Latest / Uncomfortable Conversations with Josh Szeps / "Abolish Political Parties" with John Opdycke

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"Abolish Political Parties" with John Opdycke · Uncomfortable Conversations with Josh Szeps

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We spend so much of our time these days squabbling over what's right in front of us, the latest
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provocation that we see on Twitter, the latest political crisis, the latest thing that
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the politician we don't like said, the latest outrage that we hear about happening from
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people we don't like, the latest triumph from people we do like.
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It's hard sometimes to step back and to have conversations about the ocean that we're
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actually swimming in, you know, the old parable of the two young fish who are swimming along
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and the old fish swims past them and says, how's the water today guys, and as the old
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fish swims away, one of the young fish says to the other, the young fish, hmm, what's
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water? It's hard to have those conversations about the water about the things that we
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don't necessarily pay attention to in our day-to-day life. One of those things is the nature
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of the democracy that we live in, how it's structured and how parties control it. That's
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a conversation for today. It's a conversation whose time never seems to come, but that's
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more urgent than ever. It's a conversation that ruffles feathers at the highest levels
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of politics. It's a conversation that is, in short, uncomfortable.
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Welcome to this week's episode, a beautiful, brainy technocratic, wonk fest about how to
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fix American democracy. President Joe Biden is pushing through some big, audacious reforms,
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infrastructure, huge spending bills. He's really shooting for the stars. And yet, part
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of the conversation is not a reform of the ways in which America has become less democratic
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than most democracies. Think about the electorate. We all know the Electoral College, right?
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You know, where Donald Trump loses by millions and millions and millions of votes. And yet,
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if just a handful of voters in three states had voted for Donald Trump, then he would have won
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the 2020 election. And we all know that he lost to Hillary Clinton by millions of votes and still
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won in 2016. Al Gore won the popular vote in 2000, but George W. Bush was, became president.
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And this is a recurring thing. So there's the Electoral College, which is, you know, its own,
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its own tidbit of weirdness. Then there is the Senate, which, understandably, is supposed to
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represent smaller states, but we're at the founding of the Constitution. The Senate, the difference
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in size between various states was not great. You know, the smallest state was a quarter or a fifth
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the size of the large of the most populous state. Now it's orders of magnitude. Now there are
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tiny, itty bitty states that nobody lives in, Wyoming and other states like California. And senators
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are much more powerful than they used to be partly because of the party system, which is something
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that we're going to discuss on the show today. And partly because of the filibuster, which is
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something we won't discuss, because it's too frustrating. Then you've got gerrymandered districts,
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then you've got voter suppression laws that close down polling places and make it really hard
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to prove that you are who you say you are and introduce ID rules that allow you to use, you know,
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your gun ID as a form of ID, but don't allow you to use your student ID as a form of ID.
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Funnily enough, these particular laws tend to be written by Republicans and gun owners vote
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Republican and students do not. And so there's all of those problems that we all know with American
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democracy, but maybe the fundamental problem that is not being addressed is that the party system,
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the system of having rival political parties with one that sits in loyal opposition whilst the
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other governs, which is an old fashioned parliamentary conception of representative democracy,
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that that was not built into the American system. It doesn't belong there. It's superimposed
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onto the system and it gums up everything. That's the position of today's guest, John Optike,
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who is a fascinating person to talk to because he thinks about the details and the structures of
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American political life in ways that reveal how fucked up they are not to put too fine a point on
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it. I won't preempt this too much. It's somewhat wonky, but that's all right. You're a smart
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person. You can handle, you can handle wonk. The questions that arise here are things that'll
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be worth noodling on, including the sort of strategic question that John puts to me about how you
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enact large-scale reform of the whole structure of a political system when there are so many more
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pressing things for people to be looking at at any particular time and place. Put on your wonk hat,
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enjoy this deep dive into how we might reform the entire American political system to make the
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world's greatest democracy more democratic to make it live up to its name. Enjoy my chat with
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John Optike, the president of Open Prime Minister.
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Guns, border control, it seems like we have a lot to learn from you and yet we are not particularly
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interested in any of that. Your episode on guns, I thought it was fascinating because in some
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ways the experience I had was listening to someone talk about rational, logical, thoughtful
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like ways to approach this and possible solutions and correlations between gun ownership and
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violence and yet we can't do anything about those things in this country because we're not
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capable of addressing these things in that way. I feel like we're coming into your wheelhouse, John.
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Well, you know, it's why I do what I do. I'm not involved in changing the political system because
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it's fun, you know, or I'm a wank or a nerd. I'm involved because there's these
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ways in which our country it's stopped growing. It's gotten calcified. It's gotten rigid. It's gotten
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you know, there's still tremendous vitality and innovation in, you know, certain aspects of our
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business life, our cultural life, but politically policy is like a petrified piece of wood.
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And I mean, you've been talking about this a long time before the current crisis.
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Yeah. No, and I think, I mean, there's this is something almost no progressives want to look at
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seriously, but I think there is a direct relationship between Obama and Trump in the sense that
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the American people elected Obama, including millions of people that that eventually voted for Trump.
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They elected Obama, one of the brightest. I mean, you could not find a more kind of gifted,
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progressive, forward looking, turn the page of history politician in America, right?
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And his whole thing was hope. Change. We have to get beyond the Clinton bush dynasties. We have
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to move America forward. He goes to Washington DC and we have eight years of the worst partisan
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ship since 1800. And I think people looked at Trump and they said, okay, we sent our road scholar
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to Washington and he couldn't do anything. So let's send our drunk uncle to Washington who's
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going to take a shit on the White House floor and offend everybody. Maybe he can shake things up.
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Trump didn't come from Mars. I mean, again, most people disagree with me, but he was very connected
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to a certain dismay that the best and the brightest in this country could not fix Washington.
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I don't think it's true that most people disagree with you. I think there's an elite class of
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Twitterati progressives who just think that he is just yet another expression of a timeless
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instinct in American national life of kind of white reactionary insular racism. And in that,
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they might be true, but one has to then ask the subsequent question, well, why did that
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why did that figure manage to instead of corralling only 5% of the vote? Why did he get the second
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largest number of votes? In 2020 of any candidate who's ever run in the history of the United States,
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accepting one who happened to be Joe Biden. So then you have to say, why is that not just a
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fringe element? Why is it looming so large? And that's where we come to, I think your point
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about it being speaking to a genuine dissatisfaction and a total detachment that a lot of Americans
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feel, especially in the rust belt and in parts of the country that aren't doing so well,
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economically, where there's a sense that that K Street lobbyists and Wall Street have just got
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the whole system stitched up and they're not entirely wrong. They're wrong about I think you and
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I think that they're wrong about the solution, but we probably don't think that they're entirely
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wrong about the problem. I agree. Okay, give us a give listeners then a rundown of who you are and
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what you propose. So my name is John Updike. I'm the president of Open primaries. It's a national
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organization working to enact nonpartisan primaries around the country. By nonpartisan, I mean,
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instead of a democratic primary and a Republican primary, you have a public primary, all the candidates
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run. And the top two or the top three or the top four, depending on the state, move from the
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primary to the general election, regardless of primary of party. And what this does is it creates
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a whole new dynamic for voters and a whole new dynamic for candidates. It relinquishes the party
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control. I mean, if you if you watch Trump's speech during the kind of period between the capital
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insurrection or riots or melee, whatever you have, and the impeachment, he talked explicitly
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about primarying. It's become a verb. Every Republican that was not loyal to the Trump brand.
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His basic position was if you if you go against my wishes, I'm going to primary you,
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which means in these closed party primaries in which you get five to ten percent voter turnout
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in which only Republicans are allowed to vote, you can you can determine the outcome with just
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a handful of people and some money. And here's a dirty little secret about American politics, Josh,
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is that 85 percent of the members of Congress get elected in the primaries, not in the general
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election. The general election is not competitive for 85 percent of the country.
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In the House or in the Senate or both? In the House. The Senate's a little more competitive
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because these are statewide races. But in the House, there's everybody knows this. There's
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Democratic districts. There's Republican districts. There's about 40 to 60 districts in which
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there's some actual vying for whether it's going to be a Democrat or Republican. The rest of
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them are safe seats. And so whoever wins the party primary is the winner. And so you end up with
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a congress of people that are not accountable to their constituents. They're accountable to the
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five to ten percent of Democrats or Republicans in their district who vote in primaries.
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And it totally distorts the incentives, the methodology. There's so many members of Congress that
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will never sign their name to a piece of legislation if a member of the other party is on it.
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Because that looks bad to their primary voters, not to their constituents, their constituents.
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They're like, great, you're getting things done. And maybe not even to the majority of the primary
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voters, but to just enough of the farthest flank of the most extreme primary voters to tip the
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election. So we hear a lot, John, about gerrymandering in the States. And when I tell people in
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Australia that the electoral map is drawn not by an independent electoral commission, but in many
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states, by the party that's in power. So whoever happens to be in power when the census drops every
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10 years, just gets to draw the lines in whatever ways, advantageous to their own party, people's
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eyes open and go, well, that's obviously a recipe for disaster. Why would you ever set up a system
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that way? Because in Australia, there's an independent electoral board of wonky, nonpartisan
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demographers who try to figure out how electoral maps should shift as populations grow and move.
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Are you sort of doing an end run around the problem of gerrymandering by saying, yes, gerrymandering
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may be bad, but it wouldn't be so bad if within those safe seats, everybody had a say in who the
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candidate running for the safe party is? I wouldn't say it's an end run. It's part of the same fight.
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So primary reform is part of a much broader effort to end partisan gerrymandering,
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partisan control of the presidential debates, partisan control of the federal election
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commission, partisan control of boards of elections, partisan control of campaign finance boards
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of ballot access rules. I mean, it's not just gerrymandering where the politicians get to draw their
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own lines. It's the presidential debates where the candidates get to determine the rules for
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being in the debates and they make sure that only a democratic or republican candidate ever qualifies.
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There is a level of conflict of interest at every level of American politics.
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People in Australia and England who have parliamentary party-based systems don't quite get this
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about American politics. It's not designed to be run by political parties. That's not the design
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of the system. Let's just take these things one by one then so we don't jump too much all over the
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place and start with open primaries. The argument that one might make against having an open primary
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is hang on. Aren't the people who aren't members of the party just going to try to spoil it?
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Like why should a republican have to pander to people who are never going to vote for them
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when in their primary? Like if you're a Democrat, if you believe in socialism, that's fine,
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but you don't get to pick who the Republicans elect. What if they want a really, really right-wing
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capitalist, isn't that they're right? That's a good argument and in fact I agree with it.
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But there's two problems. One, then why is that if these are private elections, like you just
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described an elx-cloth election or a rotary election, where it's a private association and they
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get to determine their own leadership, of course. But why are we the public then paying for this?
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Why is this a publicly administered election? Right? That's problem number one.
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Problem number two is that your framework, the way you're articulating that, is that there's such a
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thing as a democratic primary and a republican primary. What I'm talking about is that you have a
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primary. It's not to select party nominees. It's to select which of the candidates go from round
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one to round two. In that situation, you just have all the candidates on the ballot and all
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the voters get to vote. There's no spoiling of anything because there's no proprietary process.
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It's a public process. If the parties want to have a convention, go do it. You're a private group,
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do whatever you want. If the parties want to use their own funds to run their little
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elx-cloth election and have as many people involved in that primary as they want them they can,
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and then that person who they put up can run in. Essentially, what you're saying,
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what you're proposing in an open primary, it might even be helpful not to call it a primary,
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for some people. It's a run-off election, basically. You're talking about having an election before
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the main game to figure out, in some countries do this. France has run-off elections where you need
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to get a certain threshold of the votes, but anyone can throw their hat on the ring in the first
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rounds. You could do it that way and then not be giving any public funds to the parties. The parties
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would love that. They oppose it everywhere. It's on the ballot. In fact, we had a referendum on the
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ballot in Florida. It was a heartbreaking loss. We got 57% of the vote. We got more votes than Biden
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or Trump, but in Florida, you need 60% to change the rules, not 50. We got 57% and lost
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to go from a partisan primary to a nonpartisan primary, but the day that we qualified for the ballot
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and it cost eight million dollars to get on the ballot with all the signatures we had together.
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We were sued the day, not the day after, the day, by the Democratic Party of Florida and the
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Republican Party of Florida, to kick us off the ballot. They didn't even want the voters to have
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any opportunity to weigh in on this. The funny thing about the parties is that they fight tooth
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and nail. They call each other fascists and communists, but when you threaten their privileged status
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in our democracy, they have no problem joining forces and coming up with legal arguments against
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you. It reveals their true colors. They are billion, billion, multi-billion dollar entities,
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and they've morphed from organizations that involved citizens, including immigrants,
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that integrated Americans into the political conversation. I could argue the parties played
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a very positive role in doing that, but now they're self-perpetuating institutions that are
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simply about maintaining their power. Again, I'm not a conspiracy theorist. Think about
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that happens in every area of life. The Republican Party was born out of the anti-slavery movement
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in this country. It had a noble beginning, but now they just, they don't believe in anything,
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and don't be confused about all their rhetoric on issues. They don't believe anything.
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They believe in winning and staying in power. Now, maybe I'm a little bit of conspiracy theorist.
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No, you don't sound like a conspiracy theorist. You just sound like incredibly cynical.
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Well, you know, I'm humbled because these are extremely powerful opponents. I've done battle
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with them, and I'm cynical in that I am not at all confused about the ability of these
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institutions to stay in power, as inept as they are at something. Who is the
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vague and who is the institution here? Because I understand that you have these huge clunking
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onifices of the Republican Party and the Democratic Party, or in Australia,
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Labor and Liberal, or in the UK, the, you know, the Tories and the Labor Party. And these are
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anachronistic, and they are cumbersome, and they enforce their kind of hegemony
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in ways that can be deconstructed. And yet, are they anything more than just a paper tiger than
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just a piece of scaffolding into which the people send their oiling complaints and anxieties?
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In the sense that one could have said in 2015 that the Republican Party is unresponsive to
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the wishes of Middle America and has become alienated from its kind of working class,
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you know, Reagan coalition of voters and has turned into a party of Mitt Romney's and fancy
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high hat lawyers like who was Mitt Romney's vice presidential candidate, who was going to be the
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next big thing in the Republican Party? Oh, it was Paul Ryan. Paul Ryan, right? I mean, Paul Ryan
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was supposed to be like the avatar, supposed to child of what the Republican Party had become,
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slick, good looking, and interested only in tax cuts. And then all of a sudden Trump comes
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barreling in, and the whole party gets overturned, and everything that party tries to do by putting up
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you know, 16 different candidates who are all cookie-cutter versions of the same bullshit against
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Donald Trump gets swept away with the force of his voters. So, you know, what does your, how does your
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vision of a strong party system withstand that hurricane? Well, that's a great question, Josh,
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and I think that, you know, and part of why I don't think I'm cynical is that I think the American
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people are pushing back, and they have been for a number of years. I mean, at least since Ross
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Parogue, I've 20 million votes in 1992, the election of Obama, people forget this. Obama took on Hillary
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Clinton. Obama was not anointed. Obama galvanized a left-center right coalition, mostly left-of-center,
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but he had some NPR Republicans in there, a lot of independent voters, to say, Hillary Clinton
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is bad for this country, and we need to do things in some new ways. He beat her, and that was
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tapping into a desire among the American people to go somewhere new. Similarly, Trump thrashed,
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you said it perfectly, all these stuff suits, all the jab bushes, all the kind of Republicans
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who are used to throwing a little red meat to the Tea Party, but then going to the Country Club
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and cutting their deals. And the Republican base said, screw you, we're going to go with the
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crazy guy. Now, I don't like Trump. I've lived in New York for 30 years. I know Trump
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as a fraud and a conster, but I don't think people that voted for Trump are racist, xenophobic,
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horrible humans. I think they're people looking to desperately make some change. So what you're
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pointing out, Josh, is that the parties are not omnipotent. They have vulnerabilities. They have
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weaknesses. But right now, those challenges are still being absorbed. I mean, think about the
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Republican party absorbed Trump. Now, you could say that another way that Trump took over the Republican
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party. Absolutely. That didn't have a choice. I mean, they absorbed Trump like a gazelle absorbs a
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lion. Right. Yes. But yes. And I'm not saying one is right or one is wrong. I think it's that
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the whole way that the parties have set up American politics is that even when they get taken over,
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they do the taking over. It's fascinating. There's no super party way of affecting change in America.
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And this is just I'll say, the largest group of voters in the country are independents.
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There are people that aren't members of political parties. And there's this fascinating thing going
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on. The day after the insurrection, the Gallup poll had the number of independents in the country
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as 50% larger than both parties combined. But they explain that away. The pollsters,
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the Washington industry, they say, well, these independents are not really independents. They're
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democratic leaners and Republican leaners. So they find these creative cultural ways to get everybody
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back into the two party framework. And what they mean, what the pollsters mean when they say that
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they're the spike in independence is not real independence is that if there were an election
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held today, those independents would vote for a party. Therefore, they're really party loyalists.
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But of course, they'd vote for a party because what else are they going to vote for? Because the
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party is the only thing to vote for. Imagine if you were at home and you got a poll, you got to call
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from a pollster and he said, uh, Mr Zafzi at time for some questions, you say, sure,
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question. I would never say that. Yes, but you know, maybe he gets the wrong number. Okay.
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Do you prefer, uh, you know, fried chicken or, uh, you know, Vio Asabuco? And you say, well,
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actually, neither I'm a vegetarian. And they say, okay, fine. But if you had to choose between
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Vio Asabuco and fried chicken, you know, I'm a vegetarian. Don't you respect that choice? No,
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no, no. I need you to be either a Vio Oranasabuco or a fried chicken. And that's what they do with
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independents. They insist that you can call yourself an independent, but you have to make a choice
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in who you vote for. They're by negating the whole activity of raising your hand and saying,
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I don't want to be in a political party. I don't like your parties. I don't like how you've structured
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things. But despite that, I think the American people going back to Jerry Mandarin,
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I'm close friends with a woman who led the effort Michigan to get rid of partisan Jerry Mandarin.
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And she built a citizen army in Michigan, opposed by the Democratic Party, the Republican Party,
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all the good government groups, all the all the Muckety Mucks said this couldn't be done.
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And she just went out and did it. And there's a lot of interest in going up against the party
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establishment in this country, liberal and conservative. But it doesn't get talked about that much.
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It's under the radar. And it hasn't broken through. But it's out there.
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Public primaries have been undertaken by some states, including including a huge state
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California, the most popular state. How's it working there? How does it work and what impact has
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it had? It's been very positive. California had the most dysfunctional and least competitive
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elections in the country in 2000. In the entire decade between 2000 and 2010, there were
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four politicians who lost their races of any level of for anything. It was basically you get
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elected. It's a job for life. Wow. And two of those four were under indictment
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in the Jack Abel-Mov scandal. Since then, California now has the most competitive elections
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in the country. Meaning every two or four years, you really have to campaign and if the voters
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don't like you, they throw you out. And that's just a clarify for people. That's because now
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when you go to the... On a primary election day, which for non-Americans you might not know is
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a separate election than the general election. It happens obviously in advance when the parties
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are going to pick who their candidate is going to be. And obviously it has much lower turnout
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than the general election because only people who are motivated to care about the party go. But
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now in California, if you go to the primary, then you don't say what party you're a member of
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and all of the candidates, regardless of the party, appear all on the same ballot and you choose
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everyone chooses what candidates and then those candidates that will go to the general.
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So why hasn't there been a disruption to the party system in California? Why do we still
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only see Republicans and Democrats? Well, you see a number of independents and third-party
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candidates doing well. They are still underfunded. They still face a whole range of difficulties.
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I mean, again, the two parties, they control the oxygen we breathe in America. So starting a
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third party, and I'm friends with many of the people that are doing that, there's no money in it.
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It's very, very difficult. That said, you have some greens and some libertarians and some peace
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and freedom and some independent, unaffiliated candidates that have been able to get into the
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final round. You also see this phenomenon where the greens and libertarians, let's say their
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candidate only gets 12% of the vote in the primary. So they don't make it to the second round,
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but they just got 12% of the vote. And now the two front runners want to go meet with them and say,
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what do we have to do to get your vote? So actually, some of the minor parties and independents are
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gaining political muscle, even though they're not winning seats. Competition has gone up.
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The black and legislative caucus has doubled in California in the last 10 years. Voter turnout,
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if you allow everybody to vote in the primaries and you make them competitive, people will vote in
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them. And voter turnout in California primaries is double the national average. And you're getting
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all these great results. So for example, in some of the most liberal areas like Oakland and
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Marin County, typically you'll have two Democrats or a Democrat and a green are the finalists,
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not a Democrat or a Republican. So the general election will be held between two Democrats.
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Exactly. That's interesting. Right. And here's, there was just a study at USC
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that indicated a very interesting change in politicians' behavior. So if you live in an area
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of the state where there is a likelihood, not a guarantee, but a likelihood that the two finalists
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will be either two Democrats or two Republicans, meaning you're in an ultra-level area or an
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ultra conservative area. If you're a Democrat running in San Francisco and you want to make it to
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the final round, where probably you're going to face off against another Democrat.
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How are you going to win that election? Well, you better start getting to know the Republicans
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and the independents who live in your district. Right. And the fascinating thing is in the most
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liberal district in California, I'm talking Birkenstocks and Ty Die on every street corner.
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There are tens of thousands of business owners, of Republicans, of independents. Typically,
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in the most liberal district, it's only 50% Democrat, the other 50% are independents and Republicans.
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And so you end up with these politicians like Rokana, who was Bernie Sanders
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chairman, co-chairman of his presidential campaign. He's a Democrat, very progressive.
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This guy has relationships across the board with all the business people, the conservatives,
31:27
the independents in his district because that's how you win. So you end up with politicians that
31:33
are not, they're not in these little echo chambers. That's fascinating. So it's actually less about
31:39
the mechanics of democracy and more about what kind of candidate you're encouraging for.
31:44
What kind of candidate the system is encouraging for? And in a closed, gerrymandered, closed
31:49
primary, which only the party loyalists vote, you're encouraging people to pander to the most
31:55
extreme views in their own party and to say the hell with everybody else.
32:02
Whereas if it's open and I mean, it's extraordinary to me coming from a very party system,
32:07
from a parliamentary system, which is predicated on parties, that you would have candidates from the
32:12
same party running against each other in primary here and in the UK and other parliamentary
32:17
democracies. All of that happens behind closed doors and not only would you never have two members
32:22
of the same party running against each other, you might have coalitions that stitch up agreements
32:27
and say that we will never, you know, or very, very rarely run candidates against each other
32:32
from these two parties. I mean, Australia is governed by one of the world's oldest political
32:36
coalitions between the Liberal Party, the Conservatives and the National Party, which is the
32:40
sort of farming, rural and regional party. And they've been in a coalition for over a century.
32:45
And they won't run against each other, right? If you're in the bush, you vote, you know,
32:51
either Labour or National, if you're in the city, you vote either Labour or Liberal,
32:55
and the Liberals and the Nationals, you know, the most popular party is the Labour Party,
32:59
almost at almost every election. But because of this coalition that it faces, it's, you know,
33:05
it's out of power most of the time, which is, yeah, it's interesting. I mean, it also raises the
33:11
question about the voting system that you use, like here we have what we call preferential
33:18
voting, which Americans call ranked choice voting. Right. So that if you, which means that you put
33:24
a number next to each of the candidates on the ballot, and if your number one is not, it doesn't
33:29
get over a threshold, then they go to your number two, and then they go to your number three,
33:32
and then they go to your number four. So no matter who, no matter what, how tiny the voter is,
33:37
sorry, the candidate is, or how unpopular the candidate is, that you put it as number one,
33:41
your vote won't be wasted. So you don't get that, oh, I'm throwing that vibe,
33:45
throwing my vote away on a third-party candidate. Yeah, it's catching on in the US. In fact,
33:50
we just passed a ballot referendum in Alaska just six months ago that got rid of the party primaries.
33:57
There's now a top four. So you have an open nonpartisan primary, the top four candidates go to the
34:04
general election, and then you rank them. You use a ranked choice ballot in the general election,
34:10
and that's a new model of combining nonpartisan primaries with ranked choice voting that we're
34:15
hoping to bring to a lot of different states in the US. So you're right, though. It's not a parliamentary
34:24
system. You know, we're not set up that way, and that's why things like California's top two,
34:31
because they're so counterintuitive and so unusual, and in some ways they don't make sense
34:37
why I think they're growthful, because we're giving like some kind of shock system. Yeah,
34:43
I mean, I wonder, I'm trying to figure out if a parliament, if a truly parliamentary system,
34:48
whether or no primaries at all, is better or worse than the closed primary American system,
34:53
because it's certainly less democratic. I mean, in Australia, you don't get to say over who the
34:58
candidates are at all. That's all through party backroom deals. Now, the downside of that is,
35:05
it's not very democratic. You're just presented with candidates from various parties, and you get to
35:09
you get to vote for whoever it is that they put up. On the other hand, the party knows a lot about
35:17
it's about each electorate, and knows who is going to appeal the best to that particular electorate.
35:22
So you do have very experienced political minds sort of hand picking the candidates who care
35:28
about the things that you that your electorate presumably cares about, so they're going to do the
35:32
best in that electorate. And it also means that you don't get Trump, because the only people who
35:40
you have an opportunity to ever vote for are people who've already been pre-vetted by the
35:44
establishment, so Trump just wouldn't have been allowed through. That's the upside. The downside is,
35:49
you also don't get Obama, because as you pointed out earlier, to my American, to my non-American
35:54
friends who say, oh, how could a country as great as America, the elected idiot like Trump,
35:59
what kind of a system do they have in place that allows that? I always say the same system that
36:04
allowed Obama. I mean, Obama would have never have gotten through in a parliamentary democracy. He
36:08
wasn't experienced enough. He would have been told to stand at the back of the line and wait
36:12
his turn and do his clock his years in the Senate. Is that your dog crashing something in the background,
36:19
or is he? Yes, he's been naughty. I love it. Also, why is there such focus in the states on
36:26
registering to vote? Why do you have to keep registering? It seems like this is all part of the
36:29
whole, I don't know, question that foreigners often, like myself often have about the kind of
36:36
voter integrity and voter suppression and so on. In Australia, I guess when you turn 18,
36:44
yeah, you do register to vote, but I think it just happened. I think it happens when you get your
36:49
license, you're invited to register or something, and then it's for the rest of your life. You
36:52
don't have to be going out and registering. When I keep hearing Americans, they're going out to
36:56
register people to vote. I don't quite understand it. Who are these people who are being registered?
37:00
Are they all people who just turned 18? Or moved to a different state because each state has
37:07
its own database and it's not a national database. Changed address. We're released from jail
37:13
and their probation is up and they're now eligible to vote again. There's a lot of different
37:20
reasons why people are not registered to vote, but you're so right. In fact, if you look at the
37:24
history of voter registration in this country, voter registration was designed to decrease the vote.
37:32
They literally created voter registration as a way to make sure that only certain people voted.
37:37
Yeah, I don't know why the registration even, yeah, that's right. If you think about it,
37:42
if you wanted to maximize the democracy, then you know who people are. They've got a social
37:47
security number. They've got a birth certificate. Why wouldn't you just send them a letter when
37:51
they turn 18? Like presumably they're paying taxes. The IRS has their info. You know, you could
37:58
just auto-register them and send them a letter saying if you want to opt out of our democracy,
38:02
well, you don't even give them an opt-out option. I mean, it's not like you have to vote in the
38:05
States. You don't get penalized like here where you supposedly get a small fine for not showing up
38:10
at the polls. Just register them and then if they get to the polling booth and they've moved since
38:17
you're registered, then they can just update their address and show then you drive his license.
38:22
Yeah, exactly. Now, can I answer your question, Josh? Yeah.
38:27
So this is something that I struggle with and I'm a big fan of your show and I want like an
38:32
honest answer from you because one experience that I have is that there is a way in which people
38:41
make a distinction between the real issues, you know, all the things you talk about, all the
38:49
uncomfortable conversations about policy and politics and the cultural wars and so forth.
38:55
And then these kind of process issues. And I think that the movement that I'm a part of
39:04
has not bridged the gap between those two things. There is still kind of a ghettoization of
39:11
these process discussions. But do you see that? Yes.
39:16
Yeah, I'm making that up. No, definitely. I definitely see that problem. I definitely see
39:20
that problem. I mean, this was a problem to some extent that I thought was it Pete Buttigieg,
39:25
who made a big deal out of process in the primary? A little bit. He was a little bit.
39:30
One of the candidates in certain ways, various candidates do when it serves their self-interest
39:37
and then they forget about it when it doesn't. I think it is a problem. And I mean,
39:44
anytime you're talking about structural reform, I think it has to be taken out of the hands of
39:50
everyday political discourse. I don't think it's a problem to not be part of the flotsam and
39:57
jetsam of the everyday cultural and political conversation. Like there are things that have to
40:02
be done right now against coronavirus and to resuscitate the American economy that it's important
40:07
to talk about. And there will always be such things that are more important or at least more
40:13
pressing to talk about than the stuff that you're working on. So I don't think you need to
40:19
be to regard your own project as competing with those things. I almost feel like it's more like
40:27
something like human rights where you don't come up with an international convention on human rights
40:35
by running a political campaign on it and trying to persuade voters that they should do something
40:41
about it in the next three months. That's something where you need the space to be able to reflect.
40:49
So this sort of stuff, I mean, I think a presidential candidate needs to come along and go,
40:53
okay, we're going to have like a democracy kind of review that will give recommendations about how
41:00
we could reform the system. And then you have to get your sort of learned experts to come up with
41:09
what those reforms would be. And people like you can play a role in that. But I think you're right
41:13
that it's tricky. It's a tricky sell if you're competing against things that hit people's
41:20
health or hit pocket. Yes, it is. It is tricky. And it's also like I'm a progressive. I'm a
41:29
that's where I come from. That's my background. For me, political reform is directly connected
41:36
to the fact that we're the richest country in the world. And we haven't been able to touch poverty
41:42
in generations because we have a political way of addressing that issue that's designed not to
41:48
solve it. But I can't draw a direct line between generational poverty and the way we do primaries.
41:56
That would be dishonest with me, right? And I think that's kind of like I and others kind of
42:02
struggle and grapple with how do you turn this conversation about revamping American democracy
42:10
into something that's very relevant to the health and development and growth of the country.
42:17
Not just nerdy, mathematical formulas that say this system is better than that system, you know?
42:24
But it's hard. It's hard. I'm not sure how much you need to. In the same sense that I'm not sure how
42:29
much, you know, Boeing or Pfizer need to worry too much about what people, you know, about
42:40
electoral politics and about votes. Like they just do their thing and they find a way to get it
42:45
enacted. And like it's almost and it's a field of expertise where people, this is what troubles me
42:51
about democracy, frankly. Like not everything you said that America is like this great democracy
42:56
and we have to sort of restore the credibility of the people's wishes being our guiding principle.
43:04
I don't know man, the last five years have made me sour a little bit on the people's wishes,
43:08
on the purity of the people's wishes. Like I know there's a lot that's fucked up about
43:12
the American democracy and the people's wishes are actually being thwarted when you look at,
43:17
you know, the filibuster in the Senate basically giving something like 17% of the US population
43:22
that votes for the 51 senators in the smaller states, sorry 60 senators in the smaller states of
43:28
veto over all legislation. But you know, I think that certainly the past 12 months, if not the
43:37
the past five years have with Brexit and Trump have given me an appreciation and especially the
43:44
coronavirus of institutional, wonky, technocratic expertise. You know, I think the world needs more,
43:55
I don't know, more public servants and fewer populists. And so to the extent that democracy
44:02
will yield populists and pandoras, there is a case to be made for smoothing out its edges with
44:11
the ballast of a strong, undemocratic kind of public service. And so to some extent, I view your
44:20
project as part of that as part of a kind of meta project of clever people trying to figure out
44:26
how to reform things. And I think you can find punchy slogans like the fact that most democratic
44:33
countries have election commissions and electoral rules that are insulated from the political
44:41
players and that the US doesn't, that in the US, the political players get to write the rules.
44:45
I think is a compelling, compelling point. But like the fact that the, the fact that the US
44:53
political system is so awash with cash from corporations is a compelling political point.
44:57
And with the exception of occasional bills like McCain Fine Gold, which I don't even think,
45:02
did that get overturned or something? I mean, like, you know, there was a walk around on the Supreme
45:08
Court. Right, right. Yeah, that's right. The Supreme Court. Yeah, well, that throws another,
45:12
another, another wrench in the works, doesn't it? What the Supreme Court is going to uphold?
45:17
You know, these are, these are big things with lots of vested interests in the status quo that need
45:23
to kind of be, be tackled, separate and apart from the, the daily populist political grind.
45:30
But that doesn't leave, that's probably not very reassuring for you to hear.
45:32
Yeah. No, you know, it's interesting. The way I think about it is that I, I agree with you that
45:39
there is this, this kind of technocratic, almost like an engineering approach to retooling American
45:48
democracy so that there, there is, as you're saying, you know, it's just designed better and functions
45:54
better. But I don't think that can be the whole picture. I really don't. I, I think that the American
46:00
people have to grow up. We have to get smarter. We have to get better. We have to grow. And right now,
46:11
our democracy doesn't help people grow as civic, political, interconnected people. We're kind of
46:19
prey to this jingoistic tribal garbage that we get fed 24 seven. So I think that at its best,
46:28
at its best, we combine the kind of technocratic engineering solutions with mass organizing of the
46:36
American people to grow and take on more responsibility. And I think that, that combination of things
46:41
is really vital. What role does the media planal is? I, I don't know and I don't worry about the media.
46:48
Good. And I don't mean to be an ass. I just, I, I just am so tired of conversations where people say,
47:00
you know, it used to be there were three networks and you could trust the news. Now there's 800
47:03
channels and they say whatever they want because of the markets. Like, yeah, that's called capitalism.
47:08
That's how things work. So if you want to talk about state run media, which the track record of
47:16
is abysmal, maybe the BBC is slightly ahead of the curve on that. But if you're going to have a
47:22
free market for media, don't complain about what the media does. They're all, they're out there to
47:26
make a buck. And that's what they're doing. I don't know what you could do about it, other than
47:31
write a check to, you know, pro-publica and other non-profit journalists that are doing good
47:37
investigative work. Well, I mean, you could imagine a law that said that if you brand yourself as a
47:41
news channel, you have to not, not intentionally disseminate information that looks like news that
47:47
isn't true. That would, that wouldn't fly in the first minute. Then those say we're not a news
47:52
channel. We're an entertainment channel. I mean, like, it's just, I, I fundamentally, I, I don't know,
47:59
I don't want to sound like an ass. I don't want to sound glib. I can't stand the media. I think that
48:04
what they do is so shallow. And so, I mean, you watch the news for 15 minutes, whether it's Fox
48:12
or MSNBC, and you're sucked into this bubble in which you think that is reality. And I can't stand
48:19
it, but I don't know what you do about it other than turn the channel off. But, well, I mean, but
48:25
since when has a problem being difficult stopped you from worrying about it? I mean, you're right.
48:30
That's a fair point. I mean, we've just been talking for about five minutes about how insurmountable
48:35
the, the project that you've devoted your life to is. Yeah, I get that. I, I guess what I would say is
48:42
I think the opportunity to do something about the political parties is very ripe. I think the
48:50
opportunity to do something about the media is not ripe. I don't think that they're vulnerable.
48:56
Now, maybe, maybe ironically, this lawsuit by the voting by Dominion's systems against Fox
49:03
News, maybe that is actually going to impact on the media more than any crusade to change the media
49:12
is just getting sued. And just clarify for people what that lawsuit is?
49:17
Well, there's a voting machine company called Dominion and Fox News and a number of other stations
49:22
spouted all kinds of crap that they were controlled by Hugo Chavez and were, you know,
49:29
switching votes and being hacked and they they're suing Fox News for a billion dollars
49:35
saying you just, you know, you slandered our business.
49:38
It was basically Trump's line when Trump was Trump was trying to say that he actually won the election.
49:42
There were people on Fox News saying, oh, you know, and the voting machines could have been rigged
49:46
and now the voting machine company is like, actually, no, that's yeah.
49:50
Yeah. And we're holding you accountable for that. And now it's very interesting to see a lot
49:54
of these pundits say, well, I was just giving my opinion or I was don't trust me. I'm just an
50:00
entertainer. So it's a, it is kind of interesting. And I'm glad you're pushing me, Josh, on my kind of
50:07
knee jerk cynicism about the media. But I mean, I think that changes things.
50:12
Yeah. And I also think that the public like public opinion can hold people to account to some extent.
50:18
I mean, I think, yeah, I don't know what I think it's putting the cart before the horse to say,
50:23
we know that we can't do anything about a problem. Therefore, let's not discuss or analyze the problem.
50:28
You know, first figure out exactly what the problem is like, what is the, why is the media in the US?
50:34
It's not just that there's a free market in media because there's been a free market in the media
50:39
for a long time in the US. And it wasn't so hyper partisan. And there's a free market in the media
50:42
in lots of other countries supplemented by stronger public broadcasters.
50:46
So yeah, one solution could be to expand public broadcasting so that you've got something
50:51
like the UK and Australia do in the UK where they've got the BBC here. We've got the ABC.
50:55
And they're the same, the same kinds of institutions, which make PBS and NPR in the States look like
51:02
tiny little, you know, sad, flailing tadpoles in a drying up swamp in terms of their funding and
51:08
influence. So maybe that's part of the solution. Yeah, maybe some rules around, I mean, like,
51:14
you know, maybe fairness doctrines and things like that. I guess the, you're always going to bump
51:20
up against the First Amendment, which is going to be interpreted by this Supreme Court as being
51:23
absolute. So you're not going to be able to make any law about what the media can and can't say.
51:27
So a news organization will be able to spout total bullshit and presumably win,
51:32
when it's right to. And perhaps that's just the American, the fate of America. But could you
51:37
stimulate more smaller independent news organizations? Could you figure out ways of funding internet
51:43
news better so that as people surf the web smaller, you know, news companies are getting micro payments
51:49
or something from a monthly fee to, to use the internet, you know, could you encourage diversity
51:56
in various ways? Yeah, I mean, there are things one could imagine if one weren't cynical.
52:05
Well, look at podcasting. I mean, podcasting has created tens of thousands of people that
52:10
involved their their bases in conversations. Some are good and some are bad, but the whole
52:16
you know, patreon model and go fund me and people developing a way to directly fund artists and
52:22
and content producers. Yeah, that's very interesting, you know, not just the ad sales, but they're
52:27
developing your your listenership. Yeah. And now, sub stack, I mean, people are going to,
52:31
you know, conventional journalists who are getting hounded off mainstream publications for having
52:36
unorthodox views or, you know, nuanced views about things that have become hot button cultural
52:42
issues. And now finding that people are willing to pay them directly for a monthly subscription
52:47
to their newsletters and they're making an absolute fortune. And so maybe, yeah, maybe sort of
52:53
micro targeting, I mean, that that brings with it its own set of liabilities, which is that everyone
52:57
will have their own news ecosystem, news and opinion ecosystem, which is only going to worsen
53:03
potentially the fracturing of of culture. But it certainly has upsides in the sense that not
53:09
everything is being mediated by giant corporations. Right. And also one of the things that I hear a lot
53:16
from podcasters and podcast listeners is the importance and the of trust that there are these
53:25
relationships that are built between podcasters and their bases, whether it's a thousand people
53:31
or 500,000, where they trust this person. And that's that is a important commodity in a world in
53:39
which trust is is hard to come by. Yeah. Yeah. You emailed me after I had an episode in which we
53:45
were talking about the wood ally and ally ship and the way that you're the way that that gets abused
53:51
to not mean genuine solidarity with the cause, but to mean the sort of performative
53:59
aping of all of the correct sounds that you're supposed to make and sort of obedience. And I
54:03
thought your point was really interesting when you emailed me about that. Can you articulate it?
54:09
Yes. I know the ways in which that word gets used in progressive circles. I think the history of
54:15
that is that there's been so many examples of movements for social justice and for positive
54:21
progressive change in which the white guys ran the show. Right. And people of color and women
54:27
just felt like the secretaries. And you know, and that, I mean, the left is some of the most
54:33
sexist pigs you've ever met. Right. So I think there is kind of a pushback and saying, hey,
54:40
look, you know, these struggles for liberation, we're not just going to be the symbols on the
54:46
poster. We're going to lead this. You can be our ally. But I think in some ways part of what that
54:53
masks, it's the flip side of the problem in that you end up actually reducing the problem
55:02
that you are going to address to only affect those people. The racism of America profoundly
55:10
affects everybody in America, everybody, not just the people most affected by it. And you know,
55:17
I find I've listened to some speeches by James Baldwin from the 60s who talked about how corrosive
55:25
Jim Crow was on poor whites, how it destroyed them. And that doesn't mean they had it worse than
55:31
African Americans. They didn't. They had they were a leg up. But that kind of system destroys
55:38
human beings. So when you talk about allies, you're kind of reinforcing these kind of caste
55:45
situations. But I also think it's important to recognize there is a history of these movements
55:52
for social change, just being led by the white guys. And so there's kind of a pushback against
55:56
that. So it's very it's complicated. I don't want to be glib. But I in general, I think that
56:02
that the progressive left in America and in many parts of the world is very caught up in a certain
56:09
type of taxonomy and political correctness. And that holds back these these issues in some
56:15
serious ways, even as I think, for example, the leadership of Black Lives Matter, they've learned
56:21
a lot from ways in which black movements have been co-opted, bought off, infiltrated, sold out
56:28
by black people and white people. And they've organized themselves in some ways that I think are
56:33
very sophisticated and brilliant actually. But that's all. I think the term ally, it actually plays
56:39
into the status quo that if I had to sum it up. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think the point the point
56:45
that you made was that it's if you want to change the whole framework, then don't name the problem
56:53
as being owned only by the people who are worst affected by it. You know, name the problem as being
56:59
a problem for all of us in the sense that I mean, you're right that like I always
57:05
slap my forehead when we have these conversations and go, of course, I should just be going back and
57:08
reading James Baldwin in the first place because there has never been a better person that articulating
57:12
all this. So what's so funny is that the modern the modern race theorists are quite anti-Baldwin
57:19
when you listen to what they're saying. They're actually quite anti Martin Luther King. They're
57:22
they're you know, who these were two guys who were incredibly insightful in their understanding of
57:28
how corrosive racism is to everybody that are and and the concept of ally ship at the point
57:35
that you made that that you were when you were channeling Baldwin to me was that that if you if
57:40
you buy into I will I am an ally, then you accept that a social problem is only a problem for the
57:48
direct targets of that bias instead of understanding that it destroys your humanity as well and that
57:54
for the slave holder, not crying any crocodile tears for the slave holder, but the slave holder was
57:59
also trapped in a horrendous pernicious system that destroyed his own humanity. It was in his
58:05
interest to get out of that. It was in you know, it wasn't in his direct interest to lose his slaves
58:08
because it was making a lot of money off them, but it was in all slave owners ultimate long-term
58:12
interest, all white people's ultimate long-term interest to fight for the liberation of all humans
58:17
because that is the you know, that is the trajectory of humankind. So to say I'm going to be an
58:22
ally and bend down before you know you're and Neil and the whole my fist up to show my solidarity
58:28
with you implies that you are the only person who is disadvantaged by the status quo and that's
58:33
not a way to find an inclusive you know, to maximize the number of people who are going to come along
58:37
for the ride. Exactly. That's correct and it's just important to know the left, particularly the US
58:45
left has been unbelievably sexist. Yeah. I mean they've treated women like secretaries,
58:52
just you just look at the leaders of the 60s and I mean just that's a legacy and it's real
58:59
and and so you can't just kind of push back logically, you have to kind of take in the totality I
59:07
think and kind of understand that, which isn't to say not push back or not argue, but just be a
59:13
slightly epistemologically humble. That's right. Let's wrap up with your long term prognostications
59:21
about the US. What's your sort of best case and worst case scenario for where America is let's say
59:27
mid century? I think something's going to break in this country. I think there's going to be a
59:32
rupture. I think it could be positive or negative. Like imagine if Barack Obama had run
59:38
for president as an independent outside the party system and gotten 100 independence elected
59:44
to Congress and his co-tails and you you solved, you broke through the log jam and you regenerate,
59:52
you solved the immigration problem, you regenerated economic development in inner cities. Like
59:59
you kind of brought Americans together and broke down the whole red state, blue state,
1:00:04
paradigm. I think that could happen as early as 2024 and I think it also might never happen
1:00:11
and I don't think that's the only scenario in which there's kind of this this qualitative
1:00:16
leap forward as a country. But if we don't if we if we're not able to break through, I think this
1:00:23
kind of stultifying party to party control, it's kind of like the American version of Hosni
1:00:29
Mubarak, right? It's just kind of a calcified two party system that doesn't solve the problems
1:00:36
of the country. You know, I think you could get someone who makes Trump look like a statesman
1:00:44
and could drag the US into, you know, just barbarism. And I again, I don't I'm not in the business
1:00:52
prognosticating. I think there's lots of possibilities. I'm optimistic. My experience is that the
1:00:58
American people want to make a breakthrough. They want to get through this this kind of red,
1:01:05
blue log jam, but it's hard. And I don't I you know, I don't know when it'll happen. I don't
1:01:11
even know if it'll happen. But I'm cautiously optimistic by mid-century we will be a country
1:01:18
that's on a very different trajectory that we're not just an economic powerhouse or a developmental
1:01:23
powerhouse. I heard my mate Coleman Hughes saying that when you think about red states and blue
1:01:31
states and red and and blue kind of team psychology in the states, he finds it useful to just
1:01:39
imagine that that red America and blue America were like Sunnis and Shia. And a lot makes more sense
1:01:46
if you strip away the content of the beliefs and just regarded as being team sport the way we
1:01:51
would analyze any ethnic problem. And I found that chilling because that's functioning in exactly
1:01:58
the opposite direction of what you're talking about. And with every year that passes and the
1:02:02
and as partisanship goes up and there's social media algorithms intensify that and there's
1:02:06
the parties intensify that and the broader media. It cable news intensifies that. Does it become
1:02:12
either it becomes harder and harder to achieve what you're talking about or there's a kind of
1:02:18
asymptote or there's a crossover which it becomes so hard that everybody that there is that
1:02:23
smashed through point where everybody goes to hell with this. We're not going to we're not going
1:02:28
to become Romania. We're going to have a well-functioning non-corrupt political system.
1:02:35
But here's the problem with the Shia Sunni analogy. Imagine using that analogy in a
1:02:42
country in which 50% of the people were atheists. And and yet insisting that the way to understand
1:02:51
that country is the Sunni Shia divide. See that's that's where I think more accurately where we are
1:02:58
as a country. 50% of the country wants nothing to do with these parties. But the whole political
1:03:03
industry says excuse me you're either Yankee's fan or a Dodgers fan and the story there is no
1:03:09
atheism. There is no soccer fans. You have to like the Dodgers or you have to like the Yankees
1:03:15
pig. And that's how we're going to organize the whole culture not just on election day. That is
1:03:21
the culture of America and it's just not accurate. It's not who this country is. I mean I would also
1:03:27
say that in places like Iraq there are you know the majority of people and you know even in Syria
1:03:34
and you know Iran the majority of of people in those countries these are not places like you
1:03:40
know the foothills of Pakistan's northwestern region where everybody has a tribal allegiance.
1:03:46
These are places where most people were broadly secular and they might be nominally Shia or
1:03:51
Sunni. But you know most people actually weren't fanatics but the fanatics got a whole of the
1:03:55
reins and were able to trigger the tribal identities of people who were otherwise the 50%
1:04:02
so I would say the analogy isn't that dissimilar. Like we look at it from afar and we think all
1:04:06
all Shia identify strongly as Shia. The challenge is you know how do you get people who are sort of
1:04:13
nominally just sort of center right or center left not to get dragged into the vortex of madness
1:04:19
that's being created you know by that's being provoked by people on the far flank of their party
1:04:25
prodding them with all of the all of the news articles and outrages that try to draw them
1:04:31
to become more and more extreme so that if you're inclined towards conservatism your feet is full
1:04:37
of crazy college kids going nuts with their political correctness and woke trans stuff being
1:04:44
shoved down everybody's throats or you know Portland ablaze and if you're on the left it's all
1:04:49
kids being locked in cages on the border and the rise of neo nazis you know storming the streets
1:04:55
and you know where do you where is the countervailing force that encourages those people not to
1:05:00
think of themselves in their tribal identities well that's that's in some ways the the emerging
1:05:06
independent alternative reform movement and we're not there yet we're a combination of disorganized
1:05:12
shut out discriminated against sectarian within our own ranks you know we're not a full-fledged
1:05:17
movement and you're you're so right about that there's very little opportunity right now
1:05:22
to give expression to to a new a new path a new direction but the thing I know about american
1:05:31
politics is those paths can emerge in two seconds and you have to and you have to be ready for
1:05:38
them there's a volatility and an and an opportunism in the best sense of the word about American
1:05:45
politics that that is positive and you never know what's going to happen and no one ever went broke
1:05:53
uh you know uh banking on america and no one ever got rich uh going short on america so here's
1:05:58
hope and your optimism is born out thanks for your work john uh good luck with it thanks Josh great
1:06:03
to talk to you great to talk to you take care of yourself and your rescue dot thanks