To stop a dictator from becoming president, we must give up our right to vote for one, writes Maxwell L. Stearns.
Stearns is the Venable, Baetjer & Howard Professor of Law at the University of Maryland Carey School of Law. He is the author of
In our two-party presidential system, the risk of an authoritarian like Trump gaining power always lay just beneath the surface. The very structure of our system invites it. An irony of two-party presidentialism is that as the threat to democracy grows, voters feel increasingly disengaged and disempowered.
Voters in our system rightly wish for third parties, with candidates who truly align with their sincerely held beliefs and preferences. But to have viable third, fourth, or more parties, we must give those parties a genuine role in governance. That means the power to join a governing coalition in exchange for delivering policy commitments or favored appointments to their constituents. Unlike two-party presidentialism, multi-party coalitions give third parties that role.
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