-Welcome back to the show. -Thank you. I'm glad to be here.
So, uh, this is a very simple title on the book--
Why We're Polarized.
Donald Trump, right? No? Yes? Maybe?
No, Donald Trump is symptom, not cause.
So Donald Trump comes as part of a long period
where you lose the ability to actually have parties act
in a way that hold themselves accountable.
So back in the day, if you nominated somebody
like Donald Trump, what would happen is one of two things.
-One, they don't get to a party convention. -Right.
That's back when parties actually
control who they nominate. But later on,
or even both before and after that for some period,
if you nominate somebody who's out of the norms,
what will happen is, people will switch over to the other party.
It happened at Barry Goldwater,
-happened at George McGovern. -Right.
But as the parties become much more different
ideologically, demographically, you get locked in place
by what's called "negative partisanship."
So the fear of the other side winning becomes big enough
that you will accept anything your side does.
So a majority of Donald Trump voters say
they were actually voting against Hillary Clinton.
And so Donald Trump can only win in American politics
in a time of super-high polarization, which is why
I think it's actually important to go before him
to try to understand what's gonna come after him.
It's interesting that you say that,
because the conversation in America for a while has been,
you know, if we can just get rid of Donald Trump, you know,
then we can go back to the way things were.
You know, a time when Republicans and Democrats
could speak to one another.
A time when people could handle opposing views.
Was there such a time, and when was it?
So, there was, but it wasn't as good
as people now like to pretend.
So, Joe Biden speaks about the time
when he could work with segregationists.
There was actually a lot packed into that anecdote.
Because we did have a depolarized political system
for some time.
What you had were basically four parties
in the 20th century: the Democrats;
Southern Dixiecrats, which were a conservative,
very racist party;
Liberal Republicans; and Conservative Republicans.
And in that world,
where you had conservatives in the Democratic Party, liberals,
liberals in the Republican Party, conservatives,
you had a lot of cross-party coalitions,
people working together, but all that was built
on this legacy of the Civil War,
where the liberal party of this country
had this rump conservative wing,
and that actually was built on a compromise around segregation.
But the fact that it's hard to get compromise in that system,
it's rational, because the parties are much further apart.
They disagree much more deeply.
But-but is that something that's unique to America
because of the two-party system?
Was it always going to be this way, because, as you said,
there was a time when it was essentially four parties.
-Now it's gone down to two. -Mm-hmm.
And so one thing I've always noticed is:
if there are two, then you always have to choose the one.
Which seems like a dumb thing to say, but unfortunately,
it locks you into a, like, a fixed polarization.
You can't... you can't move between ideas.
Is this something that can be fixed in America,
or is this just where the two-party system
-takes the country? -You could fix it in part.
So here's, I think, one of the keys.
I don't think polarization itself
is necessarily a bad thing, and we see it in other countries,
both in two-party systems and in multi-party systems.
There's an argument that multi-party democracy is better.
I more or less buy that argument.
But you don't have to have what we have,
which is a system where, when you actually win power,
it does not mean you win the power to govern.
The American system is internationally quite unique.
We're the only system like ours
that has not collapsed into total chaos.
-Because the way we elect people... -It hasn't?
Eh, fair enough. You can elect a president,
and then a majority leader in the Senate,
-Right. -say, of the other party,
and there's no way to actually resolve that difference.
So in other systems, when you get elected,
even if you're polarized, you have the power to govern.
So the problem really isn't that we have parties that disagree.
The problem is that when parties win elections in this system,
they need bipartisanship that the other party
does not want to provide.
I think we should have a system where public majorities,
popular majorities, actually take power and then can govern.
It's of note about our system.
White House is run by the guy who won fewer votes.
The Senate is run by the party that won fewer votes.
The Supreme Court, because of that,
is run by the party that won fewer votes
-in the relevant nominating elections. -Right.
We are not in any way a democracy,
and that means one party actually has a path to power
with minority rule.
It's not a great incentive structure.
Here's a question, though. Some may argue, you know,
many conservatives might say, "Of course you would say that,
"Ezra, you lean, uh, liberal, you know, as a cofounder of Vox;
"of course you would want this to change,
because you want liberals to have more of a voice."
I've seen... I've seen this, um, you know, idea shared
amongst many people-- online, on TV-- where people say:
That's why the Founders created this system.
That's why it was created this way.
To make sure that the liberal elites on the coast
couldn't dictate how the country was run by those who grew up
in the middle of America and on the farms.
The Founders were very concerned about California.
They did not like those liberal California elites.
-(laughter) -Two things.
One, the Founders did not create this system,
or, really, anything like it.
They wanted a system that did not have political parties.
The other point you bring up, which is totally fair
and people do bring it up, is, this idea that democracy,
the idea that we should run the country
-based on who represents the people, -Mm-hmm.
has now become associated with liberalism.
It wasn't always that way, it doesn't need to be that way,
and it's very dangerous for it to become that way.
Like, there were times in this country
when the Republican Party rapidly expanded the franchise.
The Civil Rights Act itself had a higher proportion
of Republicans voting for it in Congress than Democrats.
The idea that one party now sees its future in democracy
and the other party has become committed
to a version of minority rule
that requires restricting the franchise,
that's very dangerous for a political system.
If you actually opened it up--
and, by the way, I don't think we're going to,
so this is a somewhat pessimistic analysis--
but if you actually opened it up,
it's not like Republicans couldn't compete--
you have Republican governors in blue states
who are very popular.
The point is, if you don't open it up, they don't have to.
People don't have to compete,
and if they don't have to compete,
then they're not serving the constituents in the areas
who didn't vote for them, essentially.
Exactly. Or even the people who would need to vote for them.
Look, it would be a better...
If we had had an election in 2016,
and the Republican Party had lost it in a winnable election
because Donald Trump got three million fewer votes
than Hillary Clinton, the people who had been fighting
in the Republican Party to open it up,
to make it more inclusive, to reach out to people
who don't already vote for it, they would have been empowered,
and the Trumpist wing of the party
-would have been discredited. -Right.
Instead we got the opposite
because of the weird deformations of the system.
So... what you're saying is, America's screwed?
(laughter)
What I am saying is,
the political system does not function under these conditions.
-Uh-huh. -And yeah, basically, for now,
-America's a bit screwed. -That makes a lot of sense.
So you're saying America is screwed,
but you're also explaining why America is screwed.
Yes, and what could be done about it
if people were willing to focus on it.
Which won't happen, because America is screwed.
-Right. Thank you. -Thank you so much for being on the show.
-(applause, cheering) -Painful but true.
Why We're Polarized is available now.
A fascinating read. Ezra Klein, everybody.