Discussion about this post

User's avatar
Andrew Burleson's avatar

I think we desperately need some center parties for this reason, ideally “state parties” that can challenge the fully polarized states. Just as the democrats have become non-viable in the heartland, a state party needs to replace the republicans in California so that the democrats there have to actually compete.

Meanwhile it’s sad that it’s come to this. Playing an entire generation of nasty polarization as the strategy to win has left us in this locked-in non-competitive situation, and because our system over represents rural areas, this works strongly against the democrats.

Expand full comment
City Of Trees's avatar

Thinking about some limitations to this strategy:

1. Every state has a sizeable number of bog standard Democrats that want bog standard Democratic policy. There will be a bit of a collective action problem to get all of them to vote for a less than preferred candidate instead of just staying home/leaving that race blank/voting for some other fringe candidate more ideologically aligned.

2. Ranked choice voting, of course, could help mute the spoiler factor here, something that's rising in several states now, and could make this strategy more viable.

3. Republicans still are liable to nominate clowns for races, and if they do, they can be exploited by actual Democrats.

4. The independent might not end up being favorable to hardly any Democratic policies once in power. Bernie Sanders and Angus King are nominally independents but are understood to support Democrats almost all the time, and turnabout could definitely happen.

5. Maybe this is finally the time it happens, but Democratic supporters have been too fatalistic on the Senatefor many years, when in this century they've lost the House more often.

6. This is even a greater collective action problem, but at some point Democratic supporters need to be comfortable living in a different state, particularly if they're trying to make it in a state with tight housing policy. Almost every state has a top 100 metro---I think Montana, Wyoming, and the Dakotas are the exception. Nebraska of course has Omaha.

Expand full comment
161 more comments...

No posts