← The Preamble
The Preamble
Parliamentary America with Max Stearns
00:48:20
Sharon is joined by law professor and author Max Stearns, to hear his most recent book, Parliamentary Democracy and how Americans might benefit from reimagining Democracy?
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- [00:01]
Sharon McMahon
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- [02:19]
Professor Max Stearns
This is not a chore.
- [02:20]
Sharon McMahon
It's something you can look forward to get up to 45% off using the code Interesting. Hey friends, welcome. What if there was a different and better way to have American democracy? That is my conversation today with Professor Max Stearns.
- [02:45]
Professor Max Stearns
I think you will find this very.
- [02:47]
Sharon McMahon
Eye opening and thought provoking. So let's dive in. I'm Sharon McMahon and here's where it gets interesting.
- [02:56]
Professor Max Stearns
First of all, welcome. Thanks for being here.
- [02:58]
Emma Greed
Thank you so much for having me.
- [03:00]
Professor Max Stearns
You are proposing some pretty big departures from the way the American governmental system is set up right now. One of the things that I hear from people all the time is how frustrated they are with our political system, that Congress is completely dysfunctional. In fact, we have one of the least functional Congresses in terms of like actually getting stuff done in United States history right now. This Congress is historically unproductive. They spend all their time having press conferences and grandstanding from committee chairs and almost no time actually working for the American people. And people are tired of it. People, people are like, why are you taking my tax money and doing nothing with it? And when I go to vote for president or I go to vote for senator, whatever it is, I feel like I am constantly having to choose between the lesser of two evils, that I rarely get to vote for somebody with whom I deeply align. Now, some people might be really fortunate and have a great member of Congress representing them that they really vibe with. But unfortunately that is not true for so many Americans. And especially when it comes to the presidency. Max, as you well know, where it's like, I gotta vote for one of two 80 year old white men, that those are my options. 80 and 82, this is the best we could do. These are very widely felt sentiments. So how did we even get to this point of where we are all just like, well, I guess I'll take the person who's 89 instead of, instead of 91. You know, like how did we even get to this point of having this very extreme two party binary where we don't ever actually get a chance to vote for somebody that really represents us.
- [04:58]
Emma Greed
So we have a Constitution that was written in the late 18th century and we put up with it for a really long time, even though it never worked the way the people who wrote it thought it was going to work. If you go back to what you learned in middle school or high school about our constitutional system, you were told this really lovely story about how the officials in our government, whether we're talking about the president, members of Congress, justices on the Supreme Court, would be jealous of their institutions and then fight each other. I use the example of rock, paper, scissors in my class where every option can defeat every other option. And then on top of that, we have this notion of federalism. So we have jealousies. And in our geography, the federal government against the states, each branch of government against each other. And we'd never have to worry about these, what the people who wrote the Constitution called factions, what today we call parties, entrenching themselves against our interest. And even if we go way back to George Washington's departing address. So that's a pretty long time ago.
- [06:07]
Professor Max Stearns
It was like, beware, beware for unscrupulous men will usurp for themselves the reins of power.
- [06:17]
Emma Greed
Precisely right. And he noticed that these jealousies weren't playing out the way everybody seemed to think they were. Instead, it seemed to be that there were these partisan divides and we ended up with a two party system from the beginning of our history. And that's because although the framers had this idea about these games across institutions, the way we elect our officials, a majority election processed admittedly through the Electoral College. We elect members of the House of Representatives in geographical districts. After the 17th amendment, we directly elect senators from the states. This creates a stable outcome of two parties, which we've put up with for a pretty long time. But when we hit the information age, a couple of really significant developments interfered with that system to the point where the divisions between these parties grew increasingly far apart. And not just the parties, but even our culture. We're at a point now where whether it's the politicians or whether it's us talking to each other on social media, there's this sense of that the other side can't just disagree with us. They must be wrong, they must be lacking sort of fundamental intelligence, or they must be evil. We no longer credit each other with just, you know, we disagree. We're at a point now where that's not good enough. We have to kind of insult the other side or denigrate the other side. And that's led to some serious dysfunctions that, including candidates coming in from who really a lot of people do feel as though they're not represented. They're not feeling as though they actually have somebody who really embraces what they want by way of policy or what they value internally as part of their sense of identity and their commitments. And this is what got me to think about doing this book project to explain how it is we can get from here in a two party presidential system that's profoundly dysfunctional to a place in which we have more parties, more choices, more participation. Because people feel rewarded when they vote for third parties, fourth parties, fifth parties, and where those parties are motivated to deliver for the people who support them.
- [08:46]
Sharon McMahon
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- [10:06]
Professor Max Stearns
Today.
- [10:07]
Sharon McMahon
You deserve quality care from someone who cares.
- [10:12]
Emma Greed
I'm Emma Greed and I've spent the last 20 years building, running and investing in some incredible businesses. I've co founded a multi billion dollar unicorn and had my hand in several other companies that have generated hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars. The more success I've had, the more people started coming to me with questions. How do you start a business? How do you raise money? How do I bounce back from failure? So it got me thinking. Why not just ask the people I aspire to the most? How did they actually do what? I'm so incredibly lucky to know some of the smartest minds out there. And now I'm bringing their insights along with mine, unfiltered directly to you. On my new podcast, Aspire with Emma Greed, I'll dive into the big questions everyone wants to know about success in business and in life. Through weekly conversations, you'll get the tangible tools, the real no BS stories, and undeniable little hacks that actually help you level up. Listen to and follow Aspire with Emma Greed An Odyssey Podcast available now. Wherever you get your podcasts, you know.
- [11:13]
Sharon McMahon
That moment when you are juggling dinner, laundry, trying to remember if it's your kid's dentist appointment or soccer practice tomorrow?
- [11:20]
Professor Max Stearns
Yeah. Same.
- [11:21]
Sharon McMahon
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- [12:48]
Professor Max Stearns
I hear this all of the time that people want more choices. They want to vote for somebody who actually represents their interest. But they feel feel as though if they do not vote for the lesser of two evils, particularly when we're talking about the presidency, if they don't vote for the lesser of two evils, well, that's gonna help the most evil candidate in their mind. Because as you mentioned, we now view people who are the opposite of us politically as evil because our political ideologies have become part of our identity. And so to attack somebody's identity is very, very tough, problematic for somebody emotionally feels a little bit like somebody attacking someone's religion. And I agree with you that the information age has a lot to do with this. It now feels to them like we are attacking their religion. It's an identity level issue for many people, not everybody certainly, but for many people especially, my observation is younger people, their political identity is very important to them. So this is a very common sentiment. They want to be able to vote for somebody who's like, yeah, that woman gets it. Yes, they want to feel like they're voting for somebody who really represents them, but they don't want to take the chance that the worst candidate will get elected by throwing their vote to a third party. How do other countries deal with this? And why is the United States stuck in this system of like two is all you get. If you vote for a third one, we're all going to hate you. Bad idea. You ruined it. You wrecked it. You know, like that's how people feel, like you wrecked it. How do other countries deal with this issue, Max?
- [14:42]
Emma Greed
So other countries don't use a winner take all system, and that's really a critical part of it. So you can have an electoral system that uses what's called proportional representation. The winner doesn't have to get everything. And because of the way our voting works, where we have a geographical location, whether it's defined at the district for the House of Representatives, the state for the Senate, or the country as a whole for the President, this tends to divide us into two teams. We learned pretty early on and pretty quickly that the winning strategy is to divide the other side and to keep our side together. The other side learns that too, whichever side we're talking about. And when you put those two things together, we end up with this majoritarian, one side trying to be a majority against another side. We end up with just two parties. But it turns out that in order to have meaningful third parties, it's not enough just to throw out a third party and hope for a better outcome because it's built into the structure of our Constitution. We have to think more deeply about the premises like the foundations of our Constitution to achieve meaningful reform that brings about the kind of happier voter that you're talking about. And what I'm proposing in this book does track what other successful democracies do. And they all make choices along two axes of politics. One has to do with how you elect the lower legislative chamber for us, that's the House of Representatives and how we choose the head of the government, which for us of course is the President. And what I'm proposing is that we have an alternative voting system that will allow voters to make choices that really represent who they are and that will create multiple parties in the House of Representatives. It will enlarge the House of Representatives and, and maybe most radically of the things that I propose, I'm going to shift the decision for selecting the President and Vice President from the voters to coalitions in the House of Representatives. So we're going to have people that really, we believe in them, they embrace our values, and they're going to be negotiating with other parties on a very preset calendar, limited number of parties, five that can engage in such negotiations until a majority coalition, four forms and then their pre designated slate becomes President and Vice President. So that's the first two amendments enlarging the House of Representatives, having the House of Representatives use coalitions to choose the President, which really rewards voters because they can send a signal about where they want that coalition to go. And the Last amendment ends this problem that we've had from the beginning, which is never being able to remove a deeply problematic president from office. The impeachment cause in its entire history has never been successful in removing a problem. If you think about it, if you go back and you were to ask the framers, do you think if we survive for a quarter of a millennium, there'll never be a President that warrants removal? It's unimaginable that the answer to that question would be yes. And it's all because in our system, the President isn't just the head of a branch of government. The President is the head of one of two parties. And the fate of so many politicians are dependent on the of that person. And that results in profound inabilities to generate new parties. And so we have to really think foundationally about how it is other countries do this better, making their voters more satisfied by giving them real options as opposed to, as you put it at the beginning of your question, an admonition every four years to vote for the lesser of two evils.
- [18:40]
Professor Max Stearns
Okay, I hear what you're saying and I have a few questions about it. So the first thing is enlarging the House of Representatives. First of all, the House of Representatives has been the size it is for a real long time. A real long time. And you cannot make any legitimate argument, in my opinion, that all Americans are being represented fairly by the size of the House. Right. The way that we use the formula to allocate numbers of Representatives, a Representative from California is on average representative representing exponentially more people than say, a representative from another small state. And by and large those smaller states tend to be more homogenous than these huge states because of the way the formula works, don't have as many per capita representatives assigned to them. So the first thing you're proposing is expanding the House of Representatives. What is that supposed to do? How will that benefit America? To make the House of Representatives larger.
- [19:39]
Emma Greed
So let me make one observation. Of course, you're absolutely right. If we look at the Senate, which is the most anti democratic representative institution of any democracy in the world, a voter in Wisconsin has as much voting power as 67 voters in California. The population of Wisconsin is so minuscule as compared to that of California. So you've got these egregious representational disparities in the Senate, of course, the House is population based, so the districts tend to be closer where you've got more even representation. What I'm proposing we do with the House of Representatives is dramatically going to empower voters. So I'm proposing that we double the size of the House of Representatives and we're going to have two ballots. When you vote in the House of Representatives, one is going to be for a district representative, just like we do now. All of the members of the House and Senate get to keep their seats in my scheme, which is a central part of why I think that these proposals not only solve the problem, but can be enacted. But you're going to have a second ballot, too, and that second ballot is going to be by party. And then we're going to take at a state level, all of the party ballots, and we're going to make the state delegation to the House proportional based upon the party votes. And so when you're voting, unlike now, where you're told vote for the lesser of the two evils, you're going to be able to do two things. The district at elections will tend toward two parties. There will be two parties that get more seats than other parties, but they won't get a majority of seats, neither one of them, because of this proportionality vote. And what that means is that you're going to get to vote for a party that sends a really powerful signal as to what you value, what you want the coalition government to do. So your vote now becomes truly meaningful and a reflection of who you are. But in addition to that, in order to successfully campaign, politicians have to now be able to say, I'm going to be able to work well with these other parties because in order to create a governing coalition, I have to form a coalition with other politicians whose ideas aren't exactly like mine, they might be like yours. And so as a result, what that's going to do is give more representation where as somebody who's in a state, you're going to have somebody representing your geographical district, but you're also going to have representatives for the state as a whole that are affiliated with the party that you most value.
- [22:20]
Professor Max Stearns
Let me interrupt you for just one second because I don't know that everybody knows what a coalition is and what it would actually mean to form a coalition like, okay, great, I hear former a coalition. I don't know what that is and how it benefits me. So can you explain what it means to form a coalition in the context of government?
- [22:41]
Emma Greed
So the way parliamentary systems work, and the book is called Parliamentary America, the Way parliamentary systems work, you've got parties that are seated almost invariably in the lower legislative chamber, so the equivalent of the House of Representatives, and typically no single party gets a majority of seats which means that the head of that party has to find the heads of other parties to work with and bring their coalitions together. And what you do is you form a group that together gets a majority of seats in the legislative body. And that majority, which we'll call a coalition, a coalition of parties coming together, they designate who it is who's going to be the head of the government. Now, in many parliamentary systems, this person is referred to as the prime minister. But we're going to retain in my proposal lots of very foundational American constitutional features. It will be the president and vice president. So a coalition of parties, parties would come together and negotiate to designate whoever leads the coalition. They'll have a pre designated slate president and vice president would then assume those offices. And so in the scheme that I'm proposing, you would vote for your district representative, but you'd also be signaling, if you're a progressive, say, and you vote for a Democrat in your district, but you vote for the progressive party. Right. You're signaling, I want the coalition to move in this particular direction. And the head of that party, if they join the coalition, they're going to ask for things in return. Like there's a policy commitment or more than one that the progressive party really wants and they're going to negotiate that. They might get a cabinet position, they might get a Supreme Court justice, they're going to deliver something for their constituents. What on the other hand, if the Democrats form a grand coalition with the Republicans, that direction might be a little bit different. And so the idea is that the heads of the parties that you support have to be good, not at insulting others, but at working with others. And that's going to have tremendous effects on improving your sense of personal representation and the commitments of the government to actually deliver on what it says it will do, which will make it more productive. And it turns out voters in those kinds of systems are happier, they turn out in higher numbers, and the governments deliver better for their constituencies.
- [25:24]
Professor Max Stearns
So a coalition in this context is, let's say party number one gets, you know, 30% of the seats in the House of Representatives and party number two gets, you know, 20% and party number three gets 10%. Etc. Some of these groups are going to by definition be required to work together in order to, what is referred to in parliamentary systems form a government. They're going to actually be required to work together because there is no way to do it otherwise. So they're going to have to see who wants to work with party one so that we can actually get a majority to elect a prime minister to choose a direction that the country is going to head in. And this process of being required to form a coalition where you look around this room and you must find other people to work with, would eliminate, according to your scheme, which by the way, scheme in this context is not like an evil plot. It's not like a, hey, I have an evil scheme. Scheme is actually a legal term. It's a construct or a format or, you know, a plan in this context. So according to this scheme, it would eliminate this two party binary gridlock where all we do is have press conferences and hold up random pictures from the Congress, from, you know, the chairs of Congress of like, is this your text message? Well, I don't like it, you know, like that's all Congress is doing. But according to this scheme, that's not going to work. Am I explaining that correctly?
- [27:12]
Emma Greed
You're explaining it beautifully. I'd like to just add one point to your explanation because it's really important. So the centerpiece of my book is a little bit unusual. I take my readers on a virtual world tour. I take them to seven countries. I take them to England, France, Germany, Israel, Taiwan, Brazil and Venezuela. And I show you what works and what fails in other systems of democracy. And I show you how other systems have successfully faced down threats to democracy, like we're experiencing or not. But one of the central lessons that emerges from that world tour is that there's a twin threat to a thriving democracy. One is when you have a problem like we have too few parties, majoritarian systems. The UK also has a majoritarian system. Brexit grew out of the problems of a majoritarian two party system. But the opposite threat is when you have so many parties and you see this fragmentation of parties, and you see this in places like Italy, Israel, Brazil. And what you want to hit on is that Goldilocks principle. Not too hot, not too cold, just right. And the sweet spot, when we talk to political scientists, they all agree that the goal is a sweet spot of between roughly four and eight parties. And the system that I propose is called mixed member proportionality. Kind of fancy developed for Germany after World War II and was precisely designed by blending these two systems of districted voting and proportional representation to achieve that sweet spot of between four and eight parties. So you want to have more than two parties, but you don't want to have too many more than two parties.
- [29:08]
Professor Max Stearns
No, 30 is not going to help.
- [29:09]
Emma Greed
Exactly right.
- [29:10]
Professor Max Stearns
Okay, so then that explains the coalition and the expanding the House of Representatives and how that will benefit people. I want to talk just touch super briefly on this concept of winner take all. I have long brought up this idea that a lot of people didn't learn about, which is that the Constitution was not designed for an electoral college with winner take all, but that actually developed decades after the Constitution was enacted. And they realized that, like, if we do winner take all, we can make ourselves more powerful. What do you see as the biggest downside of this very tunnel vision of winner take all?
- [29:52]
Emma Greed
The biggest downside is the capacity for a politician to come in that represents a subgroup within a party that holds extreme views, but is so essential to that party having a majority. If they let that group go, they lose the majority. Remember what I said, that each side wants to sort of divide the opposition, but keep their part together. The danger is that if you have an extreme group in one party, the party can't afford to let that extreme group go because then they relinquish power to the other side. And what we really want to have happen is we would be better off as a society, as a democracy, and as a culture if the groups did break into separate parties. If, for example, we had a Democratic party and a progressive party, a Republican Party and an America First Party, maybe a Libertarian Party, maybe some, maybe a Green Party. In other words, we naturally have multiple groups that form the Democratic party coalition, that form the Republican party coalition. But it's really a shotgun wedding. They have to stay together because the price of fragmenting is to empower the other side. And one of the things we can never lose sight of is at bottom, people enter public service for very admirable reasons. They want to make the world a better place. Place. They want to enact policies that matter to their constituents, to their voters. They want to bring about a better world. But the only way that you can achieve that is to have power to actually get the offices and have majorities to actually vote on those policies. And politicians understand that first and foremost, politics is about power. And so this dynamic of having to hold together your coalition at the expense of the other sides allows a faction within a party to dangerously take it over. Even if people looking this objectively, oh, we never envisioned ourselves going along with that. But over time, people succumb to certain pressures. They become more tolerant of things that 10 years before they couldn't have imagined themselves necessarily condoning or tolerating. That's the real threat of a two party system.
- [32:26]
Professor Max Stearns
Okay, I have to speak to what somebody who's listening to this is definitely going to say, which is I don't want Congress choosing the president for me. I mean, it's like it's in your dating profile now, if you're on. If you're on Tinder or whatever, like, it's in your dating profile. Who did you vote for for president? Being able to select a president, I think is emotionally important to many Americans. They're going to view it as like, I'm giving up my right to vote for president. And I think, Max, even if you sell them on the benefits of these other things, you're like, I like it. I agree with it. Let's have that. Let's do that. Even if somebody's total on board with all of your reforms, the idea that they're going to give up what seems like a right, even if you tell them it's better in the long run, they're giving up something that's important to them. How do you propose convincing Americans that they're going to be better off by relinquishing the right to choose the president.
- [33:29]
Emma Greed
So I'll say I actually think my proposal will make people's romantic lives a little bit happier because it won't become. It won't become the defining, defining thing in your.
- [33:39]
Professor Max Stearns
In your Tinder profile.
- [33:41]
Emma Greed
I wasn't going to endorse any particular dating site, but I'm happy to have you do so. But, yeah, I think actually the world's a better place if that's not a defining characteristic in your sweep left, sweep right choices. Those right and left choices shouldn't represent political ideology, and too often they do. But I pose this challenge in the book because this is the challenge I confront directly in the book. And I say this. Look, if you think about it, when you are choosing the lesser of two evils, the reality is that your vote isn't signaling something meaningful. When people say, I feel disempowered, or they use the more technical term, I feel disenfranchised. Right. I'm not happy with the Democrat even though I'm on the left. I'm not happy with the Republican candidate even though I'm on the right. They're not making it up. They're not making it up. The fact of the matter is that we have two candidates running in 2024 that a majority of Americans don't want to have running. And so, in fact, people are not feeling empowered by virtue of their ability to go in and vote for the president. But people would feel empowered if they were able to send a clear signal as to the direction they want. The government, the coalition to form. And they will have an ample voice. Also, because many parties or the major parties probably will continue to work through caucuses and primaries, they'll still have a voice in terms of the dominant parties, nominations for president and vice president. And they're going to be able to send a clear signal by voting for the party where that's the top of the ticket for the president and vice president, and the also signaling how they want that ticket if it joins with other parties to go. And I posed this puzzle in the book. I said, you know, if you went, for example, to any nation in the world, take Germany as a good example because it has mixed member proportionality. And you said to them, here's the deal. We have an idea. Let's give German voters the ability to directly elect, they call it the Chancellor, right? The head of their government, equivalent to our president, equivalent to other systems. Prime Minister, let's take that from the Bundestag, which is their equivalent to the House of Representatives, and give it to the voters. And you ask the voters, would you be happy with that or do you like the idea that you send these signals and through coalition bargaining you have an influence that way? It is clear when we look at satisfaction surveys that citizens are far more satisfied with coalition governance than they are with majoritarian systems, which have led to things like Brexit, which have led to the last three election cycles with voters being tremendously unhappy. So one of the reasons why I structured the book after explaining how we got here, giving a bit of our history, how we ended up with a two party system, every chapter on the media, one of the reasons why I centered it on a world tour is because I really think, think that Americans need to understand and can understand that we don't have a lock on how to do democracy. There are systems around the world where people are happier than we are. And I think when people learn about not only that they are happier, but why they're happier, what they can do, what they can signal, I think they can get past this notion that this is somehow deeply entrenched. They must cast that ballot, when in fact they will send a stronger signal. By being able to vote for a party in addition to a district representative. And I'm quite certain that if we ask voters in these other countries, would you like to give up what you have for the presidential system that we have, the answer would be a resounding no. And so I think that we just need to be, as Americans willing to, yeah, we have to rethink things that we've learned going all the way back to childhood. But I think we can. I think we're capable of learning from the experiences of other countries and learning that frankly, there are better ways to do democracy.
- [37:55]
Sharon McMahon
Listen, we are all busy and nobody wants to read the Same story from 10 different news sources all day. Like who has time for this? But if we don't to read news from a variety of sources, are we living in an echo chamber where we are missing blind spots and important information? Like, let me give you one example. The Supreme Court just heard a case on a parent group in Maryland that objected to LGBTQ content in elementary schools and one headline said the Supreme Court Looks Eager to Undermine Public Schools. And then another headline said Just Justices Signal Support for Maryland Parents. Same story, completely different take and I was able to explore both viewpoints on Ground News. Their app and website let you compare how the media is framing any given story and then also get context on the ownership and bias of that source that you're reading the story on. It's not about like I only want to read left leaning sources or right leaning sources. It's about actually understanding the world. So go to Ground News Sharon and get all of the insights you need to consider things like publication ownership and factuality. I love their blind spot report that shows stories that basically only left leaning publications or only right leaning publications are picking up. If you're only reading one or the other, you might be missing stories that are important to people that are your neighbors. Go to Ground News Sharon to get 40% off the ground News Vantage plan which will unlock access to all of their news analysis features. I think Ground News is doing important work and I hope you'll check them out. That's Ground News Sharon. Now that the weather is warming up, I've been trying to stay more active, but the last thing I want to do after a busy day is cook. And that is why Factor has been such a lifesaver. Make this your best season yet with nutritious 2 minute meals from Factor. Don't try to buy me any cookbooks. Don't try to tell me there's anything faster than a two minute meal. There isn't. Eating well has never been this easy. Just heat up and enjoy. Giving you more time to do what you want. It's been so easy to eat well without any planning or prepping or cleanup. The meals show up fresh, not frozen, and they taste so good. With 45 options every week, I can switch things up and still stick to my goals. Whether I want something calorie smart or high in protein or just super satisfying. Factor even has quick breakfasts and snacks so I am completely covered all day long. Get started@factor meals.com hwigi50offits here's where it gets interesting. 50 off and use code hwigi50 off to get 50% off plus free shipping on your first box. That's code H W I G I 50 off@factor meals.com hwiGi 50 off to get 50% off plus free shipping on your first box. Today's episode is sponsored by Nerd Wallet's Smart Money Podcast. Making financial decisions shouldn't feel like picking a new streaming show. Too many options, too easy to fall for the hype and you wish you'd done more research before committing. That's why I love NerdWallet's Smart Money podcast. Their finance journalists break down real world money decisions from investing to home buying to credit cards. With clear research backed insights. The nerds help you cut through misinformation and get straight to the facts. So before you make your next financial move, get the clarity you need to make smart decisions with confidence. Follow NerdWallet's Smart Money podcast on your favorite podcast app.
- [41:45]
Professor Max Stearns
This idea in American history that what the framers believed and thought of and conceptualized and wrote down is akin to a holy text, right? To many Americans, it it's almost the equivalent of like, well, that is what is in the Torah. That's what the apostles wrote down in the New Testament. And we're not going to change it now because that it says what it says. You know what I mean? I do think a lot of Americans hold this view that whether explicitly or not, that the Constitution was somehow divinely inspired. That is a belief that some Americans have Constitution was divinely inspired and or what the framers thought and believed is of paramount importance. Even still, you still see the Supreme Court bringing this up. You still see the Supreme Court trying to divine what the original intent of the framers was and then moving on down, down the line. You know, as the Constitution was amended, what did they intend when they put in the 14th amendment, et cetera? What was the original intention is still very, very important in the American history system, but also the American legal system. So how would you answer that question? How would you speak to somebody who feels like, yeah, but the Constitution we have has gotten us this far what they thought was important. We can't give up the constitutional system that we have. What would your answer to that person be?
- [43:27]
Emma Greed
So a couple of answers. One is this is the foundation for what scholars Call American exceptionalism the idea that the framers came up with something so profound, so wise, that it has immunized us from the threats to our democracy that other nations around the world have been faced. I think it's simply a mistaken lesson that we have to unlearn by thinking about this alternative question, which is, is it possible that our nation has endured for as long as it has in spite of, not because of, the constitutional design? So here are some other reasons why our system has endured. One, we have been relatively isolated and insulated from foreign military threats as compared with other democracies, for example, in Europe or South America or other of parts, parts of the world. Number two, we've had a constant influx of highly motivated immigrants, which is very, very helpful when you're growing an economy. Number three, we've had the capacity for westward expansion, albeit at tremendous pain and cost to Native American peoples. And number four, of course, our original sin, right brutally bringing here, under the most horrific conditions enslaved persons and holding them here for centuries in a state of abject terror. And so we have to ask ourselves this question, is there a way to test this counter hypothesis as to how we've sort of survived and even thrived for so long as compared with the American exceptionalism story? And I say, when you think about testing the wisdom and efficacy of systems, think for example of technologies, think of business models, and yes, think of democracy. Would you ever say that the appropriate test is can I find a single outlier example that does it that way against the contrary way that the rest of the world does things? Nobody would say that. Instead they would use a replication test. Do I have a system that has been used over and over again and adapted to a wide variety of different circumstances? And people would always use replication, whether we're talking about technology, business models, or democracy. And when we ask this question, how does the United States Constitution fare under a replication test? The answer is we get an F. We've exported democracy throughout our history. We have not successfully exported two party presidentialism. Why? Because it's a failing system. But when we look at mixed member proportionality, the system that I'm advocating, which we can make our own, that is a system that has been benignly replicated across cultures, across countries, across settings, again and again in highly productive ways, with voters being happier, with politicians performing better and with greater satisfaction, I understand this visceral sense about the special nature of our Constitution. One of the blurbists on the back of my book describe my proposal as patriotic. And I think it is patriotic because I am embracing many features of our system and continuing them. I'm not touching the Senate. I'm leaving the House of Representatives. I'm leaving incumbents in the two houses as incumbents in the states or districts that elect them. I'm leaving in place the presidential line of succession. There are things I'm not touching. There are other ideas for democratic reform, but what I'm doing is focusing the on media specific pathology, problem, diagnosis that's giving rise to the crisis that has led two thirds of Americans to think our democracy is under threat. And so I am asking people for one thing, and that is a sufficiently open mind that they'll hopefully buy my book. But more importantly than that, read the book and see how other nations do democracy better. Because I think if they take the world tour, and I think I'm a pretty good tour guide and it's fun. I point out sites, I point out lots of interesting things about the countries that we'll be visiting, and they're fascinating, each of them in their own right. I think that your audience and my readers will come away questioning some of the things that was ingrained in their education from a very young age. And I think that's for the better.
- [47:50]
Professor Max Stearns
That's a really good point. That we have never exported our system of democracy successfully anywhere and that we perhaps need to interrogate our belief in American exceptionalism. And perhaps one can be patriotic, one can love America, and that is the basis for wanting to improve it. Not to burn it all down and to say, screw it, I hate all of y' all, this whole thing, and it is beyond fixing. A patriotic love of one's country can be the basis for wanting to improve it and, and seeking reforms that better represent all Americans, not just some Americans, so that we don't have a system where 3/4 of Americans feel de facto disenfranchised. I absolutely think it's an idea worth exploring. And I think people who read Parliamentary America will feel like this guy has some stuff to think about in here, and we're not even touching in this episode exactly how one would go about implementing these reforms. You talk about this in the book. And so I really want people to read it. People who are like, yeah, but how do we do it? You need to read Parliamentary America. He gives a lot of very, very specific ideas for these kinds of things. But I really resonate with this idea that when you love something, you want it to be the best it can be. And I also think it's pretty clear that the framers understood they did not know everything. They could not predict the future. They included two separate ways to change the Constitution in the document itself. If they thought it was holy scripture, they would have added, you know, and nobody will add to or subtract from this document like they would have put that at the end if that was their belief instead of telling you two ways to change it.
- [49:45]
Emma Greed
I agree with you so wholeheartedly. I just have to say that I think you're absolutely right. Now I'll just add this one comment. I do love this country. I've been teaching constitutional law for 32 years and raised a family here. And what I want more than anything is for my children, for my students who are the ages of my children. I want them to live in a thriving America, in a thriving democracy. The dedication to my book, the Very Beginning. When you open up, the first thing you'll see is to my children and yours. And I mean it.
- [50:17]
Professor Max Stearns
I love that. Thank you so much for being here today. It was great chatting with you, given me so much to think about. I hope everybody listening to this gets a chance to pick up Parliamentary America because we actually can change the system. We can improve it. It's not impossible. And despite so many people's frustrations, we do not have the luxury of being hopeless.
- [50:42]
Emma Greed
I love that and I agree with it wholeheartedly.
- [50:45]
Sharon McMahon
Thank you, Max.
- [50:46]
Emma Greed
Thank you.
- [50:48]
Sharon McMahon
You can buy Max Stearns book Parliamentary America wherever you buy your books. And if you want to support independent bookstores, you can order from bookshop.org thanks.
- [50:58]
Professor Max Stearns
For being here today.
- [51:00]
Sharon McMahon
Thank you so much for listening to here's where it gets interesting. If you enjoyed today's episode, would you consider sharing or subscribing to this show that helps podcasters out so much? I'm your host and executive producer, Sharon McMahon. Our supervising producer is Melanie Buck Parks and our audio producer is Craig Thompson. We'll see you soon. Running a business is hard enough. Why make it harder with dozens of disconnected apps? I know how challenging it is to manage a tech stack. When running a business, you're always concerned with like, will this thing integrate nicely with that one? And all of them are so insanely expensive. If your business software is causing you more stress than success, it's time to switch to Odoo. Odoo is the only business software you will ever need. It's all in one. It's a fully integrated platform that handles everything from CRM to E, comm to HR and more. No more app overload. Plus it replaces multiple expensive platforms for a fraction of the cost and it's designed to grow with your business because it's customizable and it streamlines every process. Thousands of businesses have already made the switch. Why not you go to Odoo for free today@odoo.com, that's o d o o dot com.