Three things strike me now about American national politics. One is the importance of the Senate for blocking policy change. Another is the Senate’s narrow partisan division. Then there are Missouri and Nevada, where the ranked-choice movement now heads.
This post suggests that one way to save the Republic — by which I mean create a Senate that can block policy change, should the next few elections not go very well — is to get Democratic voters to help elect anti-populist Republicans in key states.
In turn, that could require state Democratic parties to stand down in the respective elections — basically what we have seen in Alaska.
I am not saying that this strategy is good or bad. Nor am I commenting on long-term implications for democratic practice. It may be that there is no other choice.
I mean, in principle, every minority party member should join the majority party and vote in their primary, essentially turning the partisan primary into a nonpartisan primary. But how do you get voters to stop sabotaging themselves actually do this at scale?
I’m skeptical of any strategy that involves convincing voters to change. You have to change the mechanism itself. Don’t hate the player hate the game.
Your skepticism of efforts based on changing voter preferences is why I (and others) have been advocating proportional representation. A related issue is the need for more-binding-than-not coalition commitments, which ballot-reform efforts cannot supply.