Can America Break Free from the Two-Party Doom Loop? Ranked-choice voting may be the answer to the gridlock, polarization, and gamesmanship that has come to define our politics.

AuthorBurke, David Edward

Breaking the Two-Party Doom Loop: The Case for Multiparty Democracy in America

by Lee Drutman

Oxford University Press, 365 pp.

There is a growing consensus that the American political system is no longer the gold standard it once was. The United States ranks outside the top 20 countries in the Corruption Perception Index. U.S. voter turnout trails most other developed countries. Congressional approval ratings hover around 20 percent, and polling shows that partisan animosity is at an all-time high. It doesn't take a social scientist to see that our legislatures are increasingly defined by gridlock and gamesmanship.

It's always tempting to think that the next election will turn things around, and for both Republicans and Democrats to believe that our country would course-correct if only they could elect more of their own. But what if the problem isn't the people on the other side of the aisle? What if the two-party system itself is creating a vicious cycle, making government less effective and driving us apart?

That's what Lee Drutman argues in Breaking the Two-Party Doom Loop. Drutman, a political scientist and senior fellow at New America, writes that moving to a multiparty democracy can create fair representation, reduce partisan gridlock, lead to more positive incremental change, and increase both voter turnout and voter satisfaction. And through concrete reforms, like implementing ranked-choice voting and expanding the size of the House of Representatives, Drutman lays out the path forward.

It is difficult to imagine that the partisans who occupy the halls of power will voluntarily make room for third, fourth, or even fifth and sixth major parties. But Drutman leaves little doubt that the American political system would benefit from more viable options in the voting booth.

For anyone born after 1990, it would be easy to believe that American politics has always been the toxic blood sport it is today. But the dominance of two extremely polarized parties is a recent phenomenon--and it's something the framers actively sought to avoid. As Drutman notes, George Washington's final presidential address warned of "the alternate domination of one faction over another," and John Adams worried that "a division of the republic into two great parties ... is to be dreaded as the great political evil." So how did we get to where we are today?

Where Drutman believes the framers erred was in failing to realize that simple plurality elections--used for...

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