LWV-Downeast hosts a monthly radio program on democracy in cooperation with WERU FM. This month, we'll talk about the history and the future of the two major parties, how parties change and evolve, how/why they splinter. Are the parties too strong or too weak? Are the two major parties in this moment so polarized that the system itself is undermined? Has the modern two-party system made us ungovernable? What reforms and options might be realistic? -- multi-member districts, proportional representation, ranked choice voting?
Special Guests:
- Lee Drutman, senior fellow at New America. He is the author of Breaking the Two-Party Doom Loop: The Case for Multiparty Democracy in America and winner of the 2016 American Political Science Association's Robert A. Dahl Award, given for "scholarship of the highest quality on the subject of democracy." He is also the co-host of the podcast Politics in Question, and writes for the New York Times, Vox, and FiveThirtyEight, among other outlets.
- Sandy Maisel, Goldfarb Family Distinguished Professor of American Government (emeritus); Director of the Colby in Washington Program, 1987-1995; Director, Goldfarb Center for Public Affairs and Civic Engagement, 2003-2012. He is the author of numerous books, including Parties and Elections in America: The Electoral Process, with Mark D. Brewer, now in its ninth edition.
Find more information here. This show will be pre-recorded; no listener calls will be taken. Comments and questions may be emailed to news@weru.org with Democracy Forum on the subject line.
WERU 89.9 FM Blue Hill, streaming at weru.org