Ep 90: Eli Zupnick | Can more political parties solve our polarization problems?

Rethinking Communication

It’s nearly impossible to hear the word polarization and not immediately think of nasty political feuds. And many point to the fact that we even have political parties as the source of much of our division.

So imagine my surprise when in the course of researching my guest’s background for this episode, the organization he is a part of actually takes the stance that polarization isn’t always a bad thing.

My guest on this episode is Eli Zupnick. Eli is the co-founder of Fix Our House (https://www.fixourhouse.org/), an organization with a primary focus of getting proportional representation installed in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Eli’s colleague and co-founder, Lee Drutman, wrote a book called Breaking the Two-Party Doom Loop. In this book, Lee explains that the United States has always had polarized political parties; however, what most don’t realize is that up until the last few decades, the U.S. had actually operated within a hidden four-party system rather than the Republican-Democrat binary we see and experience today. The parties were still polarized, they just had to find ways to work together more effectively.

It’s a lot to get into, but this is what Eli and Lee and Fix Our House want us to get back to … a multiparty democracy where more cooperation takes place because no party owns a dominating majority, and where more people feel represented by their government.

To learn more about Michael Ashford, visit https://michaelashford.com/