Think big: political reform must be cultural, not just institutional

America has deep-rooted societal and cultural problems that often get passed over for “easier” institutional reforms

I sent a proposal for “How to fix America” to a colleague earlier this evening. I’m attaching it below and soliciting some feedback. This was rather hastily typed out — lots of it needs work and I have probably missed something obvious — but I think it is nevertheless a good jumping-off point in trying to think big

Keep this question in mind for the comments section: What single reform do you think could go the longest way toward “healing” America? Define “healing” however you like.

Note: this is an extra post. I hope you find it stimulating, but I’ll write a better column on the polls tomorrow either way.

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Here is the short version:

What has gone wrong, and how do we fix it? We are acquainted with America's problems — partisanship, affective polarization, institutionalized gridlock, a lack of electoral incentives toward moderation, and vitriolic hate and distrust for many of our neighbors — but we are not often presented with adequate solutions. I argue that the answer to America's problems is no less than a fundamental restructuring of its political and cultural order. There are four major intertwined components: institutional, political, cultural, and technological. 

First, America must fix its electoral system, ending partisan gerrymandering and moving toward more proportional electoral systems — especially at the Senate level, though it will be easier to do in the House and in the states. The country must also give more power back to the parties in order to screen presidential candidates, as it did in the early-to-late 1900s and helped to fend off populist (and Nazi-esque) challenges from people such as Charles Coughlin, Henry Ford, and Pat Buchanan. The right is also radicalizing as a result of economic inequality, finding people to scapegoat for their misfortune. A large redistribution of wealth, and laws to reign in wall street permanently, would also help to heal us. 

But a top-down fix is not sufficient; to effectively combat affective polarization it must also be bottom-up. The chief goal is to increase the share of blue and red Americans who come into contact with each other. That could happen by increasing interest in local, as opposed to national, news, which might lead to more cooperation in civic organizations that in turn presents people with contrasting information. Massive federal spending that distributes city-dwellers into exurban communities, or otherwise helps the economies of isolated communities and literally gets them moving around, could also help. Perhaps the biggest step would be to dismantle Facebook — or at least the algorithmic news feed. Research suggests this would instantly contribute to mass depolarization among every subset of the American populace. Religious leaders are a final consideration for social change; for too long, they have spent resources to fight political battles and whip people up into a frenzy. Regulating money spent by religious organizations and reinvigorating spiritual communities with a love of each other, as equal Americans, sounds cheeky but would go a long way.

Here is a (much) longer version:

Given recent events, there is one natural way to start diagnosing the problem: Fundamentally, first-past-the-post electoral systems do not work in countries voters have violently fractured along ethnic lines. America has struggled with this since its second founding; the failure of Reconstruction, enactment of Jim Crow laws, and mass lynchings in the south all serve as manifestations of the majority exercising violence over the minority as it tried to gain power. But FPTP plurality systems would cause polarization (which we have briefed on before) even in homogenous countries. Enacting a plan such as New Zealand's that has both district-based representation and assures proportionality of voters could go a long way to decreasing this polarization, and the associated affective polarization.

But America has also fractured along geographic lines. Since the Christian right hold of American minds in the 1980s, it has increasingly radicalized the Republican Party and its voters against liberals in the cities. A bit broader, the conservative culture warring of the late 00s through Trump's presidency gained a cleavage along educational, rather than just racial, lines. The Democratic Party became a natural home for educated whites who had moved to cities and suburbs, increasing geographic polarization further. This has two problems: First, in causing a mass fractioning of our psyche against people who don't live where we do; and second, in increasing the malapportionment of the US Senate. Here, the institutional solution is to break up the GOP's electoral incentives for further polarization. Getting rid of the Senate is the ideal, but impossible; adding new states and breaking up big liberal havens like California is a medium-term solution. 

America also faces a unique threat of institutionalized illiberalism and authoritarianism in the Republican Party. This is partly Donald Trump's fault, but most political scientists now agree that he was only an especially-bad symptom of a longer-term trend. At the Congressional and State level, the party's nominees have been lurching more and more to the right over the past few decades. This is partially a product of gerrymandering — and we should advocate for reforms here — but also of weak parties, who have lost their strength to push bad and polarizing candidates out of races. At the House and Senate level, the 'ideological churn' of Republicans is well-documented. Presidentially, we don't need to (but certainly can) look beyond Donald Trump to see the potential failures of a race to the right/left the presidential nominating system. Nomination reform to give more power to parties and to elect majoritarian candidates (perhaps ranked-choice-voting) would help.

The government should also pass laws that outlaw speech endorsing violence against political opponents, which is a particularly bad problem on the right and leads to both a lot of affective polarization (Americans are increasingly likely to call each other "enemies" rather than "opponents") and also to events like the Capitol insurrection. The goal here is to encourage leadership that cools tempers and seeks better outcomes for everyone.

However, America's problems are not only political and institutional. Societal and cultural changes have also driven the country apart. This is where we can do our most original thinking and a lot of reporting.

Culturally, Americans care far too much about national parties and politics, and too little about their local governments and day-to-day lives. This is driving us apart. The nationalization of politics has made us see the differences in our political other, and not the many things they have in common. Along these lines, we need a bipartisan movement to fund local and state news outlets, and parties need to visibly mobilize for local issues — such as for jobs projects in West Virginia, or for/against high-speed rail in California. Even I remember when national news was not all politics, all the time -- scholars have found that covering things like natural disasters and even mundane news stories can reduce attention to polarizing political news. 

Fixers must also take on social media, which has the double-whammy of (a) increasing polarization among users and (b) destroying local news outlets. Legislation to break up big tech or Silicon Valley reforms to otherwise curb algorithmic, attention-economy news feeds could break both our obsession with national politics, and bring back news that is less focused on our divides. Perhaps when we are not all staring at our phones, we will also engage in local community-building activities together (of course, after the pandemic is over).

We ought not be too glib, however. Many of the proposals to heal America are unlikely for the exact reason they have not passed yet: polarization and winner-takes-all politics. We might end by saying that Americans will need more courageous, unifying figures of great oratorical -- perhaps spiritual -- powers to make them see what is so plainly true in front of them, and to endorse swift action. Or else, we should say, America will become the latest of presidential democracies to fall. That's not its fault; most others already have. It is a pity that this one has lasted so long, as the taller they stand the harder they tend to fall.

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That’s it for now. Leave some comments below if you fancy.