Welcome to Undercurrent Events, a new post-Twitter newsletter for folks like you who care
Or, a nerdy political scientist walks into a Substack
Hello, and welcome to Undercurrent Events.
Breaking News: I’m finally giving this newsletter thing an honest go.
Here’s why. Everyone wants to know things, like: What the bleep is going on with our democracy these days? Can we fix it? And when are you going to start a newsletter, Drutman?
I may have answers. Or possibly thoughts. Or at least, these are the questions that overload my cognitive circuits at night and jolt me awake way too early.
So, it’s time to unload (errr, share) all of this on (err, with) you. What I’m thinking. What I’m reading. Where there’s hope. When to panic.
So here we go. Wheeee.
In this edition of Undercurrent Events, you’ll find out whether democracy won in the mid-terms, what Jersey thinks of the two-party system, and why we should stop striving for more neutrality in politics and start striving for more diversity.
The 2022 Election was the We-Have-No-Idea-If-Anything-Matters-Anymore-But-We-Can-Still-Hope Election.
Oh, and we’re still in a democracy emergency.
I want to believe the 2022 election was a referendum on “democracy” and democracy won. I do. But I confess, the more I think about it, the less I’m sure about either premise: that 2022 really was a referendum on democracy or that democracy really won.
(I’m also not sure what we even mean by “democracy” these days, but that’s a topic for another newsletter. OK, probably many other newsletters)
Back to 2022. Yes, election-denier candidates got smacked down in close battleground races. Phew.
But many more won in not-so-close, not-so-battleground races. That’s over 170 outright election deniers for House, Senate, and key statewide races. Add in the “skeptics,” and we’re up to 220. Not good. Not good at all.
So what happened? Well, the big thing that happened was that pretty much every incumbent got re-elected. Not a single sitting US Senator lost (pending Alaska and Georgia).
Assuming Murkowski and Warnock win, that would mark the first time no sitting US Senator lost (as far as I can tell). Only nine House incumbents lost on November 8. Only one incumbent governor lost (Sisolak in Nevada)
So, for all the billions of dollars spent (likely more than $17 billion), hardly anything changed. Remarkable.
Even more remarkable: More than two-thirds of Americans think the country is on the wrong track — including almost half of Democrats. And yet almost all incumbents won.
What gives? Aren’t Americans deeply dissatisfied with the status quo? Aren’t the wrong-track, right-track numbers terrible? And doesn’t the party in charge of the White House always suffer big losses in a mid-term? What’s going on here?
A few things, probably.
Reality One: polarization has made our politics so “calcified” (as John Sides, Lynn Vavreck, and Chris Tausanovtich usefully describe it) that few minds are still open to partisan persuasion anymore.
Reality Two: And those still on the fence? “Gettable” voters are not just a rare breed. They are also special breed, each one of them, unpredictable. As a whole, they are contradictory and multidirectional. (Want to go deeper? Of course you do. Then tead a new report from me and my New America colleague Oscar Pocasangre, "Undecided Voters: Who They Are, What They Want, and How They Decide Our Politics”)
Reality Three: Very few “swing” districts and “swing” states remain these days, and for a simple reason: Democrats and Republicans live in very different places these days. Though the decline of competitive districts often gets blamed on gerrymandering, the problem is simpler: Geography, filtered through the single-member district. Redistricting commissions cannot solve this problem.
In short, we have elections decided by few “swing” states/districts, which are in turn decided by a few “swing” voters, who are the least engaged in politics.
Weird way to run a democracy, for sure (as Charlotte Hill and I argue in a recent New York Times guest essay).
So where does that leave us? Nowhere actionable without big structural change.
Reality 1: Voters are vexed with the political status quo, but so attached to their party, and/or so disdainful of the opposing party, or stuck because they have just two choices. There’s no way to productively express their frustration in the voting booth, even if there are plenty of ways to vent outside of it.
Reality 2: There may be a small penalty for election denialism. But it’s very hard to distinguish from incumbency advantage and ordinary partisan voting.
Red states are getting redder. Blue states are getting bluer. And so 2024 will probably come down to even fewer states and fewer districts.
But… and here’s the acid-reflux inducing part… when it’s all this close, we should all be prepared for the small random shocks that tip us over the hillock.
The enormous shock I’m stockpiling Xanax over? How the Supreme Court decides the independent state legislature doctrine case, Moore v. Harper. If state legislatures get total power over election rules, expect Checkov to be right: Pay attention to the gun on the mantle in the first act. Somebody’s gonna get hurt in the second act.
Bottom line: We’re still in a democracy emergency. And it ain’t gonna resolve on its own. We’ve got work to do. Which is why I’m writing this here newsletter starting now.
A Way out of the partisan morass?
Hey, who knows….
The New York Times offers an irrestible (to me, at least) take on developments in New Jersey under the headline: "Does Fusion Voting Offer Americans a Way Out of the Partisan Morass? A new push by nonprofit groups hopes to revive the practice in New Jersey and possibly elsewhere across the country.”
So, you’re probably wondering what this is all about. Well, have I got a story for you: In the spring of 2022 (this spring!), a small group of citizens in New Jersey, unhappy with the rise of hyper-partisanship across the political spectrum, formed the Moderate Party and chose as their inaugural candidate for national office Rep. Tom Malinowski. He was the incumbent Congressman in New Jersey’s 7th Congressional District, and while he accepted his new party’s nomination, he had already won the nomination of the Democratic Party. In the November 2022 general election, he lost to Republican former State Sen. Thomas Kean Jr. by a margin of 3.4 percentage points.
Once legal in all states, fusion allows and even encourages cross-party coalitions and alliances. Fusion voting refers to a system in which a candidate wins the support of more than one party—usually one major party and one “minor” party—in an electoral coalition that is both principled and practical. Each party nominates the same candidate, and the candidate appears twice on the ballot under two distinct party labels. The votes for the candidates are tallied separately by party, and then added together to produce the final outcome.
Under current New Jersey law, this sort of electoral fusion—two parties fusing on the same candidate to build a coalition behind a given candidate—is illegal. When the Moderate Party submitted its petition to put Malinowski on the ballot under a second label (with a second meaning), this fusion, or cross-nomination, was ruled illegal by the secretary of state.
But two groups are now suing separately on behalf of both the new Moderate Party and a group of citizens. More suits in other states will surely follow.
I’m a big proponent of fusion because it encourages political parties to form. Emphasis here on political parties. Political parties are the essential institutions of modern mass democracy and we need more than just two of them. Fusion balloting gives new parties a place on the ballot. This is real power. In a reasonably close election, a well-organized moderate party could play kingmaker.
Thus, fusion balloting is an extremely promising way to break out of the “doom loop” because it gives voters the ability to clearly signal: “stop the hyper-partisan fighting and work together.” Without the ability to vote for a moderate party, voters can only vote for the Democrat or the Republican, but without any direction. Because of the single-member system with plurality voting, a moderate party is unlikely to emerge on its own. Only fusion balloting can give that party an opportunity to represent the growing number of homeless voters in the political middle, who can then leverage their power in key elections.
Want to go deeper? Of course you do. So… Check out my report, The Case for Fusion Voting and a Multiparty Democracy in America: How to Start Breaking the Two-Party Doom Loop.
New Jerseyans don’t like the two-party system.
They like fusion better
As part of the New Jersey Fusion lawsuit (described above), I was involved with some polling to see what New Jerseyans thought about the two-party system, and how open they might be to fusion.
Turns out, New Jerseyans, in fact, are deeply dissatisfied with the two-party system. And they are definitely open to fusion balloting. The numbers speak for themselves.
For a deeper dive, check out my full write up of the polling results, New Jersey Voters on Political Extremism, Political Parties, and Reforming the State’s Electoral System
“In a democratic system, diversity substitutes for neutrality”
A phrase has been turning over and over in my head this week, as I puzzle through how we might ever come to anything like a shared truth in America ever again.
Say it once slowly with me: “In a democratic system, diversity substitutes for neutrality.” This comes from a brilliant essay by the political scientist Jenna Bednar, “Polarization, diversity, and democratic robustness,” published late last year in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).
The phrase resonates because it goes counter to so much of the solutionist instinct right now, which is to keep reaching for some kind of neutral expertise (nonpartisan election administration, a special counsel to investigate Trump, the “courts”) that we can all agree to abide by.
Bednar turns this instinct on its side. Or maybe its head. Well, she definitely turns it. Rather than attempt (futilely) to agree on one shared perspective, we should seek more diversity of perspective.
The problem is not that we disagree. That’s healthy, and inevitable. It’s that we disagree in the wrong way. Our disagreements are too simple, too reductionist. Too binary.
In another concise and insightful phrasing, Bednar writes: “Polarization does not just divide — it simplifies.” Polarization is so dangerous because it reduces information, by forcing everyone to choose one of two opposing truths. This also makes innovation (which is the original recombination of diverse ideas) harder (because there are fewer diverse ideas to recombine). It’s a trap. The more we are stuck, the harder it is to get out.
Bednar recommends “Multipolarity.” That is, more poles.
Or more practically, more sources of authority and power that are distinct from each other. Many overlapping perspectives allow for the compromise and fluid coalition-building necessary for democracy. More parties would be one way to accomplish this.
Bottom line: democracy depends on disagreement. But disagreement has to be multipolar, and complicated.
Something to think about when you argue with your relatives over Thanksgiving.
This week on…
What do the 2022 midterm results mean?
In this week’s episode of Politics In Question (the podcast I co-host) we discuss what happened in this year’s midterm elections. Is the Red Wave a superhero or college mascot? Why didn’t it appear on Election Day? Was the midterm outcome a surprise? How did political institutions influence it? What does the outcome tell us about American politics more broadly? And when will Julia announce her 2024 presidential bid? These are some of the questions Julia, Lee, and James ask in this week’s episode.
That’s all for this edition. See you all soon (I hope). And if you like what you read, tell your friends. Share. Democracy is a thing we do together.
Given polarization, one really useful thing that Democrats could do is fight for changes that Republican voters want but that aren't opposed by Democrats -- even if the issues aren't high priority for all or even most Democrats.
For instance, farmers, who typically vote Republican, would really like to see "Right to Repair" legislation that restores to them the now often constrained right to repair their own tractors and other equipment. While this might not be a top-priority issue for city-dwelling Democrats, it probably is something most would support. But, if "Right to Repair" was championed by Democrats, Republican legislators would probably oppose the effort since they will oppose anything proposed by Democrats even if it serves the interests of their base. So, championing "Right to Repair" would put the Democrats in the position of supporting conservative voters against Republican legislators. That would be a good place for Democrats to be...
I recommend that Democrats find a handful of such issues and champion them as a means to demonstrate their ability to govern in the interests of all while broadening their base.
I was wondering whose newsletter this was. Excited to see it’s yours - congrats on starting it!