The winner-take-all system
Unlike in other advanced democracies (most of which use
various methods of proportional voting), the American legislative
elections are held through a series of separate elections, each held in
single-member districts, in which the candidate with the most votes
wins. Because there is only one possible winner, any vote for a third
party is essentially a “wasted vote.” This is the reason there are no
third parties in the United States.
The deficiencies of a two-party system become glaring
when the parties become as diametrically opposed as they are now. “A
two-party democracy cannot provide stable and effective government
unless there is a large measure of ideological consensus among its
citizens,” writes the economist Anthony Downs in his widely cited
classic An Economic Theory of Democracy.
The problem, as Downs explained, is that the country will
swing from extreme to extreme, with each side antagonizing the other
until the middle drops out entirely. In contrast to the ‘50s, the
electoral system is now a faucet where the slightest change produce
scalding and near-freezing water.
“When the distribution has become so split that one
extreme is imposing by force policies abhorred by the other extreme,”
Downs wrote, “open warfare breaks out, and a clique of underdogs seizes
power." Just as George Washington feared.
To expand the party system to create space for possible
centrist or other alternative parties would require a change in
electoral rules create space for proportional voting. Earlier this year,
Rep. Don Beyer (D-VA) introduced
the Fair Representation Act, which would create larger House districts,
and have the voters choose several representatives in each one.
FairVote has a helpful explainer on how this would work. I wrote earlier this year about why this plan makes a ton of sense.
The system would give conservatives in New York City, for
instance, a say in who gets chosen for the House: They would be likely
to win a seat or two. Likewise, liberals in red Alabama districts might
be able to elect a candidate. Ranked choice voting would mean citizens
could vote their hearts — yet still express a preference for the “lesser
evil” of the two major-party candidates.
The power of the presidency
The high-stakes winner-take-all dynamic is made worse by
concentrating so much power in a single unilateral actor -- the
president — who is asked to do something impossible: be the single
tribune of very divided nation. (A difference of 80,000 votes in three
key states, and the country swings wildly in a different direction: That
is not a foundation for democratic stability.)
Some have observed
that Trump is acting as if he only represents those who voted for him,
rather than the whole country. Of course he is. When the country is
divided, especially over fundamental questions of national identity,
it’s impossible to govern from a nonexistent middle ground. Trump stays
in power based on the support of a minority that also happens to be the
majority of the majority.
This is precisely the danger of winner-take-all systems.
All Trump needs is 60 percent support among Republicans (a narrow
majority of the narrow majority); his poll numbers can stay in the low
30s and he can in theory retain power. This is how he is governing,
because this is how the system is set up for him to govern under a
divided public. He’s not going to win over any Democrats, and he has no
incentive to try. This is why the power of the presidency is so
dangerous.
The Constitution deserves some blame for this situation,
but a considerable amount of the expansion of executive power over the
last several decades has happened because Congress has ceded authority
and oversight.
Changing this dynamic requires Congress reassert its
authority — but Congress, of course, is also shaped by the dynamics of
two polarized parties.
Absent the structural revolution of a shift to
multimember districts, a more modest change would be for both parties in
Congress to decentralize internally. Under current organizational
structures, party leaders dictate and control policy in ways that punish
any rogue members who want to try something that wouldn’t help the
party win the next election — like working across the aisle.
That would require courageous votes from those
entrepreneurial congressmen who would like to do much more freelance
coalition building. But if they are willing to defy their leaders and
whips, it would reveal that parties have far more internal ideological
diversity than partisan voting patterns show.
For members to act independently, however, Congress would
have to invest in more internal staff with policy expertise, and
members have resisted such investments for a long time.
A shift toward localism, or federalism, could help, too.
If partisans on both sides felt more secure that they could live their
values at home regardless of who was in power in Washington, this could
lighten some of the zero-sum nastiness and dysfunction of national
politics. For those on the left who have long seen federalism as code
for mistreatment of minorities, the resistance of blue cities to Trump’s
more draconian anti-immigration policies should offer some reassurance.
The outsized importance of private money in politics
Finally, there is the outsized role of private money in
politics. Again, because one-party majority dominance is always narrowly
in reach, both parties have been in a decades-long fundraising arms
race that has consumed their ability to govern.
In the campaign finance chase, both parties have gained
profitably from catering to extremely wealthy individuals. In theory,
the disconnect between voters’ wishes and donors’ priorities should
create a problem for both parties, given that the parties economic
policies are at odds with what most of their voters would prefer. But
herein lies the great advantage of the two-party system — for party
leaders. By dialing up the cultural conflict, they can distract voters
from the disconnect between elite preferences and the public good. To
the extent campaign finance reform can get politicians to refocus their
attention on the economic needs of voters, not donors, that will help
greatly in controlling polarization.
To return to the nightmare scenario I began with: Would
Trump really refuse to concede, if he lost a close race in 2020? If so,
would Republicans really stand by him? And if so, then what? Would the
Courts step in? Would the military? Would Trump be forcibly removed from
office? If so, what would he and his supporters do in response? Would a
forcibly installed President Kamala Harris have to crack down on civil
liberties in order to hold the peace? Would some deep red states then
secede?
These hypotheticals are meant mainly to clarify the
stakes of our predicament. But given current trends, such a scenario is
frighteningly in the realm of the plausible. The raw division and
conflict and mutual demonization are there, and are getting worse and
worse. The events in Charlottesville are just the latest manifestation.
Where will things be by 2020? What happens if there’s a major recession,
and even more anger?
I honestly don’t know whether we’ll get escape this mess without a constitutional crisis.
We need partisan conflict to organize politics. Without
political parties, there is no meaningful democracy. But we are deep
into a self-reinforcing cycle of doom-loop partisanship. We need to
think hard about how to escape this trap, before it is too late.
Lee Drutman, a regular contributor to Polyarchy, a Vox blog, is a senior fellow in the political reform program at New America.