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Take The Quiz Here: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/09/08/opinion/republicans-democrats-parties.html\n\nAmerica\u2019s two-party system is broken. Democrats and Republicans are locked in an increasingly destructive partisan struggle that has produced gridlock and stagnation on too many critical issues \u2014 most urgently, the pandemic and climate change.\nThere is no reasonable or timely way to fix this broken system. But there is an alternative: more parties.\nIt is not so hard to imagine a six-party system \u2014 and it would not even require a constitutional amendment.\n\nEach party represents a different portion of the electorate, not only ideologically but also by economic class and political engagement.\nThere is no \u201ccenter\u201d party here. That is because there are very few voters in the middle across all issues. Many readers who consider themselves centrist might also think of themselves as socially liberal/fiscally moderate or socially moderate/fiscally conservative. They will find a home in either the New Liberal Party or the Growth and Opportunity Party.\nThese six parties reflect the underlying factions \u2014 and divides \u2014 within the Democratic and Republican parties. Until American politics nationalized in the 1980s and 1990s around divisive culture-war issues, they operated more independently within the two major political parties.\nWe get to such a system through proportional multimember districts. This approach features districts much larger than our current tiny congressional ones \u2014 and each elects more than one person, at once, to represent the region. So more than one party could represent a district in proportion to their popularity within that large district \u2014 just as they do in most advanced democracies.\nLegislation introduced in the current Congress, the Fair Representation Act, would require use of multimember districts with ranked-choice voting in most states\u2019 House selections as well as elections for the Senate. If more parties emerged, coalitions across parties would form to elect a speaker and organize committee assignments \u2014 just as coalitions form in multiparty legislatures around the world. Multiparty democracy would facilitate the shifting alliances and bargaining that are essential in democracy but have largely disappeared in today\u2019s zero-sum conflict.\nThe Senate would most likely become a much more free-wheeling institution, as it was in the past. Absent reform to the Electoral College, presidential elections would still probably come down to two major candidates. However, with partisan loyalties less fixed, more voters would judge candidates on the content of their ideas and character rather than the D or R next to their names. Moreover, a less hyperpartisan Congress will also most likely be less gridlocked and more productive, enabling it to reclaim a more central role in our national politics, lowering the stakes of presidential elections and potentially lowering the stakes for Supreme Court nominations in a new era of reduced partisanship.\n\n--- \n\nSupport this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/comethisfar/support