Partisanship is the reason why we can’t solve our biggest problems. There is a simple fix.
We must disrupt the duopoly that is responsible for our toxic discourse and dysfunctional government.
However [political parties] may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely, in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion. — George Washington, Farewell Address (1796)
The COVID-19 epidemic has exposed the fragility of our economy with a ruthless efficiency, causing businesses to shutter and workers to lose their jobs in a matter of days. Many of the systemic issues at the root of these failures — massive debt, prioritizing short-term equity gains, lack of employee protections — have been discussed and debated for years, but the current crisis has forced everyone to take notice. And now it is possible that major reforms may finally happen.
But that depends on how our political system reacts. And just as the struggle against the novel coronavirus has laid bare the weaknesses in commerce and industry, so has it revealed the dysfunction in our government. Congress has barely been able to put partisanship aside to respond to an existential challenge of truly historic proportions, and in the weeks before the effects of the pandemic reached the U.S., even accepting the truth of its existence was cast as yet another battle between Democrats and Republicans.
Our two-party system has degraded the quality of our politics so completely that it has prevented the American people from being able to unite to confront an enemy that does not discriminate, have an ideology, or evoke any sympathy. If we are to have any chance to sustain our republic, we must disrupt this toxic duopoly.
Only a few weeks ago, we experienced the total failure of the Iowa caucus to produce a timely, legitimate, and universally-acceptable result among the Democratic candidates for the presidency of the United States. This was because the Democratic Party was solely responsible for managing the election, and its leaders totally botched it. And yet no one ever asked why we allow unregulated private organizations to control the process for how we elect the highest public office in our nation.
And not only do the two major political parties oversee most of the mechanics of our presidential elections and debates. Congress also is organized entirely based upon what the two parties decide. Even the apportionment of seats on federal, state, and county commissions are often based upon the relative power of the two parties.
In other words, despite never being mentioned anywhere in the U.S. Constitution, the political parties are the gatekeepers and human resources department for our democracy.
And while the Constitution rightfully imposed no restrictions on the free assembly of citizens, it also did not envision or anticipate the creation of a duopoly that so completely dictates political discourse and competition (or lack thereof). In fact, George Washington famously warned “against the baneful effects of the spirit of party generally” in his 1796 Farewell Address:
The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism. […]
It serves always to distract the public councils and enfeeble the public administration. It agitates the community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms, kindles the animosity of one part against another, foments occasionally riot and insurrection. It opens the door to foreign influence and corruption, which finds a facilitated access to the government itself through the channels of party passions. Thus the policy and the will of one country are subjected to the policy and will of another.
There is an opinion that parties in free countries are useful checks upon the administration of the government and serve to keep alive the spirit of liberty. This within certain limits is probably true; and in governments of a monarchical cast, patriotism may look with indulgence, if not with favor, upon the spirit of party. But in those of the popular character, in governments purely elective, it is a spirit not to be encouraged. From their natural tendency, it is certain there will always be enough of that spirit for every salutary purpose. And there being constant danger of excess, the effort ought to be by force of public opinion, to mitigate and assuage it. A fire not to be quenched, it demands a uniform vigilance to prevent its bursting into a flame, lest, instead of warming, it should consume.
Due to the suffocation of our two major political parties, we no longer have a free market of ideas or a level playing field. It is for practical purposes impossible to be elected to any significant public office in this country without identifying as a Democrat or a Republican. As a result, the party organizations ultimately determine who gets to be a viable candidate, what laws can be enacted, and increasingly even which judges can be seated.
Fairness, justice, and equity in a diverse and pluralistic society will always be out of reach under a purely binary system that will never abide or have room for nuance, fluidity of thought, or the common interest. The dominance of our two-party structure is an unnatural impediment to progress and consensus-building in every aspect of our self-governance, and therefore as Washington advised, it is “the interest and duty of a wise people to discourage and restrain it.”
Why do we allow the two major political parties to dominate and control all aspects of our government in every way and at every level? They are not mentioned in our national Constitution or in any state constitution. Yet even though they are private entities, every component of our government is organized by them, around them, and for them.
In private industry, this situation would be called a duopoly, and there are laws in place against collusion between two powerful companies that control the consumer market for a particular product. But when it comes to those who make and enforce the laws themselves, no such regulatory apparatus exists.
The duopolistic nature of our politics is so engrained in the roots, trunk, and branches of our government that it allows for the illusion of free competition in presidential contests. Occasionally an independent candidate can gain traction (usually on the basis of tremendous personal wealth), or a third-party nominee is afforded some attention. But they still must navigate the thicket of ballot access in each state, and they can never get the same degree of intense and constant focus as the Democratic and Republican primary processes receive. It is a self-fulfilling prophecy: the media and the general public do not believe — with good reason — that anyone other than a major-party candidate can win the White House, so they do not give anyone else the same amount of consideration.
Even worse, most people do not know that the Commission on Presidential Debates, which strictly determines every aspect of the most-watched public forums for the general election candidates for the nation’s highest office, was established and is controlled by the Democratic and Republican parties. Its name makes it sound like a neutral — even government-run — entity, but it is probably the best example of collusion between the big players in our political duopoly. As a result, there has never been a third-party candidate in any of the major presidential debates since the Commission was established in 1987. (The only arguable exception, Ross Perot in 1992, ran as an independent.)
Similarly, the legislative bodies at the federal, state, and local levels are primarily organized based on the presumption of two fixed opposing parties. From the way committee assignments are made, leadership is elected, and votes are cast, to the way rules are written and ceremonial positions are bestowed, it is impossible to imagine how these institutions would function if somehow there existed more than two viable and strong political parties. Of course, this closed loop of power is designed to ensure that will never happen, and is therefore self-perpetuating.
Even the judicial branch is not immune to the dominance of the two-party system, in spite of its conceptual insulation from partisan dynamics. Many states elect their judges in partisan contests, so they run with letters next to their names (almost always D or R). When judges are appointed and/or confirmed, it is Democratic or Republican office-holders making the appointments, overseeing the confirmation process, and voting to confirm or reject the appointments. As a result, an infrastructure has developed through which aspiring judges affiliate early on with one major party or the other and participate with the organizations, conferences, journals, etc. that will signal what team they play for. As everything about our political process has become more intensely partisan, acing this purity test has become critical to securing seats on the most coveted courts.
As mentioned previously, election commissions at the state and local levels are typically constituted by a proportion of the majority and minority parties — in essence, Democrats and Republicans. They set the rules for ballot access and adjudicate disputes, even though by definition they are not objective. State legislatures, also composed almost entirely by members of the two major parties, pass laws to determine the rules and thresholds to appear on the ballot. And redistricting commissions in most states — tasked with drawing the lines for congressional and state legislative seats — are controlled by the dominant political party.
In a related way, that same dynamic influences and undergirds how most citizens participate in U.S. politics. It goes without saying that if you want the best chance to get elected to a public office, you decide to be either a Democrat or a Republican. If you want to work in government — and especially for an elected official — you decide to be either a Democrat or a Republican. If you want your vote to have the maximum impact, you vote in either the Democratic or the Republican primary.
But as soon as you make that initial determination, the range of options in the marketplace of ideas is severely limited. Party leadership often set the boundaries of acceptable discourse. Party regulars write and adopt policy platforms. The majority and minority leaders in legislative bodies can direct support for certain bills and ensure that others fail. Being in a political party requires adherence, loyalty, and subservience. Sometimes it means going along with something (or giving up on something) whether you like it or not. Often it means defending your team and attacking the other team, even if you don’t always agree with everything your team does, or if you sometimes find merit in what the other team proposes.
Ultimately, if you have to be a Democrat or a Republican to have a vote, to get elected, to get appointed, to chair a committee, to win a leadership position, to participate in a debate, to have influence, to be taken seriously — and if Democrats and Republicans control the process, write the laws, make the rules, adjudicate the disputes, draw the district lines, and oversee the elections — then we truly have a duopoly.
Is it any wonder, then, that our system is increasingly dysfunctional and corrupt? Is it any wonder, then, that in a nation of 300 million people we are stagnating without innovative policy ideas? It is any wonder, then, that we cannot achieve progress on our most urgent challenges, even when consensus exists on many viable solutions?
We have turned our government over to two self-interested private organizations that grow stronger and richer as the intensity of their combat increases. They have no incentive to compromise, and in fact their power is diminished if they work together to achieve the common good.
In any other scenario, this collusion would be smashed by the government. But the major parties run the government, and they will not smash themselves. Therefore, for the sake of the republic, action from another direction is necessary.
When two political parties share hegemony to the exclusion of all others, there is a steep and slippery slope to the depths of discourse, ideas, and outcomes.
Consider first the election process. Any political party — if recognized and able to secure ballot access — can nominate candidates to contest elected offices. However, when only two major parties are dominant, their nominations are the most coveted. In our system, the Democrats and Republicans oppose each other across an ideological spectrum that is defined as liberal on the left and conservative toward the right.
Of course, that is an incredibly simplistic way to represent the breadth and depth of political perspectives in an extraordinarily diverse and pluralistic nation of 300 million people. And that is exactly the problem. It leaves no room for nuance, detail, fullness, and perhaps most importantly, consensus. Each citizen (and candidate) must first pick the one side that hews most closely to his or her views, even if that person considers most issues in gradations of gray, rather than completely black or white.
And once you select your team, there is no turning back, unless you want to be painted as a traitor or turncoat and doom your electoral prospects forever. (Party switchers almost never earn the trust of their new compatriots.)
So you go forward with the label you have chosen, and to be the nominee for the office you seek, you must win a primary (or in rare circumstances, a convention vote). This means that you must secure the support of the party base and the interest groups most closely aligned with it. You resist party dogma at your peril, as the very nature of the contest demands presenting yourself as the purest distillation of your party’s essence.
In the current political environment, this dynamic has been further stretched to its limits by gerrymandering and the outsized role that money has come to play in determining electoral outcomes. So many legislative districts have been drawn to benefit one party or the other, creating a scenario in which most elections are effectively decided in the primaries. That means interest groups can use infusions of cash in a targeted way to promote candidates who advocate in their behalf — and destroy those who threaten them.
The end result in most cases are candidates who win by mindlessly adopting every policy position of their respective parties and adhering to those views without exception while in office so they can avoid a well-funded primary challenge.
Which brings us to the governing process. Whether serving in the executive, legislative, or judicial branches, all actions and decisions are increasingly determined not on the merits, but rather through the lens of partisan advantage and leverage. (Consider what happened in Wisconsin earlier this year, which was a perfect example of petty partisan wrangling that cut across all three branches of government,)
We have become so accustomed to this reality that it almost seems unnecessary or naïve to point it out, but it truly is a corruption and bastardization of a system that was originally designed to produce the best possible outcomes. And the virus that has infected that system is the duopoly of the two major political parties.
Policy ideas are evaluated, supported, or rejected solely on the basis of who proposes them. The same is true of nominees for executive or judicial appointments. It takes an incredible amount of nerve, courage, and political capital to publicly join forces with someone in the other party by co-sponsoring or voting for his or her legislation. Often there is a serious price to pay for that perceived disloyalty, even (and usually) if it was the right thing to do for the city, county, state, or nation. And if every elected official swears an oath not to their party, but to do the best they can for the people they represent, then how can we ignore a fundamental aspect of the hiring and retention process that undermines their ability to fulfill that responsibility?
If we acknowledge the basic regulatory function of government, we must recognize that it is currently unable to regulate its own ability to operate effectively, efficiently, and objectively. And that is because it is controlled by two political parties that share total power between themselves as they create all of the systemic problems and impede progress.
It is as if two banks controlled the entirety of our financial system and also regulated themselves. Or extend the analogy to any other industry.
In a free market, consumers benefit from information, competition, and choice. As originally designed, our political process made provision for that. And as our nation has become more populous and diverse, we should be able to select from the widest possible range of innovative ideas and solutions to our biggest challenges.
Instead, we have been left to choose between Coke and Pepsi on every issue because there is not a level playing field to allow for other options. So we languish as problems become worse and the two parties — the greatest impediments to leveraging the native strengths and assets of our nation — increase their power and hold on the system.
The cycle must be interrupted somehow, as the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.
During various times in our nation’s history, when confronted with monopolies or collusion among those who dominated certain industries, our government responded by exerting its regulatory authority. Sometimes that involved creating new bodies or mechanisms to oversee these industries (the Securities and Exchange Commission, for example). In other instances, the biggest bullies were simply broken up into smaller pieces (AT&T, for example).
In essence, the government had to take action because the national interest — in this case defined economically — was inarguably weakened and impeded by industrial forces that had amassed too much power. They created barriers to entry into the market for potential competitors, and in so doing, they stifled innovation. Consumers were left with fewer choices and higher prices as a result. And in a larger context, without a diverse supply chain, the country was left more vulnerable to critical disruptions if a dominant company or bank failed.
Is it fair to say that our political infrastructure is similarly hobbled by the existing duopoly, and that it poses an existential risk that demands unprecedented action? There can never be a perfectly convincing answer to that question, as many opposed (and still do) the market interventions of the 20th century on ideological grounds.
But the evidence is overwhelming: the stranglehold that the two major parties have over elected offices at every level and in every branch of government; their control over election commissions and ballot access; the increasingly partisan nature of legislative voting and judicial confirmation; the inability to reach consensus and make progress on major issues, including climate change and immigration; and the toxic rage that fuels partisan warfare, creating openings for foreign powers to manipulate our elections and policy-making, as George Washington predicted.
One question I have asked myself since serving as an elected Democratic legislator and subsequently running in a nonpartisan contest is: why do we need political parties in the first place? They are not mentioned in any of our founding documents, or in any of the initial organizational rulebooks for our governing bodies. The original concept for elections and lawmaking was grounded in majorities deciding the outcomes. Over time, somehow we divided into two teams that simply take turns constituting the majority. How did that happen, and does it always need to be that way?
Some might say that even if we removed the letters next to the names of candidates, they would still find a way to signal who they “really” are. (Much like many so-called “nonpartisan” judicial candidates make clear their leanings through their photographs with certain elected officials or their appearances at certain events.) But that begs a deeper question of whether our partisan affinities are immutable and intractable components of our individual identities, or are we merely lit up because we are wired to the larger grid? If that grid goes down because we remove the power at its source, would we wake up to a new reality?
I think we would. I believe that voters, candidates, and elected officials would welcome the opportunity to transcend the overly simplistic and binary nature of our politics. Removing the need to affiliate with a political party would offer the chance to embrace nuance, diversity, and yes — innovation. Without partisan platforms and dogma, candidates would be judged on positions and proposals that don’t always fit together in the ways we have become accustomed to expect. Voters would have to work harder to evaluate each candidate individually, instead of relying upon the letter next to his or her name. Money would still flow freely, presumably, but not in vast quantities through two monolithic entities. It would probably become more precise, and thereby more diffuse.
Primaries would disappear, and so would any incentive for gerrymandering. Election commissions would simply oversee elections instead of being vehicles through which one party or the other could press an advantage or interfere with the process. Ballot access laws would either become moot or finally become fairer, since they would only apply to individual candidates instead of the party with which they choose to affiliate.
Our legislative bodies would be simply a collection of individual representatives who would probably exhibit a fluidity in their decision-making that we have not witnessed in our lifetimes because they could make every determination on a case-by-case basis without regard for team dynamics. Leadership elections for positions like Speaker of the House would be unpredictable, as they would not automatically go to the leader of the majority party. Committee assignments and chairmanships could be decided on merit (or at the very least, seniority). Without party bosses, platforms, primaries, and gerrymandering, consensus could be reached without fear of fatal consequences for those from states or districts that are not unanimous in their leanings.
Executives could recruit the best talent for key positions, instead of being confined to a narrow pool of those with established partisan bona fides. Judicial appointments could be based upon temperament and jurisprudence, and aspiring judges would be free to avoid political activity and signaling that distracts and detracts from their primary responsibilities.
Or, to put it more succinctly: our political system would function as it was originally designed and intended. Instead of creating more division and impeding action, it would bring us toward consensus to keep us moving forward.
So now we just need to figure out how to regulate the political parties.
Can we regulate political parties? That sounds terribly anti-democratic and authoritarian, and at face value, it is.
But let’s return to the free market analogy. If a duopoly exists in which only two parties rig the system to horde all of the power and keep other parties out, isn’t that anti-democratic and authoritarian in its own right? After all, most dictators in other nations still have parties and elections — mostly for show — and their parties are dominant and always win.
We may not want to acknowledge the similarities, because we haven’t arrived at our reality by the same path. But just imagine trying to get elected to a major office in America without being either a Democrat or a Republican, and you will have to admit we have a problem.
Political parties are a form of association, so it seems obvious that the First Amendment of the Constitution protects them. But it should matter that many people do not associate with them by choice. They do so in order to be able to participate in the political process, either as a voter, a candidate, or an elected official. That doesn’t seem right or fair at all.
Of course, a candidate or elected official will profess love for their party — because they have to. But most would gladly forego the filing fees, the litmus tests, the restraints on the freedom to think and act as individuals. Affiliating with a party is most often a strategic decision to get elected, to have your vote count, to choose between the lesser of two evils. Why should our direct access to participation in our government have to be funneled through, and ticket-punched by, a private organization? That is forced association, not free association.
Therefore, it is plausible to envision a constitutional amendment that makes all elections and governance nonpartisan. Citizens, candidates, voters, and elected officials can freely associate in any way they want — but not on the ballot, and not as an organizational mechanism within government.
Perhaps the most important question to resolve about American politics is whether it is an individual or a team sport.
We have become so accustomed to watching the two major parties battle as if they were football teams scoring touchdowns, suffering turnovers, winning and losing games and championships.
But elections are waged on the ground by individual candidates, and public officials are sworn to represent their individual constituencies, not their parties. Coalitions should therefore be fluid, shifting around depending on the issue.
That is often how it works at the local level, especially in the rare circumstances where elected officials serve on a nonpartisan basis. Outcomes are less predictable, because representatives cast votes based on their personal analyses, values, and consciences, without pressure to uphold a partisan directive or platform.
This is arguably a framework for better decision-making and objectively better policy outcomes. Think about it in terms of the dichotomy of political representation that is taught in every basic course on government: trustee versus delegate. A trustee casts votes according to her own best evaluations, believing that her constituents elected her based on her faculties of discernment. A delegate votes as she thinks her constituents would want her to vote, believing it unethical to put her own preferences ahead of those whom she represents.
Obviously, most elected officials do a little of both, but our current duopoly increasingly has allowed them to do neither. There are countless examples of executive and legislative representatives sacrificing either their own personal determinations of the correct course of action or those of their constituents in order to uphold and prove their loyalty to their party. This is a literal corruption and perversion of the governing process, and it stymies progress.
In fact, one of the most predictable effects of monopolistic and autocratic systems is the decline of good decision-making. When power is concentrated in the hands of fewer and fewer people, they become more isolated and they have access to less information and diversity of opinion. They are convinced of their own wisdom, but without any true competition, their theories and actions are not rigorously tested. Over time, their myopia and detachment from reality inevitably lead to degradation.
To cite a recent example, look at what happened to SoftBank. They created a $100 billion pool called the Vision Fund to support startup companies that they thought had great potential. In essence, they played God with an unfathomable amount of money. And yet, even with that enormous power to effect change on a massive scale, most of their chosen unicorns have failed to actually be successful without their continued infusions of capital. Put simply, the free market is a better vehicle for smart decisions than a few people in a room who think they are smart.
Party leaders at every level of government currently make or break individual candidates by putting their fingers on the scale during the primary process. They set the rules to qualify for debates, or adjust the proportions of power among delegates and superdelegates during their nomination processes. They direct money to their favored darlings — either from their own accounts or by spreading the word among donor networks. Filing fees mean that candidates have to pay a literal kickback to the party just to be able to get on the ballot. It’s like a protection racket, and even if you do everything you are instructed to do, you know you are completely at the mercy of an impulsive don who may love you today and decide you are disposable tomorrow.
And we have abundant evidence at this point to demonstrate that party leaders just aren’t as smart as they think they are. They continually misread the electorate and make decisions based on personal (or financial) relationships instead of objective criteria. They send money to the wrong places and deny resources to the right ones. They emphasize the wrong issues and suppress uncomfortable but undeniable truths. They miss opportunities for progress because they don’t want to upset or offend their longtime institutional supporters. And worst of all, they thrive and profit from dissension and conflict, and thereby often prevent consensus and compromise that can actually solve problems.
Of course, making dumb, irrational, and stubbornly obstructionist decisions is anyone’s God-given right — including political parties. But in a duopolistic system that protects and preserves their exclusive power, their right to act foolishly is superseding the right of every citizen to choose an alternative course — and avoid the harm they are creating for the entire body politic.
We need a real free market of ideas and competition to ensure the best objective policy outcomes for our nation at every level of government. The current arrangement has created a closed loop with a very small group of people making decisions based on a very limited set of inputs. They are not the best and the brightest, and in a nation of 300 million people, we can do much better by allowing the process to work as originally designed.
Let’s cut out the middlemen and see what happens when candidates are unfiltered and can be evaluated at face value. The market will most likely make better decisions than the masters.
It’s truly bizarre that we allow the parties to exert so much direct control over elections, redistricting, campaign finance, and the day-to-day functioning of our government.
Defenders of the current arrangement may argue that the Democratic and Republican parties won their hegemony fair and square, but there is nothing fair or square about how the system has evolved over the last 150 years.
Imagine any industry in which two companies are dominant and completely unregulated. They set all the rules for market access and competition, as well as for pricing, marketing, product safety, etc. No one would stand for it!
But that is what exists today in politics. For example, in New York State in 2019, Governor Andrew Cuomo and the state Democratic Party muscled new rules through a commission they controlled to make it near impossible for any third-party candidate to get on the ballot. And some version of that happens in most other states as well. Democrats and Republicans share and swap control of election commissions, redistricting commissions, presidential debate commissions, and almost every executive, legislative — and arguably judicial — body. How could anyone in another party, or without partisan affiliation, possibly compete?
They cannot, which is why if political parties continue to exist in American government, regulatory safeguards in the political marketplace must be adopted in the same way that the Progressive Era and the New Deal addressed the industrial and financial marketplaces during the first half of the 20th century. Those actions ushered in the most productive years of growth in American history while improving health, longevity, and environmental conditions overall. We need to do the same thing for our politics.
The construction of this regulatory framework should begin by removing political parties and partisan elected officials from any control or oversight of themselves. All public commissions should be nonpartisan and constituted through processes that cannot be tainted by partisan influence.
Fortunately, a model exists for how we can identify and select people to work in government outside of the partisan appointment process: our civil service system. By expanding its reach and making it the primary vehicle through which public commissions are constituted, we can at least begin to reduce the stranglehold that political parties have over every aspect of our electoral and governing bodies.
Of course, the civil service approach would have to be adopted by states and localities as well, but federal guidance and mandates could help achieve some uniformity, as it has in other realms, including banking, insurance, and environmental health and safety.
Barring that, the next best options are open primaries and ranked-choice voting. But neither of those reforms addresses or solves the fundamental problem of the duopoly and its ultimate control over the choices that voters are allowed to have.
And nothing but a constitutional amendment mandating nonpartisan elections and governance will alter the dynamics within legislative bodies, including how they are organized and how they behave.
While it sounds radical, it is actually the simplest and most elegant cure for the overwhelming dysfunction and toxicity of our politics, and ultimately would be a return to the original design of our government.
The two major political parties are exactly like a virus in that they took over our government and made it work only to serve their own interests. They will eventually kill the system if they are not removed.
