Is It Time to Break the Two-Party System?

About this episode

The episode discusses the challenges of gerrymandering and the potential for a multiparty democracy in America.

We have entered a world of maximum gerrymandering warfare. Any guardrails that once existed, from the Constitution or the courts, have been bulldozed over the last decade – most recently in the Supreme Court decision that gutted the Voting Rights Act and made it harder for minorities to challenge racially discriminatory voting maps. Red and blue states alike have been aggressively trying to redraw their congressional maps in response to all these developments. And there is no sign that will end in 2028; legislatures will just continue trying to tweak their lines to squeeze out advantage for whatever party is in power. And competitive districts in this country – already an endangered species – now teeter on extinction. That is, unless something dramatic changes. Lee Drutman is a senior fellow in the political reform program at New America. He’s one of the most persistent and thoughtful advocates of selecting House members through proportional representation – a system used in many other countries that would make gerrymandering much more difficult. He’s the author of the 2020 book “Breaking the Two-Party Doom Loop: The Case for Multiparty Democracy in America” and writes the…

People in this episode

Guest: Lee Drutman

Topics covered

• gerrymandering
• political reform
• two-party system
• proportional representation
• voting rights
• multiparty democracy

Keywords

• gerrymandering
• two-party system
• proportional representation
• voting rights
• political reform

Mentioned in this episode

Books & works: Breaking the Two-Party Doom Loop, Undercurrent Events, Why We’re Polarized, How one country stopped a Trump-style authoritarian in his tracks, Tyranny of the Majority

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