From How to Fix America’s Two-Party Problem Opinion By Jesse Wegman and Lee Drutman Graphics by Aileen Clarke from Jan. 14, 2025.
“Imagine a Congress where politicians of different ideologies work together to pass legislation reflecting what most Americans want.
This isn’t hypothetical; it’s how Congress worked for much of the 20th century.
There were only two major parties, but each was much more ideologically diverse than today, so deal making and coalition politics were the norm.
From Social Security to civil rights to immigration and environmental protection, Congress got big things done.
That’s not where we are now. In 2025, American politics is stuck.
Voters see little but chaos, as Congress lurches from one self-imposed crisis to the next. Incumbents get re-elected over and over, and yet the parties fail to pass meaningful legislation on the things that matter most to Americans.
It doesn’t have to be this way. To escape our two-party trap, we need a better system of electing people to Congress: proportional representation.”
Mr. Wegman is a member of the Times editorial board, where he writes about democracy, law and politics. Mr. Drutman is a senior fellow at New America and the author of “Breaking the Two-Party Doom Loop: The Case for Multiparty Democracy in America.” from Jan. 14, 2025
“As a new Congress sputters into gear, this rusty binary split — a product of our antiquated winner-take-all electoral mechanisms — is key to understanding why our national legislature has become the divisive, dysfunctional place it is today. It is why more than 200 leading political scientists and historians (including one of the authors of this essay) signed an open letter in 2022 calling on the House of Representatives to adopt proportional representation — an intuitive and widely used electoral system that ensures parties earn seats in proportion to how many people vote for them. The result is increased electoral competition and, ultimately, a broader range of political parties for voters to choose from.”
Read more at NYT How to Fix America’s Two-Party Problem
If the USA’s democracy survives Donald Trump, it seems they could end up with MMP – and we Kiwis now what a disaster that would be! The following are my thoughts on why any combination of political parties will never work long term and some suggestions as to how we might move to a fairer system of democracy…
I am a nearly-79 year old retired mechanical engineer. I was born in the first year of the Baby Boomer Generation – which I now think should have been called the Lucky Generation. I was lucky because my education to university degree level was almost free of cost, my work career was satisfying and rewarding, my first home was affordable, most of my healthcare has been free and I was not called up to fight in a war. If I encountered any problems in my lifetime, they were generally of my own causing! Looking into the future, as a grandfather to Generation Z grandchildren, I see much bleaker prospects ahead of them. Their tertiary education now entails substantial student loans, they will need to be lucky to find a satisfying job, our public healthcare system is in disarray (and moving towards expensive private health services) and even basic houses are expensive. Furthermore, my grandchildren face a considerable risk of harm from both climate change and from wars.
In the span of my 79 years, human society seems to have moved from having a bright future to a very bleak one. I introduced myself as a mechanical engineer because I saw an engineer’s purpose in life was to design things that worked, or to fix things that did not work. It now seems obvious that politicians of my generation did not share the same purpose as me. I can only hope that there are now some younger people coming along who will try to identify the flaws in our present form of democracy and who will work towards fixing them before humanity is destroyed by a few over-sized egos.
As a thought starter, I put forward the following analysis as to what I think the flaws in our current democratic system are and follow with some suggestions as to how we might fix them.
>The flaws in our democracies
1. The COMPETITION mindset of PARTY-BASED government. The problem with competing party-based government is that it encourages individuals with oversized egos to seek political office. As history has repeatedly shown, individuals with big egos are not well suited to caring for the needs of the bulk of people over the long haul. (Their time horizon is getting elected. After that, who cares?)
2. The disproportionate influence of the wealthy few on government decision making.
3. The short-term thinking of governments encouraged by election cycles. Country-wide cyclic elections resulting in abrupt changes to the makeup of government are economically wasteful and create the volatile economic conditions that the “rich few” are much better positioned to take advantage of than the “less wealthy many”.
4. Government decisions made with insufficient consensus. In the USA (to present an obvious example), it now seems that just one person believes he can introduce new laws depending how he feels on the day – which surely disqualifies the USA from being a democracy at all. Here in New Zealand, the vote of a single parliamentarian can make the difference between new laws being passed/not being passed. Even if the NZ parliament was reasonably representative of the general population (which it isn’t), laws can come into effect here even though nearly half of voters do not support the intent of the new law. As the UK found post-Brexit, introducing change that is not widely supported is a recipe for widespread discontent.
5. The loss of the whole of human society’s ownership IN COMMON of all of our planet’s natural resources (land, minerals, waters, air, plants, radio waves, etc.). Natural things once freely available for all humans to use are now owned, or controlled, by a wealthy few. The great majority of us have lost our equal share access to the “COMMONS”. We should therefore look for a way for society to take back control of the “COMMONS” and for all citizens to equally earn an income from this resource.
Some suggestions for redesigning democracy …
How could democracy’s flaws be fixed and in what order should we attempt to fix them – accepting that some of the flaws are based on human behaviors that are likely to take generations to change? The following are some suggestions for consideration.
>Replacing the COMPETITION mindset in Government with a COOPERATION mindset
In most human societies it seems that the need to compete and to be a winner is ingrained in our upbringing. When children go to school, they are encouraged to get to the top of their class. Once we start playing sport, it’s not so that we can have fun, it’s so we can “win”. This process tends to continue all through adult life. We are encouraged to worship and emulate the sportspeople who earn big incomes, or the wealthy business people, or the film stars. If you are not a winner, you are a loser, or at least a “nobody”.
Competitive behavior is strongly evident in party-based politics and this usually results in the individuals with the biggest egos being selected to lead political parties, with Netanyahu, Putin and Trump being obvious examples internationally. While possibly holding popular appeal initially, selecting egotists to lead government will almost certainly lead to outcomes favorable to the leader and unfavorable to the bulk of human society.
I suspect that most humans are not strongly competitive and would sacrifice the opportunity to “win” if “not-winning” meant that every human could enjoy a peaceful and satisfying life. While it would most likely take many generations for all humans to lose the natural desire to compete, we could facilitate the transition by making the process of government unattractive to egotistical individuals and much more of a civic duty (similar to jury service). We might be able to achieve this result by establishing Community Advisory Groups (CAGs) of 10 to 20 randomly selected volunteers from each electorate, tasking them with:
1. identifying and encouraging competent individuals to stand for political office in their electorate
2. continuously supporting, advising (and, if appropriate, reprimanding/firing) the elected representative regarding the policies the CAG wishes to see pursued in government on behalf of their electorate.
>Overcoming the influence of wealth on Government decision making
The ultra-wealthy clearly manipulate democracy to achieve their own ends. This is particularly obvious in the USA where, according to Open Secrets, five organizations associated with wealthy people EACH donated over US$100 million to the Republican (Trump) 2024 campaign, while donating less than US$1 million IN TOTAL to the Democrats (Kamala Harris) campaign. Clearly, wealthy individuals would not spend US$100 million supporting one political party without expecting a superb return on investment. The 2024 US election may have been fair from a vote counting perspective, but the amount of money spent promoting one particular candidate was grossly distorting.
Although there may be little open corruption of individual politicians in New Zealand, there is no doubt that well-funded lobbying grossly distorts government decision making. In New Zealand, there appears to be no regulation of the lobbying industry and it is common for ex-members of parliament, ex-senior government officials and ex-journalists to move very quickly into very well-paid lobbying jobs. Current politicians and government officials are often personal friends of such lobbyists and are, therefore, much more easily influenced by them than is possible for Joe and Jill public. It may not be corruption in a strictly technical sense, but the payment of money to lobbyists almost certainly has a big impact on the decision making of New Zealand government members of parliament and senior government officials.
All members of the public should have the right to express a point of view to representatives of government, but access to representatives should always be from a level playing field. Donations (and rewards of any kind) to political candidates and political parties should be made illegal.
As an alternative to wealthy donor funded marketing of political candidates, the government could provide all candidates for political office (whether nominated by a CAG or a political party) with well-publicized IDENTICAL communication channels to their electorate. I suggest these channels be limited to a government funded website for every electorate with an identical format (and fact-checked) page for every candidate to express their views, along with equal speaking opportunities at venues throughout the electorate (say at community halls). Candidates for political office and elected representatives should be prohibited from using social media, as this medium clearly leads to inflammatory and superficial communications. The objective should be to provide all candidates and elected representatives with an equal opportunity to carefully express their opinions while limiting the effects of wealth and marketing hype.
>Introduce monthly “rolling elections” to avoid the disruption resulting from election cycles
Cyclic elections, especially in combination with the existence of political parties, almost always lead to dramatic swings in government policy and huge amounts of economic waste. As a recent New Zealand example, prior to the October 2023 election the governing Labour party had been collecting penalty tax on the petrol and diesel-engined light trucks favored by tradespeople and farmers while subsidizing electric cars. The Labour government also implemented policies to encourage the use of public transport. The purpose of these policies was to reduce New Zealand’s CO2 emissions and global warming contribution. The incoming National government reversed the taxes and promised to build super-highways at huge cost. The end effect of the change of government was the upending of the car market and reduced usage of public transport. Electric vehicles piled up in the showrooms and the cost of public transport increased for low-paid workers and students. Similar policy reversals occurred in healthcare, education, crime prevention, government department staffing levels and in other areas. The end result of such cyclic changes of government is a huge wastage of taxpayer funds and terribly disrupted livelihoods for many individuals.
Ideally, government policy should gradually evolve to improve everyone’s living conditions so that the bulk of us can plan to live peaceful and satisfying lives in the freest practical society.
A possible way to minimize the disruptive effect of nationwide elections would be to “roll” small and localized elections through the country on a monthly basis. These ongoing small elections could potentially renew a small proportion of elected MPs every month. For New Zealand, with 72 electorates, we could have 2 geographically disparate electorates voting on a rotating basis every month of the year. In its designated month, every electorate would elect one MP by popular vote to serve that electorate for a 3 year term. The following month, another 2 electorates would hold their election and so on through the country over a 3-year cycle. After 3 years, the first group of electorates would hold their next election. Potentially, 2 out of 72 MPs could be refreshed monthly. Although affecting just a small percentage of parliament, the monthly election outcomes should provide a clear indication of the public’s rating of the Government’s recent performance while avoiding the 3-yearly cycle of country-wide hype and costly promises.
Another potential benefit of monthly rolling elections is that a small government department could be permanently employed managing on-going small elections, rather than having to dramatically expand periodically to cover nationwide elections. This is likely to be less costly than periodic elections. On-going elections would allow continuous refinement of the election process to ensure that the system was free of manipulation and fraud.
>Require government decisions to be supported by a greater consensus
Expecting 100% of the population to agree on a course of action is unrealistic. However, as seen in the USA, allowing a single egotistical president to make government decisions clearly risks unwise decisions and a high level of public discontent. To satisfy the bulk of its population, a democratic government should make the least number of laws required to allow society to function reasonably smoothly, with those key laws supported by a clear majority of the population. There will not be a perfect proportion of “for” and “against”, but I suggest that introducing new laws (and removing old ones) on the basis of about 80% support would result in a much less divided society.
Truly democratic governments should not need any autocratic roles (such as President, or Prime Minister). Where Government needs to communicate with its citizens or other parties via a single person, the Government should be represented by a specialized spokesperson, or a small team, democratically selected from the body of MPs. Spokespersons or teams could be nominated for speaking on behalf of the country as a whole (for international matters), or for specific government departments such as; health, education, etc.
Requiring greater consensus may slow down the government decision making process, but good decisions made slowly are likely to lead to better long term outcomes for the bulk of people compared with bad decisions made quickly …
>Overcoming the loss of the “COMMONS”
To reduce the risks of:
1. the destruction of our planet from over-exploitation
2. the bulk of people becoming wage slaves of the few
Thoughtful people around the world have suggested that we should reintroduce the ancient concept of the “Commons” – returning ownership of all natural things back to society as a whole. This would allow all of us to have a say in which natural resources can be used, how the resources should be used and how much “rent” should be paid to society for approved uses. Instead of individuals (or companies and other organizations) owning land, or the rights to extract minerals or water, or the rights to broadcast signals through the atmosphere, or to use a natural resource in any way, users should pay a “rental” to every individual in the country.
As well as returning natural resources to common ownership, society should also consider extracting “rent” from “intellectual” resources, such as the internet, inventions, and music and book royalties. While most inventors and creators are likely to assert that the rights pertaining to things they invented or created strictly belong to them, the reality is that every invention or creation is based on the knowledge of previous generations. This knowledge has been passed on via parents and other family members and from publicly funded education and research. The internet, for example, did not suddenly happen. It developed from work done in lots of places, by lots of people over a considerable period of time. Just as it was unfair for the powerful few to assume ownership of common land, it is equally unfair for monopolists to assume ownership of knowledge that has been accumulated over many generations.
The rental received from individuals or organizations using the earth’s natural resources and accumulated intellectual knowledge could be distributed equally to every individual in society via a regular payment now most commonly referred to as Basic Income, or Universal Basic Income (which better explains that it would be paid to every individual equally).
>Recommended order of implementation
While all of the proposed changes should result in governments more focused on delivering outcomes that suit the bulk of a country’s citizens over the longer term, some of the changes are likely to be strongly resisted, or difficult and time-consuming to introduce.
Overcoming the influence of wealth and restoring public ownership of the COMMONS are likely to be strongly resisted and, therefore, long-term projects.
Replacing the competition mindset with a cooperation mindset is likely to have variable acceptance, but all electorates could be invited to establish Community Advisory Groups if they wish to have more influence over the government representative for their electorate. If this worked well for early adopting electorates, other electorates may be encouraged to follow suit.
Some improvements could be introduced within just one election cycle. These are:
* Allow electorates to establish central government funded community advisory groups to support and advise independent (not party aligned) elected representatives.
* Lift the consensus for the passing of laws through government to 80%.
* Introduce monthly rolling elections. I see this as the “low hanging fruit” for improving democracy quickly, with the possibility of frequently injecting “new blood” into government likely to discourage political parties from introducing controversial and short term policies. While the cyclic nature of elections may not be the root cause of democracy’s failings, reducing the impact of election cycles may prevent the patient hemorrhaging while the cancers are being operated on.
I hope this has provided food for thought for some younger political engineers keen to fix our democracies before it’s too late!