pendulum creating unified Democratic control in 1993-4, divided government until 2002, unified Republican control until 2006, divided government until 2008, unified Democratic control until 2010, back to divided government until 2016, unified Republican control until 2018, divided government again until 2020, and then unified Democratic control until 2022, and now we are divided again. That is all to say that the parties have no incentive to compromise since they could be back on top in a couple of years. Their only goal will be to topple the government while they are in the opposition. This is more similar to how parliamentary systems have worked, except that our system, through the filibuster, bicameralism, and separation of powers require compromise that can no longer exist. Drutman didn't mention this, but the result of the lack of compromise is the lack of action. So while the parliamentary system resolves the constant conflict by allowing a party to implement its policies and have the voters decide on how they did, our system will not allow governments to implement their policy platforms, confusing voters about the differences between parties. I am tempted to say that the parliamentary system is better, since there is a feeling of rationalism and simplicity in being so clearly able to differentiate parties. This would also encourage more voter turnout.
Drutman settles on a four-party system, since he sees the political world through two lenses, which create four positions. Who gets what, and who are we? AKA distribution of resources and identity. So there are people who are egalitarian and cosmopolitan in one quadrant, egalitarian and traditional in another, market-oriented and cosmopolitan in another, and market-oriented and traditional in the last one. This would create four parties, who could create coalitions to pass policy along one of those lines while diminishing the significance of the lens on which they disagree. So the egalitarian cosmopolitans and the market-oriented cosmopolitans could form a coalition that would look a lot like today's democratic party. But the difference is that since voters could vote along more specific ideological lines, they would get a better say on what are today intra-party fights.
The third part is when we finally get to the meat of the book, where Drutman proposes the solutions that could be brought about without a constitutional amendment. They include since-winner ranked choice voting for the Senate, a bigger House of 700 members, multi-winner (proportional) ranked-choice voting for the House, and an end to congressional primaries. The most intriguing option is ranked-choice voting, which would promote more moderation in candidates. This is because voters would get to put their top three, four, or five candidates, and those candidates would need to compete for second and third place votes. When votes are tallied on election day, the last place candidate's voter's votes would be distributed based on who they listed second. Then we would take the remaining candidate and distribute their votes to everyone's next choice and so on until one candidate obtained a majority. Drutman also mentions other things like schemes to abolish the electoral college in all but name, but I think that if support existed for this, then support would exist to abolish the electoral college entirely.
Drutman's vision for elections is extremely appealing. If implemented, it offers an opportunity for a more policy-based political environment. It would both simplify the decisions that voters face while also allowing politicians to grapple with more complexities in policy. It would make the jockeying of coalitions a public affair, instead of something amorphous that happens besides closed doors. However, I wonder if this problem is a constitutional one, or a problem of the moment. How are we to know if we have reached a dead-end in our Republic, or if this is just a transitional stage before another evolution? It is hard to say. With that caveat, I would still say I agree with Drutman, though. The two-party system is a loser for voters, and bringing about a system with more parties and moderation would be the greatest good for the country.
Miscellaneous Facts:
- In the 1950s and 60s, the two parties were largely indistinguishable based on national ideology, which was viewed at the time by political scientists as a huge problem.
- In 1992, over one-third of counties went for one party or another by less than ten points, and less than three percent of counties were decided by 50 points or more. In 2016, less than 10% of counties were within ten points and 40% were decided be 50 points or more. That's good evidence that the gerrymandering is not the sole cause of non-competitive districts, but that the country itself is just so much more polarized that we don't have much competition at the local level between parties.
- I thought this was interesting phrasing: "when labor unions were central in the Democratic Party coalition, they not only pushed the Democrats to emphasize economic issues, but also encouraged citizens to think of themselves as workers. But when labor unions declined, many in the white working class, looking for a new identity, thought of themselves more as the white working class." The only thing I'd add is that plenty of people in the white upper class had the same transformation, it wasn't just a poor people thing.
- Many majority-minority districts were redrawn to comply with the Voting Rights Act in the 1980s and 90s, but have had a positive effect on those who never wanted minorities' votes, since the court decisions packed those minorities into districts that would always vote Democrat. That meant Republicans would never have to earn their votes, cementing a system where 9/10 Black people regularly vote Democratic and have little other option.
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