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According to a recent CBS/YouGov study, 54 percent of U.S. adults believe the biggest threat to America's way of life is other people in the country and domestic enemies. We are living in an era in which our political affiliations define us and with whom we live, have relationships, and work. We think of those on the other side of the aisle as the “other” and our “enemy”.
So, how did we get here?
Many argue that while there are many reasons for our current highly polarized state, our two-party structure is a significant contributor and sets us up to demonize those one the other side of the aisle. The system in which we conduct our democracy is set up to foment that demonization.
We spoke to Lee Drutman, fellow at New America and author of The Two Party Doom Loop: A Case for A Multiparty Democracy In America, to discuss how our two party system is breaking our country and contributing to our incredibly polarized state.
“It's important to understand that you don't have to be stuck in an abusive relationship with a voting system that doesn't work,”
Broke/Broken
All right, so here with me today is Lee Drutman. He's a fellow at New America and author of Breaking the Two-Party Doom Loop: The Case for Multiparty Democracy in America... So, Lee, thank you so much for being here today.
Lee Drutman
Oh, great to be having this conversation.
Broke/Broken
So in this newsletter, one of our goals is to kind of highlight where our systems are broken and why and possibly how we can fix those things for maybe a little slightly less broken America. So that's why we really wanted to talk to you about your book, because I think it's a perfect example about, you know, how structurally we're kind of set up for the things that we're seeing today, right? A very highly polarized society and all of that. So before we get into the weeds on your book and the case for a multiparty democracy, I wanted to get, you know, your kind of journey into what got you thinking about that in the first place, a multi-party system. And you know kind of how you came to the conclusion of that.
Lee Drutman
Sure. So my previous book was called The Business of America is Lobbying, which is a book about corporate influence in our politics. And in researching and writing a book, I came to understand that one reason why corporate lobbyists seem to have so much influence in Washington was because Congress had hollowed out or hollowed out its own expertise and had basically given itself a lobotomy and outsourced policymaking largely to corporate lobbyists. And the same problem to me. So I set about thinking about what would be the logical way to fix that problem. And it was somewhat obvious Congress could just invest more in its own staff capacity and its own expertise, as it had in an earlier era. And this was something that seemed so obvious that everybody agreed with me. But it didn't happen and I tried to understand what it was that was preventing Congress from doing this and came to appreciate how much this was a function of a highly polarized Congress and highly centralized two party Congress, that, you know, there wasn't really an appetite for expertise because Congress had become a battlefield, not a policymaking space, and I’m a big believer in Congress and legislatures as essential places where representative democracy happens. And, you know, if you're going to have a diverse, pluralistic society, you need an institution where that diversity and pluralism can kind of work out its disagreements. And that just wasn't happening in Congress. So the problem was really deeper than expertise; it was that our party system had become deeply hyper-partisan. And we have these institutions that are set up to require broad compromise and make narrow, simple majoritarianism very difficult to navigate. And yet we have electoral institutions that are now pushing us very much towards simple majoritarianism. And this is in many ways a new problem because our party system has changed quite dramatically over the last three decades and that it has become highly nationalized and highly oriented around Zero-Sum culture war issues.
Broke/Broken
Yeah, I think we can clearly see the epitome of that kind of hyper partisanship post election with the, you know, storming of the Capitol, but before then, you know, why do you think or how do you think this hyper-partisanship has escalated in the past couple of years? Because with each election, at least in my sort of you know, ever since I've been tuning into politics, which I admittedly probably just the past two election cycles has been, I've been paying attention more. But it seems that we are at a point where it's you know, the stakes are life and death. hey're so high. How has it always been like that? If not, how did we get here?
Lee Drutman
Yeah, I mean, this is something that hasn't happened for a long time. Last time it happened was in the lead up to the civil war in that there was, you know, really the fate and identity of the nation very much feels like they rest on who wins the presidential election and who controls Congress. And it's a function of a bunch of factors. But largely you can break it down to three main factors. One is, you know, essentially the sorting of the political parties into two very distinct geographic cultural coalitions. And, you know, 50 years ago, back in 1970, the parties would be kind of a jumble of liberal Republicans and conservative Democrats who were at odds with many of their fellow partisans on many issues, but for whatever reason, still thought at home in that party. And those species have gone extinct from our national politics. And as the parties have become more homogenous, they've become more distinct and they've come to stand for very different sets of cultural values. So the second thing that's changed is American politics has become much more nationalized in the sense that, you know, it used to be that, you know, you would vote primarily on local issues and you'd have different individuals who represented their state and could make deals based on what was in the interests of their state or in their district that might might be at odds with partisanship. And also, it meant that the parties were more jumbled and the stakes of national elections were not quite as high. But with so much attention, so much power has flowed to Washington everybody is voting based on the control of power in Washington. Even, you know, even state elections are now really just people voting their national partisanship. And as a result, voting has become entirely partisan. And there's no more evaluation of individual candidates except for so far in gubernatorial offices, interestingly, in some states. But so that's the second factor. And the third factor is just we've been in this period of intense back and forth for control of national offices. So it's a very uniquely an extended period of competition in which given that that control of Washington is up every election, there's a lot of intense campaigning that drives negative partisanship. And it also means that there's not a lot of incentive for the party out of power to cooperate because, one, they're going to think they're going to be back in power soon and to the other especially going to be back in power soon if they don't help the other party to govern. And all of that has whirled its way into a rather toxic storm that has really created what I would consider to be a genuine two-party system for the first time in US history, although we've had a two-party system. But that was kind of a weak, overlapping two-party system, whereas now we have something that's genuine and divisive and it's really destroying the fabric of our political life.
Broke/Broken
Yeah, and I think we're really seeing obviously, we can look at January sixth, but I think we're really seeing kind of the ripple effects and that when you ask people what is the biggest threat to America? You know, there was that one stat, I believe it was from Pew Research that said, you know, fellow Americans seemingly on the other side of the aisle. There was also a stat from, I believe, the Democracy Fund Voter Study Group. This was actually before the coronavirus pandemic. But just kind of saying if their side loses the election and, you know, there was some sort of evidence, whatever, however you wanted to find evidence of voter fraud or interference, both people from both sides of the aisle, a minority of people, but still a significant amount, said that violence would be warranted. So I think we're really seeing the effects of this hyper-partisanship. But I wanted to get your opinion on you know, if we look at public opinion, there are things that people seem to agree on policy wise, especially when it comes to economic things like a wealth tax, depending on how you ask it, Medicare for all things like that. Do you find any optimism in data like that?
Lee Drutman
Well, so, you know, I think we have to think about policy and partisanship being fundamentally different things. So it's actually--you're actually referencing the voter group study that I did, you know, called democracy, maybe with Joe Goldman and Larry Diamond. And, you know, this is consistent with a number of other studies that have shown a rising share of Americans endorsing partisan violence, at least in polls, which is very troubling and disturbing. You know, you have seen numerous Americans saying that the greatest threat is the other party. Also very worrying. You know, when it comes to policy, there's more agreement, particularly on a lot of economic policies. And if you can divorce policy from partisanship, you can get more agreement. But the challenge is you can't do that entirely and. So that, you know, given that elections are between parties and not between policies and people have identities that are connected to parties and not policies, people are going to focus on the partisanship and not policy. Now, I think there is some optimism there in the sense that, you know, there's a broadly shared agenda. And I think most Americans will reject the stop the steal elements, although they're certainly very commonly supported among Trump voters. But there is a, you know, a kind of super majority in this country that still affirms the basic principles of liberal democracy, has a pretty progressive view on how to handle the economy, on what to do about climate. There's, I think, more divide and more even divide when it comes to issues of race and immigration. And that's why I think the Republican Party has been really trying to make that the central focus of American politics and how they talk about American politics, because they know that if it's focused on economics or climate, they're going to be on the losing side. If it's focused on immigration and race and policing and all that kind of stuff, then things are a little bit more half and half in this country. And, you know, the challenge is that there are some number of voters who are split on these issues, although they are progressive generally on economic issues. They have some amount of conservatism when it comes to American identity. And in a two-party system, particularly the Republican Party, if they make the election about economic identity they lose, or sorry, if they make the election about identity and race and immigration, you know, they force these voters to choose between two two sets of concerns. And a lot of voters are going to choose their sense of identity first because it's just just more quarter to who they are, and particularly because you have a Republican Party that is activating these identities because it's really their only path to win. But, you know, in a multi-party system, there is going to be more choices and there's going to be more parties on the left. And there might be one party on the left that's, you know, very well OK. But one party on the left that's not, you know, somewhat more middle of the road on some of these culture war issues and might be able to appeal to a number of voters who also are in that space. I think the challenge is that they're probably in this--what's become--this very intense culture war, there's really no middle ground and it becomes very, very bifurcated, very against them. And people get really pushed into one of two camps because it's lonely to not be in one of those two camps.
Broke/Broken
Yeah, and so there was a recent Pew study that kind of looked at America's political divide compared to other countries, and it found that America was kind of exceptional in the sense of how partisan everything is. And obviously, I mean, it seems pretty obvious that that is due in part, at least to our two party system. But what can you give us some examples of, you know, what a multiparty democracy would look like in America based on what we know about other countries?
Lee Drutman
Well, that is a complicated question because every country is obviously unique, but as a general, as a general pattern, I think what we see throughout Western democracies is a is a real challenge to democracy, which is that there's a sharp cultural divide everywhere, that that is split between rural and urban and more traditional conceptions of national identity and more progressive cosmopolitan views of of national identity. And that split plays out differently, depending on the party system and what you see in a country like Germany, which certainly has a significant far right presence in the AfD party, you see that is largely isolated in a single small party that's 10 to 15 percent. Same with France. There's a national rally, which may be a little larger, but still at 20 percent. You know, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, you know, all of these countries, there's a far right party. But because it is a proportional multi-party system, there's also a center right party that can operate independently from that far right party and often holds power in government like Germany or the Merkel's party is the center right party, although probably their policies would be more than what we would think of as a center left. Just because they are kind of anchors of what's in the center, it's a little bit off of what most other democracies would view in the center. Nonetheless, it was a multiparty democracy allows, and I think it's particularly important in this political moment is for different elements of the right and different elements of the left to operate independently in the views of voters and to then form coalitions after the election, which allows them to to be a little bit more flexible, allows political identities to be a little more flexible and much less binary. I mean, what you see in multi-party systems is that voters will kind of go between parties a little bit more now. And there are more adjacent parties and they see opposing partisans just in less harsh terms, because there's something about binary political competition that drives us to see the other side as a threat as different from us. But when you have many sides, there's just less a sense of that. And also when you have different coalition governments, different parties will work together. So, you know, enemies are not so permanent and allies come and go and it just creates more flexibility and more sense of possibility.
Broke/Broken
Yeah, President Biden talked a lot, obviously, on the campaign trail and, you know, especially with the American rescue plan kind of trying to reach across the aisle to Republicans to form some sort of unity where he can. And obviously we saw, you know, maybe not surprisingly, that that didn't really happen. Obviously, we passed the plan through reconciliation. And after that, there was actually a really interesting poll from Gallup that found favorability of Congress to go up. Once people kind of saw Congress actually doing something, even though it was through reconciliation. You know, there was this kind of realization that, you know, gridlock is kind of a choice among lawmakers. So do you think what do you think about that stat and this sort of battle or or effort for unity when it seems that everyday people just really want things to just get done?
Lee Drutman
So, I mean, I think it's pretty typical for approval of Congress to go up to the beginning of a session, particularly when one party controls Congress, that probably that entire number is is Democrats shooting up in their in their approval of Congress and over over the course of a session, it will go down back to it's probably, you know, 10 to 15 percent standard approval. People never seem to approve of Congress very much because everybody runs against Congress and talks about everything Congress is. Yeah. So if you know one thing about Congress, you know that it's broken and that's you know, that's how people respond to polls there. You know, I mean, Biden's pitch for unity now it's one of these things that everybody likes the idea of unity because we should all come together as one. And, you know, I mean, even Democrats and Republicans say we should, you know, come together as a nation. But when you probe for the specifics, it means that the other side capitulates and agrees with us because we're right. So, you know, Joe Biden's a savvy politician and he you know, he knows that it sells well. You know that he wants to be branded as the unity guy, doesn't he? Also, or at least his staff has convinced him that the Republicans in Congress have no interest in ever working with him productively. And so he's going to dispense with the charade of trying to, you know, waste any time on working with them and just, you know, pursue stuff that is broadly popular. And, you know, he's, you know, has decent approval ratings, although they're pretty typical for this time in the presidency. The first few months, you know, he's had a nice honeymoon period and there's been, you know, no crisis yet to harm or dent his approval. His policies are more popular than he is, you know, largely because policies are separate from partisanship. But I think because partisan identity is so sticky for a lot of people and, you know, because the culture war politics are still intense and Republicans are certainly trying to continue to intensify them. You know, there's no way a single person can bring the country together. You know, nor do I think that unity is even the goal of politics and productive disagreement is the core of politics. I think this is something that's really important for people to understand, is that conflict is inherent in modern mass democracy because modern mass democracy requires elections and it requires political parties to compete in elections and parties have to compete over something. So you have to have some level of conflict and division in order for voters to have meaningful choices. And the question is not whether we're all going to come together. The question is what we're going to fight over. And if if we. Have productive disagreements. That's democracy, it's the problem when we have unproductive disagreements and particularly disagreements over the fundamental nature of our elections. And I know it's easy to say productive versus unproductive disagreements. It's like saying, you know, I like all criticism. I only like constructive criticism. So I don't pretend to have a fine line and to be able to make a clear line between those two. But, you know, I think we think we know unproductive disagreement when we see it. And it's disagreement just solely for the sake of disagreement. And, you know, and it's bad faith demonization. It's not about giving voters a choice of what they're voting for. It's trying to make sure that people are voting against something because you don't have anything that great to sell. And that demonization, that lesser of two evils only works in a two party system. There's no lesser of three evil’s phrase in the lexicon of any language.
Broke/Broken
Yeah, as far as I know, that doesn't exist.
Lee Drutman
It is. It is a marsh. It was the original title of a martial arts film that was later renamed The Warrior. That was some crackers for my book because I was wondering that phrase.
Broke/Broken
There you go. That's a fun fact to have. So last question for you, Lee. I wanted to know kind of where we're in sort of the case for a multi-party system in America, where there were a couple of polls that kind of suggested that there are more people who identify as independents or maybe just don't really know. Maybe they just don't like the label and support for a third party you know, it seems to be gaining some ground there. So can you tell us a little bit about the status of that and where do you think this is going? Do you think we'll ever see a multiparty democracy?
Lee Drutman
So where is it? Where is it going? Well, about 50 percent of Americans now say they are independents when asked for their political affiliation. Now that a lot of those independents are what you would call closet partisans or undercover partisans in that they don't like to admit it, but they vote for one party regularly or the other. But I mean, that's that's just the nature of politics. Now, you have two choices. So you're going to vote for one of the two parties. What they are signaling is a dissatisfaction with the parties as institutions. About sixty sixty five percent of Americans who say we should have more than two parties. And that number has been around that level for quite a while now. So, you know and you know, the share of people saying that they're independent has been in the 40s for a solid decade now. So there's a level of dissatisfaction. And, you know, people are frustrated with how our political system is operating and they don't feel well represented. And a lot of people are not hardcore partizan warriors in this Democratic Republican conflict, although they are increasingly being drafted into it as the war escalates, you know, sort of sort of like the civil war. You know, initially, you know, a lot of Southerners were not like super into the southern cause, but they got into it as the war escalated. A lot of northerners weren't particularly excited about freeing the slaves, but they got into itas things escalated. And I think we're in that period now where people are getting continually drawn in. But, you know, they don't really like being drawn in at all. And and so I think the challenge is for people to understand that this is not inevitable, this kind of escalating second civil war or whatever, or having. It is a function of our electoral political institutions in the way they limit our choices and divide us into two opposing camps, fighting Zero-Sum elections. And I think for a lot of folks, the idea that we could have a different system of elections is something that is unfamiliar, I think, for a lot of folks who have grown up and experienced politics entirely in the United States. It just seems natural that we have the single winner elections and that we have just two parties reality. The US is really the only advanced democracy. That's a strict two party system and one of only a handful of advanced democracies that still uses the antiquated system of first past the post voting most advanced democracies or multi-party democracy, and most are proportional use, proportional voting systems. So I think it's a matter of, you know. You know, opening the shades and looking out and saying, oh, this doesn't need to be this way, right? You know, it's almost like, you know, being stuck in an abusive relationship and you don't know how to get out of it. And I think, you know, it's important to understand that you don't have to be stuck in an abusive relationship with a voting system that doesn't work.
Broke/Broken
Yeah. So hear that everybody? Tell, there are other ways to do this, share this conversation so we can free America from our two party system. Well, Lee, thank you so much for joining us. And where can people find you and, you know, get hands on your book?
Lee Drutman
Well my book is available wherever people like to buy books these days. And it's called Breaking The Two Party Doom Loop: A Case for Multiparty Democracy in America. And if folks want to get all of my latest thoughts, they can follow me on Twitter at Lee Drutman. Or if they want a more holistic picture of my work, they can visit my website LeeDrutman.org and I look forward to expanding this conversation about a better way to do democracy in America.
Broke/Broken
Thanks so much for listening and or reading, if you haven't yet, please subscribe to the Broke/Broken newsletter. You can also follow us on Twitter @BrokeBrokenNews. Feel free to hit us up there, until next time.
How The Two Party System is Breaking Us