>Earlier this year, Golden tried to do something about the problem of a broken political system. He and fellow Blue Dog Democrat Marie Gluesenkamp Perez introduced legislation to create a Select Committee on Electoral Reform to study multimember districts, proportional representation, and House expansion, among other ideas.
>This is how I know the congressman—as a reformer. I’ve talked with Golden and his staff about these reforms. His interest is genuine and deep.
>Golden got it. Our electoral rules are obsolete. He understood why representatives who don’t fit easily into either party are so rare: the electoral system works against them. Our electoral system is winner-take-all, which means in today’s nationalized politics, it flattens every district into a partisan monoculture—exactly the opposite of the pluralism necessary for American democracy to function.
>Congress keeps losing the people who want to fix it. Which makes it worse. Which breeds more violence. Which drives out more reformers. What breaks the cycle? How does this get better?
>Presidential vote share now dominates down-ballot races. Straight-ticket voting is crushing individual candidate effects. Golden was a rare exception. He distinguished himself by sending costly signals of independence—including a Bangor Daily News op-ed saying Trump was going to win and democracy would be fine. Bold move in a Trump district. It worked. Not many Democrats can credibly pull that off.
>When moderates like Golden move on, who replaces them? Fewer and fewer moderates want to run for national partisan office these days.
>After all, if you’re a moderate, where do you fit? Golden was often at odds with his party. He’s a mature adult, for sure—but I imagine even mature adults tire of swimming against their own party’s current.
I said this the last time I saw this graph, but something really broke between 2008 and 2016
HereForTOMT3 on
Parties matter now boys we parliamentarian in this bitch
Tennouheika on
Someone tell me how Fetterman is doing
CincyAnarchy on
Genuinely the largest systemic risk Democrats, as they exist now, have.
Democrats are, and will continue to be, a diverse coalition. Democrats have to appeal to a bunch of different groups in a bunch of different corners in the country. These groups don’t always see eye to eye.
So if a Democrat running Montana is dragged down by Fox News Outrage over AOC? The electoral map is very tricky long term.
The problem is… I don’t really see a way out of this. What allowed regional differentiation of political parties (which Democrats in particular used to thrive on, for better and worse), was a much more regional media ecosystem and much more powerful regional political figures and consensuses. But that isn’t today’s world. Media ecosystems are national, social media is international, and that’s not changing any time soon.
5 Comments
bonus House data:
https://preview.redd.it/7u3pvkbsauzf1.png?width=942&format=png&auto=webp&s=4858b16b30e6190311a7d705f69cfbb1bacaf6dc
Analysis from Lee Drutman (political scientist and one of the most high-profile advocates for electoral reform in the US) here: [“Politics Keeps Driving Out the People Who Want to Reform It”](https://leedrutman.substack.com/p/politics-keeps-driving-out-the-people)
>Earlier this year, Golden tried to do something about the problem of a broken political system. He and fellow Blue Dog Democrat Marie Gluesenkamp Perez introduced legislation to create a Select Committee on Electoral Reform to study multimember districts, proportional representation, and House expansion, among other ideas.
>This is how I know the congressman—as a reformer. I’ve talked with Golden and his staff about these reforms. His interest is genuine and deep.
>Golden got it. Our electoral rules are obsolete. He understood why representatives who don’t fit easily into either party are so rare: the electoral system works against them. Our electoral system is winner-take-all, which means in today’s nationalized politics, it flattens every district into a partisan monoculture—exactly the opposite of the pluralism necessary for American democracy to function.
>Congress keeps losing the people who want to fix it. Which makes it worse. Which breeds more violence. Which drives out more reformers. What breaks the cycle? How does this get better?
>Presidential vote share now dominates down-ballot races. Straight-ticket voting is crushing individual candidate effects. Golden was a rare exception. He distinguished himself by sending costly signals of independence—including a Bangor Daily News op-ed saying Trump was going to win and democracy would be fine. Bold move in a Trump district. It worked. Not many Democrats can credibly pull that off.
>When moderates like Golden move on, who replaces them? Fewer and fewer moderates want to run for national partisan office these days.
>After all, if you’re a moderate, where do you fit? Golden was often at odds with his party. He’s a mature adult, for sure—but I imagine even mature adults tire of swimming against their own party’s current.
also see: [“Wanted: A few reasonable people to run for Congress”](https://leedrutman.substack.com/p/wanted-a-few-reasonable-people-to)
I said this the last time I saw this graph, but something really broke between 2008 and 2016
Parties matter now boys we parliamentarian in this bitch
Someone tell me how Fetterman is doing
Genuinely the largest systemic risk Democrats, as they exist now, have.
Democrats are, and will continue to be, a diverse coalition. Democrats have to appeal to a bunch of different groups in a bunch of different corners in the country. These groups don’t always see eye to eye.
So if a Democrat running Montana is dragged down by Fox News Outrage over AOC? The electoral map is very tricky long term.
The problem is… I don’t really see a way out of this. What allowed regional differentiation of political parties (which Democrats in particular used to thrive on, for better and worse), was a much more regional media ecosystem and much more powerful regional political figures and consensuses. But that isn’t today’s world. Media ecosystems are national, social media is international, and that’s not changing any time soon.
So… not great lol