This Old Democracy

The latest episode of This Old Democracy features Jennifer McCoy, a non-resident scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and political science professor at Georgia State University. McCoy is one of the world's leading researchers on democratic erosion and recovery, and on political polarization — a topic she has spent years studying comparatively across dozens of countries. The c...

The latest This Old Democracy features Tabatha Abu El-Haj on associational party building, the power of a ballot line, and what democratic accountability can look like in practice. Something is missing from American politics — and it's not a policy position or a charismatic leader. It's a structural connection between the people who hold office and the communities they claim to represent. Tabatha...

The  Callais decision is a watershed moment. Latner argues the only path forward runs through "party-system" reforms: PR w/ a side of Fusion. The Supreme Court didn't just rewrite the rules of redistricting in Louisiana v. Callais. It effectively ended, after more than forty years, the regime of legal protection for minority voters that the Voting Rights Act had built. The decision stripped away t...

Heather McGhee is featured on the latest episode of our This Old Democracy podcast.  Heather is the former president of Demos, author of the bestselling The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together , and one of the most incisive voices in American political life and thought. In the conversation with host Micah Sifry, McGhee connects the dots between the racial politics...

In a wide-ranging conversation with Micah Sifry, longtime political columnist Kuttner takes stock of what went wrong, why the guardrails may be holding, and what it will actually take to rebuild democracy from what he sees as the wreckage of the neoliberal era. There's a particular kind of intellectual honesty in someone who has spent decades arguing for a position, been vindicated by history, and...

Political scientist Lilliana Mason on social sorting, partisan self-deception, and why the two-party system makes all of it worse. The latest episode of This Old Democracy features the remarkable Lilliana Mason, a professor of political science at Johns Hopkins, in a wide-ranging conversation with host Micah Sifry.   Mason offers a rigorous — and at times unsettling — account of why Americans have...

A new episode of This Old Democracy features Miles Rapoport, who has four decades of democracy reform to draw on — and a lot of reasons to stay optimistic In a moment when the democratic project feels genuinely imperiled, it helps to hear from someone who has been in the fight for four decades and still wakes up ready for more. The latest episode of This Old Democracy features Miles Rapoport — com...

The latest This Old Democracy podcast features political scientist Lisa Disch on the artificial roots of two-party rule, the buried history of multi-party democracy in the US and a credible strategy for creating a better party system.  If you've ever felt trapped by a disagreeable, binary choice at the ballot box — known in elite political science circles as the "hold your nose" vote — Lisa Disch...

In a moment when many Americans feel trapped between rigid partisan choices, a reform movement in Kansas is working to widen the political lane. In the latest episode of This Old Democracy, Micah Sifry interviews Aaron Estabrook about United Kansas, a newly formed political party and reform movement dedicated to restoring fusion voting and expanding voter choice. Estabrook is well suited to be one...

On the latest episode of This Old Democracy , Micah Sifry sits down with Andy Craig — a libertarian election-policy expert whose career arc runs from the Libertarian Party and Gary Johnson's 2016 campaign to writing election-reform language that made it into the Electoral Count Reform Act of 2022.   It's a wide-ranging and unusually candid conversation about how America's democratic breakdown look...

On the latest episode of This Old Democracy, Micah Sifry sits down with Jeff Timmer—a veteran Republican strategist turned outspoken defender of democratic norms—for a conversation that is equal parts diagnosis, warning, and blueprint for reform. Timmer spent three decades inside the Republican Party, serving as executive director of the Michigan GOP and advising major campaigns, before becoming a...

This one should get people who care about philanthropy buzzing. In the latest episode of "This Old Democracy," host Micah Sifry and political scientist Daniel Stid have a provocative discussion about what philanthropy is getting right, and has gotten wrong, in the democracy space.   Stid is the former director of the Hewlett Foundation's U.S. Democracy Program and now a senior fellow at the Americ...

In the "This Old Democracy" episode featuring political scientist Daniel Schlozman, host Micah Sifry dives into the structural weaknesses plaguing American politics, a central theme in The Hollow Parties , which Schlozman co-authored with Sam Rosenfeld. The core argument they make is that modern political parties are "hollow shells"—top-heavy, poorly rooted, and disconnected from the everyday live...

The latest episode of "This Old Democracy" with host Micah Sifry and political scientist Didi Kuo, author of " The Great Retreat: How Political Parties Should Behave and Why They Don't ," dives deep into a critical question: what's really going on with American democracy? Kuo doesn't pull punches, arguing that despite their outward appearance of strength, our major political parties have neglected...

If you haven't read the report of the ABA Task Force on American Democracy, you should. It's nearly 100 pages, with 34 recommendations. If that's too much, read the press release. (See links below.) And if you prefer to consume information about election reform via podcasts, this latest episode of "This Old Democracy" is for you. Micah Sifry interviews one of the members of the ABA Task Force, Tom...

Three good reasons to check out the latest episode of "This Old Democracy" with guest Brad Lander. Get an insider's take on this moment in NYC politics Hear from a major party candidate and elected official about how fusion voting and other election reforms have affected their career Feel some hopeful chills coming from a group of young, hearing-impaired campaign volunteers and an appreciation of...

Jennifer Dresden and Deborah Apau from Protect Democracy have an important new report just out on how fusion voting and proportional representation complement each other in the work of strengthening American democracy. So it's exciting that Dresden joined Micah Sifry on the latest episode of "This Old Democracy" to whet your appetite for reading the full paper –  Fusion as a Pathway to Proportiona...

In this episode of This Old Democracy, host Micah Sifry talks with the co-chairs of United Wisconsin, a fledgling political party that is seeking to bridge the political divides in the Badger State. The bipartisan pair – Dale Schultz, a former Republican Majority Leader in the State Senate, and David Mahoney, the former Democratic sheriff of Dane County explain what motivated them to form United W...

In this episode of 'This Old Democracy,' host Micah Sifry speaks with Ian Bassin , co-founder and executive director of Protect Democracy. They discuss the organization's mission to safeguard democracy in the U.S. against rising authoritarianism, the importance of civic engagement, and the need for political reform. Bassin emphasizes the multi-faceted approach required to combat authoritarianism,...

In this episode of  This Old Democracy , host Micah Sifry engages with author, documentary filmmaker and activist Astra Taylor to discuss the complexities of democracy in America. They explore the paradox of democracy, the historical context of its evolution, and the challenges posed by authoritarianism and the two-party system. Taylor emphasizes the importance of organizing and building instituti...

In this episode of This Old Democracy , host Micah Sifry engages with Bill Kristol, an editor-at-large at  The Bulwark,   to discuss the current state of American democracy, the rise of authoritarianism, and the challenges posed by political polarization. Kristol shares his insights on strategies to combat these threats, including the importance of civic engagement and potential electoral reforms...

In this episode of This Old Democracy, Washington Post columnist Perry Bacon joins the podcast to discuss the state of American democracy, the increasing authoritarianism of the Trump presidency, and the weakening of independent institutions like the Supreme Court, Congress, the business community, and the media. He and host Micah Sifry explore whether the two-party system contributes to political...

In this episode of This Old Democracy , host Micah Sifry engages with political scientist Lee Drutman, a senior fellow in the Political Reform program at  New America , to discuss the challenges facing American democracy, particularly the two-party system and its implications for public engagement and political health. Drutman argues for the necessity of a multi-party democracy, exploring concepts...

In this episode of This Old Democracy , host Micah Sifry sits down with Dan Cantor, veteran political organizer and chief strategist at the Center for Ballot Freedom , to explore a once-common but now largely forgotten reform: fusion voting. Drawing on his decades of experience on the political left—and his recent work with moderate Republicans and Independents—Cantor makes the case that reviving...