Our 2-party system is not working. This duopoly has erected barriers to prevent solving critical societal issues (debt, immigration, climate change, abortion, etc.). Whatever your beliefs you are likely not happy. It has also led to a growing lack of diversity of opinion with both sides moving farther to extreme positions on the left and right. The same people have been running the parties for many years and the party leaders are aging, with many over 80 years old. At the highest level our presidential choices have become a very short list of people, who as a group are not liked by the public. For the past two presidential cycles and likely a third, we’ve had a choice between, Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, and Donald Trump all of whom are old, can’t seem to tell the truth, and universally disliked by the American public. Is this really the best we have to offer? Despite the need for new ideas to solve difficult problems, we keep recycling the same people and ideas. Without significant change this gives very little hope of moving the country forward.
How did we get here? A good start to understanding how this has happened would be to read The Politics Industry by Katherine Gehl and Michael Porter. In it they suggest that in our 2-party system all the money, and therefore the power, resides with the party leaders at the local, state, and national level. Currently there are 39 state government trifectas where one party holds the position of governor and majorities in both state’s legislative chambers. Add gerrymandering and they likely will never lose power. With so much money in politics (you can’t win an election without it) the party having the most money controls who runs and wins elections. Outsiders seldom win and the minority party candidate seldom wins. Examples of where this was not true are the Tea Party and Bernie Sanders, but these are few and far between. The local, state, and national parties along with their major super PAC’s pick and choose who gets the necessary money to win. To get and keep the money and support, you need to support and pledge to vote the parties way regardless of your constituents’ beliefs. You can see this in the party line votes these days. There is virtually no independent voting. If you vote the wrong way you don’t get the money to get reelected.
In addition to money, you must also look at the process of electing representatives. Our primary system is run by the parties and in most states, you can only vote in the primary if you are registered with that party. Voters are deprived of a primary vote when preferring to vote for a candidate from a different party or an independent. When the party picks their primary candidate and provides them with cash, new people or people without party backing rarely win. Incumbents almost always win, and new candidates are moved out in the next election cycle if they don’t vote their parties way. Primaries draw as few as 30 to 40% of all voters and party candidates can be elected with as few as 15 to 20% of all voters. In a state controlled by one party you could then be electing someone to office with as little as 15 to 20% of the voting population. Remember in these states the winner in the ruling party’s primary usually wins.
What does all this mean? In the states having a trifecta, the majority party makes the laws and policies with little chance of considering ideas from the other side. This is with representation that may have been elected by as little as 15 to 20% of the voters. Most laws pass by a strictly party-line vote. If you live in a one-party state and do not vote for that party, your vote counts very little. At the national level party loyalists line up behind their party leaders and therefore almost every vote is strictly along party lines. Add that the rules in the Senate and House allow the party in power to determine who runs every committee and what comes up for a vote you get what we have today. Nothing gets done or if anything does get done it generally has not allowed for any discussion by the other party. With all this, the independent or moderate voices are not heard at all.
A side effect of laws or policies decided strictly by party line votes is that there is little chance of passing both the House and the Senate (generally one run by each party). Both parties then get frustrated and push their policies through the many agencies run by the President (executive branch) when they are in power. The number of agency rules (which are basically laws) has increased dramatically over the last 3 presidencies. This has also resulted in lawsuits at the national and state level by both parties mostly along partisan lines. These lawsuits are most often settled in a partisan fashion at the local, state or district level by partisan judges and many of the decisions end up at the Supreme Court. The result is the country is being run by the executive branch through agencies making politically motivated policies and the Supreme Court at times challenging these decisions.
How do we change this? There are solutions to change this trajectory, but optimism is not high. We the people will have to stand up and demand changes! Clearly the two parties on their own will not make these changes as that would mean giving up their power. Some ideas:
Put in term-limits at all levels so that incumbents and their war chests of money cannot just stay in power for decades. This will also help get rid of all the people who are too old and out of step to be making decisions.
Add age limits and maybe health checks. This may not be necessary if term limits are passed.
Get rid of all the superPACs and the ability of rich individuals to buy elections by limiting how much money an individual can put into their own campaign or the campaign of another candidate.
Eliminate or greatly reduce gerrymandering.
Switch to final 4 voting like Alaska. First, have a single all-parties primary with the top 4 vote-getters moving to the general election. In the general election voters rank-order their choices and then have an instant run-off eliminating the last candidate and then reallocating to the rest. Keep doing this until you have a winner eliminating one candidate each round.
As stated, none of this will happen if the parties get their way as they will be losing power. The people will have to work together to get the necessary signatures to get these issues on state ballets. The laws are in place in most if not all states to get this done
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