Polyarchy
This post is part of Polyarchy, an independent blog produced by the political reform program at New America, a Washington think tank devoted to developing new ideas and new voices.
Throughout history, the most successful protest movements have been the ones that have set their own agendas.
What’s new is that secretive bill writing may be reaching the limits of its effectiveness.
Political will and political resources are not separate.
As legislators shut off communication, we need to find new ways to engage.
A historically unpopular president can’t inspire primary challenges to keep them in line.
Once, there were Republicans and Southerners who needed black votes.
When people evaluate their president, they care more about effort than results.
A well-resourced Congress may be the one thing standing in the way of a Trump administration doing whatever the heck it wants. A doubling or even a tripling of congressional staff budgets — especially if it goes to oversight — would be money very, very well spent.
Electoral College lobbying has become routine since 2000, when I set up the first online system to try to change electors’ votes. We failed, but we learned some lessons in the process.
The threat of autocracy replacing liberal democracy seems pretty serious, and very difficult to recover from. I don’t want to take a chance.
Donald Trump is sending a clear message to every single company and foreign government: Send your lobbyists to Washington to make nice with me.
The winning party is always the party with the biggest tent. Pitching that big tent will mean thinking beyond “left” and “right.”
Let’s keep our eyes on the bigger issues, like government capacity, Trump’s conflicts of interest, Cabinet picks, and, most of all, the policies. Every additional minute we spend debating the merits of the “lobbyist ban” is a minute wasted.
This is on all of us now. We can’t allow this to be normalized. This will take courage and constant vigilance.
Of 393 House incumbents who sought reelection, only five lost in the primaries, and only eight lost in the general election. In other words, 97 percent of incumbents just got reelected.
Will Trump try to remake the Republican Party? Probably. Will he succeed without a fight? Unlikely.
After a night that thoroughly depressed most liberals, these are two notable bright spots.
The Republican Party is in for an extended internal struggle. The longer it goes on, the worse it will be for American democracy.
Republicans must act now to stop further damage to democracy.
If you’re looking for progress on campaign finance reform, look to the states, cities, and counties.
Term limits are the surest way to weaken the legislative branch and empower the executive branch. They’re also a great way to empower special interests and lobbyists.
Republican leaders have no good option. Their party is cracking up.
The 2016 presidential campaign has been an object lesson in the flaws of the traditional single-vote, plurality approach to elections. The Pine Tree State could lead the nation to a better way.
What new information is going to change voters’ minds?
What can an exercise in spewing out sound bites and needling each other for 90 minutes possibly tell us about the candidates that we don’t already know?
Voting for a third-party candidate might have the effect of electing your least favorite candidate. But real parties that reflected the full range of views across the country might open up Congress and politics for the better.
Low pay and high turnover are part of the institutional design of the revolving door and the influence industry in Washington. They are not just mistakes. The system is working just as it was intended.
Republican governance is wrecked by rebellious challenges over ideological infidelity; Democrats are having more success holding their social group coalition together. Don’t expect that to change.
Ideological challenges are much more common for Republican officeholders than for Democrats. This leads to significant governing challenges that imperil the Republican leadership in Congress. It will not change anytime soon.
Both Clinton and Trump have unique problems. But they are also products of this particular moment in political history. Their biggest weakness is that the parties they represent both lack a meaningful consensus in what they should stand for.
Because the Democrats are a pragmatic group coalition facing a Republican ideological movement, American public policy pursues Democratic goals like health care through Republican means like private markets and decentralization.
History shows that political reforms designed to reduce the power of established interest groups and enable legislation often help the more ideological party, the Republicans, over the Democratic group coalition.
Race and identity is now the main issue holding both parties’ coalitions together. This marks a new political alignment.
The Clinton Foundation is not about money In politics, but it does show the limits of traditional approaches.