If America had six parties, where would your loyalties lie?
 | By John Guida Staff Editor, Opinion |
Modern American politics has been defined by hyperpartisanship, with Democrats and Republicans engaged less in governing and more in zero-sum conflict. |
We have seen very few persuasive cures for this toxic political atmosphere. So maybe we need more than two parties — six, to be precise. |
That is the argument of Lee Drutman, a political scientist and author of "Breaking the Two-Party Doom Loop: The Case for Multiparty Democracy in America." In an interactive guest essay today, he describes how the United States could get to six parties, what they could be — and then offers a quiz that can help you determine which new party would be the best fit for you. |
In a conversation with me, he further explained why more parties would be better for our politics: |
John Guida: Could you say, in a nutshell, why the United States needs more political parties, and why it would make democracy and governance less troubled? |
Lee Drutman: American democracy is stuck in a doom loop, in which "winning" has become the central value, regardless of what the parties are actually winning. More frighteningly, losing an election is now an existential fear. This intense fear of political loss justifies extreme political actions, including attacks on democracy itself. |
In a multiparty system, winning and losing is simply less binary — the stakes of any given election become lower. With multiple parties, all governing is coalition governing and thus political compromise becomes central to governing. There are no permanent winners, no permanent losers. Having more parties (within limits) can make politics less divisive as a result. Partisan attachments are weaker, which means that collective national attachments can be stronger. |
JG: You write that the way to six new parties is through proportional multimember districts. Walk me through a hypothetical example of this. Let's say we've got a new district in Ohio or Texas that stretches from a big city — say Houston or Cleveland — and goes through the suburbs and into the exurbs. What does that look like in the six-party scheme? |
LD: For a city of more than two million people like Houston, a five-member district would encompass the whole of the city and some inner suburbs. The larger district might elect one representative from the Christian Conservative Party, one Progressive, two New Liberals and then maybe one from Growth and Opportunity. |
A smaller city like Cleveland would have a five-member district that could stretch more into the exurbs. In a Rust Belt state like Ohio, you'd be more likely to see an American Labor representative (more likely to be found in the postindustrial cities in the Midwest) and probably one Patriot Party representative (more likely to be found in the postindustrial exurbs). Progressives are likely to be strongest in the cities, so you'd probably see at least one Progressive representative, along with one Growth and Opportunity representative, representing the old-guard Republican tradition still strong in Ohio. And maybe one Liberal representative, too, representing the wealthier liberal parts of Cleveland. |
Different parties are likely to have different regional strengths, as they do now, but in any given region, they will be competitive with other parties — unlike the current system, in which the party is largely split into lopsided Democratic and lopsided Republican areas. |
JG: In the essay, you write that many other democracies have multiple parties. Are the politics of these countries generally less partisan? |
LD: Yes, I recently wrote about the research on the relationship between party systems and hatred. A few recent studies have found that Americans have turned uniquely hateful of opposing partisans among advanced democracies, and in general, the more parties a country has, the less likely citizens are to disparage and hate opposing partisans. |
In multiparty systems, shifting coalitions mean fewer permanent enemies and more shifting allies. Multiparty systems also often have less negative campaigning (because the "lesser of two evils" strategy does not work with more than two parties) and thus less demonization of opposing parties. Finally, multiparty systems have more parties competing in more places, which means that most citizens will have many friends and family members who support other parties. This makes it harder for them to stereotype and demonize opposing partisans. |
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