This is, first of all, another nice article by Lee Drutman, the political scientist holding the torch for the dream of proportional representation in America. I enjoy everything he writes.
Additionally, though, buried in this article is a citation of some interesting research from another social scientist, [Christopher Claassen](http://chrisclaassen.com/), showing that *satisfaction with* democracy and *support for* democracy function as separate variables, and that it’s the latter, rather than the former, that is most strongly associated with the survival of democracy.
Augustus-- on
>First, I was never clear what Democrats — who were supposedly defending “democracy” — were actually defending, other than a deeply unpopular institutional status quo.
>Democrats could have offered exciting reforms to fix our broken system. They could have painted a vision of truly representative and responsive democracy through reform. But instead, we got some vague paeans to freedom and liberty as crucial democratic values. All while Democrats told voters that exercising that freedom to vote for anybody but Democrats would, check that, be the end of democracy. Puzzling.
This was a twitter leftie talking point.
ParticularFilament on
I know this isn’t the most important part of Lee’s work here, but who is an example of the “New Populists?” Is this the politics of Jared Golden or Marie Gluesenkamp Perez?
throwawaygoawaynz on
America was never a democracy to begin with. I don’t think Americans are really aware just how partisan your political system is. Everything from how census is done, the local elections, to judge appointments. All partisan.
You never really had the separation of powers you thought you had, and you can’t reform because you hold a bit of paper written 300 years ago too sacred. Those guys had great ideas for the 1700’s, but they’re not so great in 2025. There’s been like 27 (really 17 after the bill of rights) total amendments in 300 years, and nothing really of much consequence since the Vietnam war. And I think there’s basically zero chance of reform now.
It really was only a matter of time until the house of cards started to collapse.
DrAndeeznutz on
People with a lot of money are the winners.
MeatPiston on
Lack of housing. I am not kidding.
Fix that and we’re probably good.
meraedra on
Honey it’s your daily dose of “we need a multiparty democracy to save democracy”
GogurtFiend on
* Lack of cheap housing and cheap healthcare, and the economic issues caused by them
* Conglomeration of thousands of tiny, grassroots media outlets into a few larger, corporate ones which people don’t engage with as much, meaning a less-informed voting population
* Anti-government cynicism sparked by Bush’s idiotic decision to get involved in Iraq and Afghanistan
* Anti-elite cynicism sparked by right-wing outrage machine and offshoring of jobs
* The *fucking* filibuster
8 Comments
This is, first of all, another nice article by Lee Drutman, the political scientist holding the torch for the dream of proportional representation in America. I enjoy everything he writes.
Additionally, though, buried in this article is a citation of some interesting research from another social scientist, [Christopher Claassen](http://chrisclaassen.com/), showing that *satisfaction with* democracy and *support for* democracy function as separate variables, and that it’s the latter, rather than the former, that is most strongly associated with the survival of democracy.
>First, I was never clear what Democrats — who were supposedly defending “democracy” — were actually defending, other than a deeply unpopular institutional status quo.
>Democrats could have offered exciting reforms to fix our broken system. They could have painted a vision of truly representative and responsive democracy through reform. But instead, we got some vague paeans to freedom and liberty as crucial democratic values. All while Democrats told voters that exercising that freedom to vote for anybody but Democrats would, check that, be the end of democracy. Puzzling.
This was a twitter leftie talking point.
I know this isn’t the most important part of Lee’s work here, but who is an example of the “New Populists?” Is this the politics of Jared Golden or Marie Gluesenkamp Perez?
America was never a democracy to begin with. I don’t think Americans are really aware just how partisan your political system is. Everything from how census is done, the local elections, to judge appointments. All partisan.
You never really had the separation of powers you thought you had, and you can’t reform because you hold a bit of paper written 300 years ago too sacred. Those guys had great ideas for the 1700’s, but they’re not so great in 2025. There’s been like 27 (really 17 after the bill of rights) total amendments in 300 years, and nothing really of much consequence since the Vietnam war. And I think there’s basically zero chance of reform now.
It really was only a matter of time until the house of cards started to collapse.
People with a lot of money are the winners.
Lack of housing. I am not kidding.
Fix that and we’re probably good.
Honey it’s your daily dose of “we need a multiparty democracy to save democracy”
* Lack of cheap housing and cheap healthcare, and the economic issues caused by them
* Conglomeration of thousands of tiny, grassroots media outlets into a few larger, corporate ones which people don’t engage with as much, meaning a less-informed voting population
* Anti-government cynicism sparked by Bush’s idiotic decision to get involved in Iraq and Afghanistan
* Anti-elite cynicism sparked by right-wing outrage machine and offshoring of jobs
* The *fucking* filibuster