It is nice to see you again. Your book, breaking the twoparty do with the mystery of Political Science and has garnered a lot of attention. I just want to start out by pulling you back a little bit and asking you why do you want to write about Political Parties . Your first book was focused on lobbying within the universe of potential reform college and money in politics and executive power, you chose to focus on parties as the linchpin. Can you talk about what drew you two parties in the process . Its good to be with us light reunion here on cspan. So why did i write this book . Because i was worried about american democracy and i saw hyper partisanship as a serious problem affecting the country and wanted to see if there was a way to solve that problem. It imploded it directly from my previous book which is about corporate lobbying the map book had concluded one reason why lobbyists were so powerful in washington dc was because they broke a lot of laws there wasnt knowledge or expertise on capitol hill because staffers turned over at a different rate and after that book came out i went around talking to folks saying congress should just hire more staff for more expertise. Everybody set of course. That makes total sense. But yet it did not happen in one reason is because power was decentralized and then some realized adding more staff doesnt solve the problem of paper partisanship as a way in which nothing gets done because there is so much gridlock. And the core problem of our democracy at this moment is the fact we have two distinct National Parties. This is something that is new and it is just at odds with the way our governing institutions work and frankly i think its a little crazy. Talk about why you think it is new. Obviously america policy goes back to centuries so talk about how the framers envisioned politics working. That were four factions and parties and why this is such a departure said lets start with the framers. The framers were engaging in this radical act of coming up with a system of selfgovernanc selfgovernance. They thought Political Parties were very dangerous because they read their history of ancient rome and ancient greece and they saw that the civil war through selfgovernance and it was split into and there was a majority and Minority Party and then what would happen one would use their power to will press the Minority Party. So they thought they would come up with a system of government to make it very hard for parties to form with bicameral legislature, three branches of government on top of federalism and they did make it very hard for parties to form. At least in a coherent way. Thats one of the reasons why american parties have been so weak and incoherent because they were state and local coalitions separate branches. The parties were a mess but in recent years over the last several decades it has truly nationalized for the first time now these truly nationalized parties that are distinctly representing genuinely different values different visions of america and we have this partisanship which is the very thing that the framers feared. Just going back a little bi bit, the twoparty system although not always democratic and rep public but it has survived for centuries. Why has it endured . And then we will get to the hyper partisan development but historically it seems to have endured and the parties seem to have been responsive to a National Crisis pressing national concerns. I think it endured because the party didnt stand for all that much in the fact that we had a multiparty system but the parties themselves were a broad overlapping coalition so that they were more flexible data governing level to build those coalitions across parties the local political identity was more important than the National Identity and not allowed for politics to help grease the wheels of the legislative process. In the earlier era it is just easier to build different coalitions at different times and all the parties are so distinct and separated and competing for this narrow majority, the compromise and Coalition Building as a system of government depends on, no longer works. There is a fascinating warning within your book about the nationalization and the hyper partisanship. One thing that struck me with the historical development, our politics more in peril during earlier eras like the Great Depression or in the sixties with scores of urban riots and antiwar protest . Three political leaders were assassinated, please were clubbing demonstrators outside of the dnc in chicago. Looking back did you see democracy under greater threats in the thirties or sixties from how it is today and what you would do in the earlier era. We will start with the sixties certainly the idea of violence is not new to american democracy to be a healthy and peaceful age of politics is a total myth but to be nasty and at times a little violent but what was different about the sixties was the conflicts over civil rights were not hyper partisan. It was fought more within the party they had between the part party. So the civil rights bill there was a High Percentage of republican members of congress until the Democratic Party came to own that set of policies. So it meant these were difficult conflicts and there were people who lost their lives in the conflict, they didnt threaten the fundamental stability because they didnt create a condition in which everything was at stake with every election which is the situation we are in now with these incredibly high stakes and this bifurcation of the country into two distinct coalitions to undermine the legitimacy and fairness that the system of democracy has to depend on. That is the fundamental challenge. The thirties was a challenging time thinking democracy had come to its end and perhaps since the election of 1932 it wouldve turned out differently or do we long. So all of which should remind us that selfgovernance and democracy is not something to take for granted so it is somewhat fragile. Talk about this mid century for parties system to parties within each party so was there a bargain made on the issue of race and civil rights that the parties agreed for a number of decades to essentially push to jim crow and racial segregation aside in order to have these harmonious bipartisan potentia potential, because once civil rights was introduced for a lot of white americans the stakes were extremely high. Exactly right. A lot of folks with nostalgia and the bipartisan consensus of the fifties and early sixties but of course that was based on exclusion of civil rates from the jim crow south. This is why politics fundamentally are about conflict we just have to figure out how to have these discussions in a way thats not so binary with a zero sum and the Civil Rights Act with the realignment of america along cultural and social identity that is a combination. From the mid fifties through the late eighties was the for parties system alongside liberal democrats and republicans. And although that system was in perfect in retrospect it worked pretty well to have different coalitions and the legislation passed with overwhelming support and congress had committees with well needed resources and for a lot of voters it meant they didnt stand for anything which i felt that frustration but it worked pretty well. And ultimately we ought to get back to Something Like that but it is actually multiple parties to make those choices. You mentioned civil rights with the sixties and seventies and eighties. Of the broad cultural forces at work how word you explain with the rise of the National Parties of the polarization . And accelerated by roe v wade and the increasing salience at the National Level at the end of the cold war played into that as well. And it is that complexity. As americans became more prosperous and middleclass expanded with those separate national images. With at culture war reaches the level the Democratic Party and so those trends and voters so what fits with their values better. And those that the republicans disappeared from the Republican Party and then the National Identities changed and that is what led to where we are today. You described a memo from Newt Gingrich who was the leader of the socalled republican revolution in 1994 of how to describe democrats. And those democrats to came and destroyed. That is a pretty remarkable set of attributes to fix on ones opponents were a different level of rancor that is always been bitter and brutal and fundamentally new. Newt gingrich did a bunch of things in 1994. He encouraged the republicans in a much more aggressive way. With those Congressional Elections and gingrich noticed something. But that they were losing Congressional Election and the key was to emphasize that bush the first had. And it is a complicated figure with the caricature and then everything was fine with the centralized power and one reason why gingrich came to power because there are republicans in the house tired of being the minority and those that was more oppositional with the majority of the house and 40 years they have grown corrupt increasingly strong centralized leadership under speaker jim right which a lot of republicans rebelled. They were cut out of the process more that led to the rise of Newt Gingrich. He is an important player but he is a product. So maybe it is more a symptom. I dont want to undervalue the role of the actors at a particular time but when they are largely responding to pressures and broad patterns. So i want to get back to this but one of the refreshing things about your book is contemporary politics. And has been mentioned a couple of times but it is refreshing and with those focus on him. Those to bring us up to where we are today through the two thousands congress had a serious burst of bipartisan lawmaking since 1990. And when i read that i thought i know congress is dysfunctional. With the partisan warfare and at the same time it with the Bipartisan Legislation after 9 11 they are seen coming together with the National Security reforms and then the passage of tarp with the financial crisis. Have they been able to reach, provide one compromises . Or are these examples that i am siding that are so exceptional to this toxic hyper partisan. There has been a steady decline. With major environmental law major budget reform and americans with disabilities act not to say there hasnt been major Bipartisan Legislation but having four major bills and then for the first time to have that genuine twoparty system. And that only legislation now is partisan legislation. There is some stuff that passes with criminal justice reform. And 2018 was something but. We are talking about the number of problems that congress has been called on to solve and that fraction get smaller and smaller speed seems that majority people. The title of the book and we know that politics is never static and then to spiral into a negative. That there is no escape if we dont have prodemocracy one democracy reforms. Fighting over a zero so conflict if one party is democrat with urban cosmopolitan america the other has rural traditional with the Global Knowledge economy and its very different visions. And the challenges and roughly equal power in any given election and going back to 1992 and with divided government and unified government for the other party and with unified control after the 2020 election would only keep it for two years. And in this era of extended trench warfare with no obvious resolution in both sides desperately fear being in the minority it is a stalemate and then to back down. And then you cant move with those fundamental barriers ahead. But you are getting angrier and angrier. And leading to more escalation people get more emotional and to cut off friendship people that share their values reading information and news in two sides have different relations that is a true fact at this point. And you said the elections. The anti trump partisan and then to let out the steam the democrats won the house and state legislatures and the toxins minutes not a longterm solution and with that antitrust energy will dissipate and democrats will be disappointed. And disengage. There are two big problems. One is that there are National Issues to deal with light climate is the most important and existential. And number two this escalating hyper partisanship now fighting over basic rules of who gets the vote so democracy these are not political issues but so that you could say that rules are fairs and to provide by those outcomes and that i elections are fundamentally called into question there is no way to arbitrate this agreement we dont have a democracy anymore. But you did say you are a democrat. What you say the common argument with the Republican Party is to extraneous, it is captured with those forces. But that argument and the problem so can you talk about why you think the arguments and for those and republicans are quite extreme. Why is that flawed . It is flawed. I do agree the Republican Party is extreme and therefore democrats need to win all the elections doesnt solve the underlying hyper partisanship problem that makes it worse. Mama democrat and think they would be better but i dont think thats a solution to the underlying structural problem. The reason the Republican Party has become so extreme is really a fundamental function of the twoparty system. So those that were not on board where trump wants to take the party but you cant be a democrat so theres no other party so come along with me. So slowly that go with them. So there are a lot of republicans and wouldve left the trump Republican Party joining a different race. You can be the plurality and gain total power so by winning the republican nomination, trump got to redefine the party and for a lot of the voters it was a binary choice. There is a lot of columns of the folks that say i dont want to trump democrats are crazy so i guess i have to vote for trump. And in that binary system i guess i have to vote for the republicans. There is no other alternative. Host folks on the right say National Review have come around and support them with a handful of exceptions. If you dont want to be an independent and have no power. Host it is up fo important e have to stick. Guest the lesser of two evils is the defining logic in our politics. By the way, if you do a google e search for lesser of three evils you will not find as much. It didnt do well when they changed the name. Host that might be an appropriate name. Let me ask why isnt it conceivable that in 2020 would say trump loses and the republicans dust off the report and the party shifts. It becomes a more moderate party or has a much bigger space for the moderate policies on issues like climate change, immigration, even at some point taxes. Why does that seem so farfetched in your analysis . Guest with how it has shifted since 2012. We have to reach out to immigrants and of the opposing faction in the party. It was defeated and the Republican Party is now in opposition and the fighter for the traditional values and those are the folks most active in the party now so the idea that theres all these folks active in the party and they believe deeply in these values and they probably think that they were cheated and that the reason they didnt win as they di they didnt hard enough on their values because that is who is in charge of the party now. The idea that they would embrace a completely different vision of what the party stands for seems to defy logic. Thats not the values of the Republican Party and they are not going to suddenly transform their values when they think they can continue to win. Maybe if they lose four president ial election in a row and become a minority faction in a dominated politics than they might rethink it, but that is the way that its often. I dont think it will happen anytime soon. Host one of the things i like about the book it isnt at all relentlessly bleak. The first half or two thirds is focused on the analysis but youve got a solution section high recommendations and you thought about them. Id like to spend time going through the case for reform and thats the subtitle the case for the democracy in america. Multiparty democracy seems very foreign to us but what would be the chief advantage to having a multiparty democracy . Guest . One i think we had a multiparty democracy for a long time contained within the twoparty system but it was much more akin to the democracy with different coalitions than the twoparty democracy that we have now. It is the deviation from the american political norm. If you look at what the framers were writing again they didnt like parties bu parties that why really didnt like is the twoparty system. I agree that madisons federalist number ten. The key to a stable democracy is fluid coalition that you have different factions building different majorities on different issues that you want to have a democracy so that no group feels like it is going to be in the minority and therefore it doesnt use the system as legitimate. That is fundamentally a vision of the multiparty democracy in which different parties yield different coalitions at different times and depending on the different issues thats more responsive and fluid parties can come and go to change the demands and concerns of the electorate and so it shouldnt seem that far in to us. We havent conceived of our political history in that way. I think it has tremendous advantages. One big break this zero sum politics and builds in a politics that is about compromise and Coalition Building. Then there are some other advantages as well. One is the turnout is higher because every vote matters in the proportionate democr