The January 6 Capitol insurrection shows that the United States is facing exceptional challenges to our democracy. Lee Drutman, Senior Fellow in the Political Reform Program at the New America Foundation, thinks that our two-party system is a root cause of that dysfunction. Although we have had a two-party system in name for many decades, there were divisions and overlaps between parties that created room for bargaining, compromise, crossing over, and even unity. In our current state of hyper-polarization, however, the two parties are fully sorted, and this give-and-take has eroded into a death-match. According to Drutman, our democracy will not succeed unless we can escape this two-party doom loop.
 

On Wednesday, February 10th, during an Ash Center event titled Can We Break Out of the Two-Party Doom Loop?, Drutman and Archon Fung, Winthrop Laflin McCormack Professor of Citizenship and Self-Government, will discussed our two-party system and potential strategies for a critical, non-incremental move away from our dysfunctional "politics as usual."

About the Ash Center 

The Ash Center is a research center and think tank at Harvard Kennedy School focused on democracy, government innovation, and Asia public policy. AshCast, the Center's podcast series, is a collection of conversations, including events and experts Q&As, from around the Center on pressing issues, forward-looking solutions, and more. 

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The mission of the Roy and Lila Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation is to develop ideas and foster practices for equal and inclusive, multi-racial and multi-ethnic democracy and self-government.

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Music is Wholesome by Kevin McLeod.