Fluent Politics
Why are modern democracies under such threat? How did civil society become so uncivil, fractious and polarized? And can American governance survive zero-sum politics driven by media echo chambers?
Fluent Politics invites informed, insightful journalists, scholars, politicians and reformers to provide context, depth and nuance on questions and issues of enduring importance. Issues like immigration policy and border security, energy policy and climate change, gun violence and mental health, among other complex issues; but always with attention to the political dynamics complicating consensus and problem solving.
Democracy needs you. But you need your sanity. And so much political coverage is biased and inflammatory. That’s why Fluent Politics strives for accuracy, balance and civility in all our content, avoiding hype, noise, and spin while presenting real knowledge.
Featured
Transforming US Politics for $200 Million? Andrew Yang on Election Reform
Transforming US Politics for $200 Million? Andrew Yang on Election Reform “You meet them and you’re like, ‘oh, wow, you’re a…
Making All Votes Count in DC: Proposer Lisa Rice & the Yes on 83 Team
Making All Votes Count in DC Proposer Lisa Rice & The Yes On 83 Team It was nearing summer temperatures on…
A Primary Solution to Unite America? New Book From Election Reformer, Nick Troiano
A Primary Solution to Unite America? New Book From Election Reformer, Nick Troiano “My goal in this book isn’t just to…
posts
Alaska’s Special Election: A Good Omen for Ranked Choice Voting?
From the Editors | RCV Lessons for Maine and Nevada from The Last Frontier |Issue 18 |…
Two party California, both parties Democratic?
From the Editors | Shades of Blue Within The Golden State | Issue 17 | July…
Our Polarizing Primaries: Georgia Holds a Peach of a Primary
From the Editors | Issue 16 | May 31, 2022 Elections should be about forming a…
podcasts
Transforming US Politics for $200 Million? Andrew Yang on Election Reform
Transforming US Politics for $200 Million? Andrew Yang on Election Reform “You meet them and you’re like, ‘oh, wow, you’re a good person trying to do the right thing, and there’s nothing in it for you,’” says Andrew Yang, Founder and Co-Chair of the Forward Party. He’s referring to largely volunteer teams around the country…
Frontiers of Election Reform (Part Two): Will Alaskans Preserve Top Four Voting?
Frontiers of Election Reform (Part Two) Will Alaskans Preserve Top Four Voting? In 2020, Alaskans passed a first-in-the-nation voting system which helped energize similar reform efforts around the country. In 2024, Alaska voters are now presented with a ballot measure to repeal this same Final or “Top Four” system that includes a unified open primary…
Frontiers of Election Reform (Part One): 5 Views on the Alaska Legislature
Frontiers of Election Reform (Part One) 5 Views on the Alaska Legislature “The notion of getting rid of a closed primary system in Alaska appealed to me instantly,” says former Alaska House Speaker Bryce Edgmon who has represented Bristol Bay and parts of the Aleutian Islands for nearly two decades. “It overrode right there almost…
When Legislatures Act Before Citizens Vote: Colorado’s Top Four Election Reform
When Legislatures Act Before Citizens Vote Colorado’s Top Four Election Reform Election reform is officially on the ballot for voter approval in Colorado this year. This “Top Four” voting system is similar to the Alaska model of a unified open primary plus ranked choice general election. But there is a catch to this Colorado ballot…
Three Election Reformers Approach the Finish Line: Will Nevada Adopt the Alaska Model?
Three Election Reformers Approach the Finish Line Will Nevada Adopt the Alaska Model? In 2024, Nevada voters will see a ballot Question 3 strikingly similar to the question on Final Five voting that passed by 6 points back in 2022. That’s because a constitutional amendment must be passed by voters twice in succession, according to…
How About Treating All Voters & Candidates the Same! Paul Johnson & Chuck Coughlin of Make Elections Fair AZ
How About Treating All Voters & Candidates the Same! Paul Johnson & Chuck Coughlin of Make Elections Fair AZ “Everybody likes to think about these reforms as being revolutionary,” says Paul Johnson, former Mayor of Phoenix, now Co-Chair of Make Elections Fair AZ, on the record number of state level election reforms in play this…
Making All Votes Count in DC: Proposer Lisa Rice & the Yes on 83 Team
Making All Votes Count in DC Proposer Lisa Rice & The Yes On 83 Team It was nearing summer temperatures on this early June primary voting day outside a polling station in Washington, DC. Lisa Rice, official Proposer of Initiative 83, is wearing a sandwich board with the message, “Ask Me Why I Can’t Vote…
Idaho’s Open Primaries & Final Four Voting Initiative: Sometimes it Takes a Coalition!
Idaho’s Open Primaries & Final Four Voting Initiative: Sometimes it Takes a Coalition! In April of 2024, Luke Mayville, co-founder of the grassroots organization ReClaim Idaho, addressed volunteers on the final day of signature gathering for this year’s Open Primaries and Final Four Voting ballot initiative. “We are here today because we are tired of…
Can Competition Foster Better Government? Business Leader & Author Katherine Gehl on 2024 Ballots & Beyond
Can Competition Foster Better Government? Business Leader & Author Katherine Gehl on 2024 Ballots & Beyond Katherine Gehl, co-author of The Politics Industry and Founder of The Institute for Political Innovation, has always asked herself what she needed “to do in order to change the political situation.” “So at first I needed to sell my…
A Primary Solution to Unite America? New Book From Election Reformer, Nick Troiano
A Primary Solution to Unite America? New Book From Election Reformer, Nick Troiano “My goal in this book isn’t just to diagnose the problem,” explains Nick Troiano, Executive Director of Unite America “But to give people a solution that is viable and can happen right there in their own states.” That book is “The Primary…
Systems Level Failure? Veterans for All Voters Takes on Polarizing Elections
Systems Level Failure? Veterans for All Voters Takes on Polarizing Elections “Every time I talk to someone about running for office, the first thing they say is, Eric, you have to pick a team,” confides Navy veteran Eric Bronner. Our featured guest this episode, Eric is COO of the non-partisan group Veterans for All Voters. …
Breaking Bread, Sharing Salad & Final Four Voting: Alaska Representative Mary Pelota
Breaking Bread, Sharing Salad & Final Four Voting: Alaska Representative Mary Pelota “I know that I would not be in this position if we didn’t have the Final Four system,” Representative Mary Peltola (D-AK) tells us in this first Purple Principle episode of season four. “Because I would not have made it through a partisan…
Test Driving Ranked Choice Voting
Test Driving Ranked Choice Voting Part of our Season 3 series on state-level polarization and partisanship. After years of effort by many groups and individuals, Alaska is about to be the first state in the country to hold a ranked choice voting election for all representatives, state and federal. But can ranked choice voting moderate…
Will Latinization Bring Moderation?
Will Latinization Bring Moderation? Part 2 of our series on understanding Hispanic voters How large a role will Hispanic voters play in the 2022 elections and beyond in U.S. politics? (Hint: Huge.) How are the major parties appealing to this voting bloc characterized by great diversity politically, economically and via country of origin, language, age,…
Less Partisan Elections in Alaska 2022?
Less Partisan Elections in Alaska 2022? Will Final Four voting have a depolarizing effect on elections? In our continuing series on state level polarization, TPP visits the state with the highest percentage of non-partisan voters (58%) on the eve of a potentially less polarizing election: the great state of Alaska. On August 16, 2022, for…
Amy Chua on Political Tribalism
Amy Chua on Political Tribalism Can we balance celebrating our multiculturalism with sharing a national identity? The Purple Principle celebrates Independence Day with its first of two episodes in a mini-series on America’s great independent voices. Amy Chua, perhaps best known by her bestselling Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, launches our exploration of figures…
Strength in Diversity, Weakness in One Party Rule?
Strength in Diversity, Weakness in One Party Rule? Can California continue to be a beacon of opportunity for all Americans? The Purple Principle completes its three-episode tour of the great state of California with three uniquely positioned viewpoints on the Golden State. Leon Panetta, one of the most experienced and respected elected officials to hail…
Politically Persuadable But Focused on Jobs?
Politically Persuadable But Focused on Jobs? Part 1 of our series on understanding Hispanic voters Is a large and growing segment of Hispanic American voters leaning independent, as in less securely tied to either of the two major parties? That’s the operative question in this first episode on Hispanic swing voters, featuring three noted experts:…
Like Family, Like Nation: A Braver Angel
Like Family, Like Nation: A Braver Angel Author & Bridge Builder Mónica Guzmán Mediates Polarization At Home & Nationwide Our TPP guest this episode, Mónica Guzmán of Braver Angels, is a fascinating conversationalist who knows how to stop a conversation, particularly among blue-leaning Seattle friends and colleagues discussing politics. As she recounts in our interview,…
A New American Operating System?
A New American Operating System? Part 6 of our Texas series with Former Congressman Will Hurd. Purple Principle listeners know these not so United States need a new political operating system. But who’s going to code it? Based on a great new book, American Reboot (just out from Simon & Schuster), and our TPP conversation,…
Lone Star Launch Pad for Rear-Guard America?
Lone Star Launch Pad for Rear-Guard America? Part 5 of our Texas series with Award-winning authors Lawrence Wright and Stephen Harrigan on the past and future of Texan identity. Our special guests for this fifth episode on Lone Star State identity are two authors with Texas-sized reputations: Lawrence Wright (The Looming Tower, God Save Texas)…
Heard the One About a Centrist Congressman?
Heard the One About a Centrist Congressman? Carlos Curbelo on Polarization in the House What’s it like to represent one of the very few remaining swing districts on the U.S. Congressional map, and be virtually the only Republican member at that time to publicly address climate change? Former Congressman Carlos Curbelo from Florida’s 26th district…
Voice of Reason for Independent Minds
Voice of Reason for Independent Minds Talking Media & Polarization With CNN’s Michael Smerconish “I have been paying attention for thirty years,” CNN and SiriusXM host & commentator Michael Smerconish tells us. “And during that time the country has been driven into a partisan ditch.” A well-known visage from his CNN show, Smerconish is also…
Holiday Survival Kit (Part 3)
Identity With All The Trimmings Celebration & Polarization: Part 3 Can a German town be socially divided by sneakers? Or the Canadian landmass united by a beer commercial? And is US individualism more a group identity than its ardently individualistic citizens would ever admit? Read More Tune in to the third and final episode in…
Holiday Survival Kit (Part 2)
When Anti-Science Makes The Menu Celebration & Polarization: Part 2 It’s tempting to think of anti-science sentiments, such as the current pushback against COVID vaccination, as the disparate sum of misinformed individuals. But Lee McIntyre, author of the recent book How to Talk To A Science Denier has found otherwise. “All science denial is really…
Holiday Survival Kit (Part 1)
Deflating Political Football Celebration & Polarization: Part 1 Are we Americans trapped in our end zones of polarized bubbles ever more motivated to reason away conflicting information or viewpoints? Our featured guest, psychologist Tania Israel, thinks not and she should know. Dr. Israel has been holding workshops over the past two-plus decades to help participants…
Woking up to Backlash
Woking up to Backlash New York Times Columnist Thomas Edsall on Reason & Responsibility in Polarized Politics “The rise of the conservative movement on the right and the decline of liberalism on the left have been a preoccupation of mine for 40 years or more,” Thomas Edsall confides in our latest Season Two episode, “Woking…
Nicest Troll in Town
Nicest Troll in Town On- and Offline identity, Extremism, and Polarization Social media is not fundamentally a source of information or a competition of ideas, but a competition of identities. With that and other provocative findings, Dr. Chris Bail, Director of the Duke University Polarization Lab and author of Breaking the Social Media Prism (Princeton…
Embrace Complexity To Overcome Polarization
Embrace Complexity To Overcome Polarization Discussing a Way Out with Dr. Peter Coleman of The Difficult Conversations Lab Police reform, gun violence, global warming… When did you last have a civil, informative, productive conversation with someone of differing opinions on any of these hugely important but instantly polarizing topics? In the current U.S. political climate,…
The Politics Industry at Work
The Politics Industry at Work And How Would You Like Your Gridlock? Our national legislative agenda hinges on any one Senator’s vote or abstention or last minute demand… A few months into term and the majority of U.S. House Members already anticipate their next primary battle… Meanwhile, bridges crumble, the border crisis deepens, and gun…
What’s Behind Those Red and Blue Maps?
What’s Behind Those Red and Blue Maps? The Social Geography of U.S. Polarization In this episode of The Purple Principle, we wonder, what’s behind those red and blue maps of American political and social geography and our deepening urban-rural divide? To find out, we consult not one but two political scientists named Ryan who have…
We’re Polarized: Now What?
We’re Polarized: Now What? The Hard Work Of Depolarization To some degree all Americans realize we’ve become more polarized in recent times. Those at one extreme obsess about the other, while those of us between the extremes wonder if that incessant tug of war will fray our social fabric to the breaking point. Read More…
Polarization at the Tipping Point
Polarization at the Tipping Point The Long Term and Wide Angled Views A Major Pandemic… Election 2020 that lasted weeks… And Election Denial 2020 is still going months later… Then Insurrection… Impeachment… And possibly more to come. There’s been a lot of polarized events, responses and counter-responses over the past few months. So it seems…
Democracy & Elections Under Stress
Democracy & Elections Under Stress A Discussion With Trevor Potter Of The Campaign Legal Center The 2020 election has revealed the partisan state of American politics and society like no other event in recent history. How did we get to this point? Our special guest today, Trevor Potter, Founder and President of the Campaign Legal…
The Second Coming Turns 100
The Second Coming Turns 100 A Discussion of W.B. Yeats’ Classic Poem of Polarization with Pulitzer winner Paul Muldoon How does a century-old poem written in Ireland as European civil wars erupted in the aftermath of World War I still resonate as if written for our own partisan era? That is the central question The…
Declaration of Independents, Alaska Style
Declaration of Independents, Alaska Style Ballot Question Two Takes on Political Partisanship The great state of Alaska is different in many ways – its vast size (two and a half times the size of Texas), low population (730,000) and great distance from “the lower 48” (states), with a thousand miles of Canadian territory in-between. Politics…
The Brain on Partisan Politics
The Brain on Partisan Politics Why Not So Great Minds Polarize Alike with NYU Scientist, Dr. Jay Van Bavel Let’s say, for the sake of Episode 9 (The Brain on Partisan Politics), that identical twins are separated at birth and raised in very different families, politically speaking: one deep blue, the other deep red. They’re…
America’s Independent Voters and Voices
America’s Independent Voters and Voices The Forty Million Missing By most measures, the US has over 40 million independent or unaffiliated voters representing a third or more of the electorate. Yet despite large and growing numbers, independents are often missing from the national conversation. Independents have no cable channel or national newspaper. You rarely encounter…
Front Lines of Partisanship
Front Lines of Partisanship With Dr. Charles Wheelan from Unite America In Episode 2, our guests include a former Republican speechwriter, a former centrist Democratic congressional candidate, a former Economist Magazine correspondent, a current Professor of Public Policy (Dartmouth College) and the founder of the non-partisan group, Unite America…. Lots of guests for one podcast?…
Partisanship from All Angles
Partisanship from All Angles Priming With Purple How did these United States get so thoroughly partisan? How do we get less partisan? Can independent-minded Americans help bridge the divide? These questions lie behind this first and every episode of The Purple Principle, a podcast about the perils of partisanship in US politics, society and daily…