Large numbers of Americans are unhappy with the idea of a Joe Biden vs. Donald Trump rematch, polls show, but both the Democratic and Republican parties appear to be paralyzed, unable to do anything about it.
"Political parties are the infrastructure of modern mass democracy, just as roads and bridges and railways and airports and electricity grids are the infrastructure of a modern economy," wrote Lee Drutman, senior fellow at New America, inDrutman wants to break up the two-party system so that American can have three or four major parties, or more. He is proposing reforms to make that more possible.
Most Americans see this as sensible and just: Primary voters choose the nominee state by state, and that’s more democratic.of extremism in American politics. The majority of voters end up with candidates who don't represent them because a much smaller number of fire-breathing partisans decide the menu for them in the primaries.
Very few people want to go back to the smoke-filled rooms wherein party bosses picked candidates with little input from voters. So that creates a challenge for reformers who want stronger parties. They need new, creative ways to create more muscular parties.But first, the way Americans think about parties — and power — has to shift. In Drutman’s view, we are unbalanced: too focused on individuals.
“Somebody has to have power,” he writes. Drutman documents how the three major political reform periods in American history have all “appeared to put voters ‘first’” but “only made it harder for individual voters to coordinate collectively.” For Republicans, this would mean uniting behind one alternative to Trump before he has sewn up the nomination. New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu made a forceful case for this strategy inFor Democrats, the moment of truth would come if it became clear that the party needed someone other than Biden to run.
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