BONUS: Culture Wars, Then & Now with Josh Graham Lynn

Summary

Podcast Summary: SNAFU with Ed Helms – BONUS: Culture Wars, Then & Now with Josh Graham Lynn

Episode Information:

• Title: BONUS: Culture Wars, Then & Now with Josh Graham Lynn
• Host: Ed Helms
• Guest: Josh Graham Lynn, Co-founder of Represent Us
• Release Date: May 14, 2025

Overview: In this bonus episode of Season 3's "SNAFU" series, host Ed Helms engages in a profound conversation with Josh Graham Lynn, the co-founder of Represent Us. The duo delves into the intricate dynamics of political corruption, the enduring impact of Prohibition, and the contemporary culture wars shaping American democracy. Through an exploration of historical parallels and present-day strategies, the episode underscores the urgent need for systemic reforms to ensure government accountability and responsiveness to the populace.

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1. Introduction to Represent Us and Political Corruption

Ed Helms opens the discussion by introducing Josh Graham Lynn and his organization, Represent Us, which is dedicated to combating political corruption and enhancing the functionality of American democracy.

Josh Graham Lynn [03:44]: "Represent Us is pretty straightforward. The idea here is that the American government should work an answer to work for an answer to the American people. Outrageous. It's just. It's a foreign thought."

Lynn elaborates on the genesis of Represent Us, emphasizing the detrimental influence of big money and special interests on governmental operations. This corruption leads to a government that often does not serve the interests of the average American.

Josh Graham Lynn [06:40]: "Public policy as it is generated by Congress has a statistically non-existent connection to the desires of the public. Why? What are the primary, what are sort of the underpinning reasons for that?"

2. The Impact of Citizens United and Money in Politics

The conversation transitions to the landmark Supreme Court ruling, Citizens United (2012), which significantly amplified the role of money in politics.

Josh Graham Lynn [05:08]: "In the aftermath of Citizens United, which was in 2012, and for those who don't know, Citizens United is a Supreme Court ruling that essentially said that special interests, corporations, private entities, can spend almost unlimited amounts of money to make political contributions AKA by politicians in elections."

Lynn highlights how this decision has entrenched the power of big money in politics, leading to unchecked political spending and diminishing the average citizen's influence on public policy.

Josh Graham Lynn [10:36]: "When you're in Congress, let's say you want to move a bill forward... it's actually better for those in power to have arguments about policy. It helps them fundraise in their elections."

3. Prohibition as a Case Study of Cultural Conflict and Legislative Missteps

Ed Helms connects the topic of political corruption to the historical example of Prohibition, framing it as an early 20th-century culture war that exemplified how laws can be passed with minimal public support.

Ed Helms [07:08]: "Prohibition was obviously a colossal government snafu and a fascinating story in its own right... it’s a warning."

Lynn references a Princeton University study to illustrate how public opinion has little sway over legislative actions, further compounding the sense of disenfranchisement among ordinary Americans.

Josh Graham Lynn [08:57]: "The American people, average American income earners amongst American people appear to have a minuscule, near zero, statistically non-significant impact upon public policy."

4. Gerrymandering and the Lack of Competitive Elections

A significant portion of the discussion focuses on gerrymandering and its role in creating non-competitive congressional districts.

Josh Graham Lynn [19:14]: "In some 87% of races for the U.S. House, we already know which party is going to win the election before it even starts because the districts have been drawn to protect the party that's already in power."

Helms underscores the implications of this practice, noting that it leads to primary elections being the de facto competitive races, thereby favoring more extreme candidates.

Ed Helms [22:15]: "Over 80% of congressional elections are non-competitive... it's not, it's not an actual election."

5. Ranked Choice Voting as a Remedy

To counteract the effects of gerrymandering and promote more representative governance, Lynn advocates for the adoption of ranked choice voting.

Josh Graham Lynn [30:28]: "Ranked choice voting... it’s just ranking your candidates in order rather than choosing one."

Helms and Lynn discuss how ranked choice voting ensures that elected officials receive broader support from their constituents, thereby encouraging more moderate and representative candidates.

Josh Graham Lynn [32:00]: "You have to start broadening your base so when we talk about incentives, if I have an incentive to reach a bigger base to win office, I'm going to have to do that."

6. Ballot Initiatives and State-by-State Legislative Change

Lynn explains how incremental changes through state ballot initiatives have historically paved the way for significant federal reforms. He draws parallels between the movement against Prohibition and contemporary efforts to address political corruption.

Josh Graham Lynn [39:09]: "Passing state laws is ultimately what often leads to a federal victory... city by city, state by state, we fix things and then move on to making it federal."

The conversation highlights successful campaigns, such as the "badass grandmas" in North Dakota, who leveraged ballot initiatives to enact stringent transparency and ethics laws.

Josh Graham Lynn [44:42]: "They actually won. And North Dakota went from having some of the weakest transparency and ethics laws in the country to having some of the strongest."

7. The Legacy and Future of Democratic Reforms

Ed Helms invites Lynn to reflect on the historical efforts to "perfect" the American union, emphasizing the ongoing nature of democratic reforms.

Josh Graham Lynn [43:18]: "We absolutely need everyone's voice to be heard... Represent Us is about taking the ideas of progress and the sort of momentum and legacy that has been built by the civil rights movement, by the suffragists, and saying, we will continue to perfect this union by making it work better for we the people."

Lynn reiterates the importance of citizen engagement and systemic changes to empower the electorate and restore faith in democratic institutions.

8. Conclusion and Call to Action

In a poignant conclusion, Lynn shares an inspiring story of ordinary citizens effecting significant change, encouraging listeners to participate actively in democratic processes.

Josh Graham Lynn [44:42]: "It's real stuff that actually matters. Started at a coffee shop."

Ed Helms expresses gratitude for Lynn's contributions and insights, underscoring the episode's theme of addressing and rectifying systemic governmental flaws.

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Notable Quotes:

• Josh Graham Lynn [05:08]: "We know that's true. Lots of people feel that way. I think what a lot of people don't know is that scientific studies, one after the other after the other, prove that to be true."
• Ed Helms [08:35]: "Prohibition was obviously a colossal government snafu and a fascinating story in its own right... it’s a warning."
• Josh Graham Lynn [22:32]: "We're doing the song and dance. We're doing the song and dance of putting a Republican and a Democrat against each other. But in 80% of districts, one will always win."
• Josh Graham Lynn [35:08]: "If you have to do something like ranked choice voting, then you have to do that. And that really is a better way for everybody."
• Ed Helms [43:18]: "We'll get there. What would you say to our listeners out there right now?"

Key Insights:

1. Money's Dominance: The infusion of big money into politics post-Citizens United has severely undermined the average citizen's influence over public policy.
2. Gerrymandering's Impact: The practice of drawing electoral districts to favor incumbents or specific parties has rendered a vast majority of congressional elections uncompetitive, fostering political extremism.
3. Ranked Choice Voting: Adopting this electoral system can ensure that elected officials garner broad-based support, promoting more moderate and representative governance.
4. Ballot Initiatives: State-level reforms through ballot initiatives serve as effective catalysts for broader federal changes, as evidenced by historical and contemporary movements.
5. Citizen Empowerment: Grassroots efforts and citizen engagement are pivotal in challenging entrenched political systems and reinstating government accountability.

Conclusion: This episode of "SNAFU" masterfully intertwines historical context with present-day political challenges, offering listeners a comprehensive understanding of how past missteps like Prohibition mirror current struggles against political corruption and systemic inefficiencies. Through Josh Graham Lynn's insights and Represent Us's strategies, the episode not only highlights the pervasive issues undermining American democracy but also illuminates viable paths toward meaningful reform and renewed public trust in governmental institutions.

Transcript

[Ed Helms]

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[Ed Helms]

Hey there. I'm Ed Helms, and this is SNAFU Season 3, Formula 6, How Prohibition's War on Alcohol Went so off the rails the Government wound up Poisoning Its Own People. This is a bonus episode, and as you may recall, I like to bring in guests for these bonus episodes and try to learn something a little bit new or different about the subject. So we know Prohibition was obviously a colossal government snafu and a fascinating story in its own right, but what are the nitty gritty lessons or insights we can walk away with this season? I wanted to talk to someone who could help us zoom out. Someone who thinks deeply about how power, corruption, and unintended consequences shape our world. The so I called up Josh Graham Lynn, the co founder of Represent Us, an organization dedicated to fighting political corruption and making our democracy work better. Unlike, say, a democracy that poisons its own citizens. Josh helped us dig into big questions that inform our understanding not only of Formula 6, but also its lingering echoes into the present. How do we break free of political influence and lobbyists? How do we bring power back to voters? And ultimately, how do we strengthen democracy for future generations? Turns out the tangled mess of bad decisions behind Prohibition isn't just a history lesson, it's a warning. So here it is, my fascinating conversation with Josh Graham Lynn. Hello, Josh Graham Lynn.

[Josh Graham Lynn]

Hello, Ed Heckenweiler. Helms. Close.

[Ed Helms]

Well, hey, so I'm so excited to have you on our Snafu podcast, and I'm just gonna throw a couple of disclaimer slash context bits out there. First, the first disclaimer is that I know you very well and I don't like you at all. No, that's not true. We're very good friends. You are a very good friend of mine. And the reason we know each other well is because you. An organization called Represent Us, and I have been very active with that organization because I really believe in its mission. So with that out of the way, tell us a little bit about Represent Us and your involvement, how it got started and how you got roped in.

[Josh Graham Lynn]

Well, what a nice introduction. I thought it was going to be some scary disclaimer, but the fact that we're friends and buddies, I think, makes it all the better. Right. So Represent Us is pretty straightforward. The idea here is that the American government should work an answer to work for an answer to the American people. Outrageous. It's just. It's a foreign thought.

[Ed Helms]

Right.

[Josh Graham Lynn]

Because of the influence of big money and special interests and the two political parties that we have and their grip on the system, the American government does not work for the American people. And so Represent Us is all about building a movement of folks from across the political spectrum to make the government work for we the people. And we do that by going city by city, state by state across the country, passing laws that actually make the government answer to the people.

[Ed Helms]

Right on. Right on. Yeah. Every time I hear that, I just get all excited about representatives.

[Josh Graham Lynn]

I never get tired of saying it. It's one of those. It's like saying to somebody like, hey, do you want free candy? Or like, yeah, it's like everybody likes it.

[Ed Helms]

And I think there is just a very pervasive sense in America right now that things are feeling a little broken. No matter what side you're on, if your team won or your team lost, there's still this sense that, like, well, still a lot of people are feeling kind of screwed and unheard, and that's really what Represent Us is trying to fix. How did it get started? What's kind of the origin story?

[Josh Graham Lynn]

Yeah. So it's interesting to hear you say people feel like the government isn't working for them. That's. We know that's true. Lots of people feel that way. I think what a lot of people don't know is that scientific studies, one after the other after the other, prove that to be true. Yeah. So in the aftermath of Citizens United, which was in 2012, and for those who don't know, Citizens United is a Supreme Court ruling that essentially said that special interests, corporations, private entities, can spend almost unlimited amounts of money to make political contributions AKA by politicians in elections. Right.

[Ed Helms]

And this is because political donations are considered a form of speech under free speech.

[Josh Graham Lynn]

And I don't want to make everybody go to sleep, but, like, there's other Supreme Court rulings like speech now that had to do with all this. But the short version is, we call it Citizens United. It's a. It's a. It's a bunch of rulings that stick together. And in the wake of that ruling, it was very clear that the influence of money in politics was going to get out of control quickly. And as a result of that, we thought, well, if the system is captured by big money, we the people are probably going to lose faith in our institutions and the whole thing may start to crumble. And that was back in 2012. And I would say that a lot of the fears that we had have started to ring true where political spending has gotten out of control. This was, once again, the most expensive election we've ever seen. And the one thing that hasn't changed in all those 12 years is that big money still has a death grip on the system, and we the people are paying the price for it.

[Ed Helms]

So why are we talking to you in the context of season three of SNAFU, which is all about early 20th century prohibition? Well, it's one of the first big sort of conflagrations of values in 20th century America. Of course, culture wars go back centuries. And before we go further, I kind of want to. I think it'd be cool to actually read a definition of culture war, because Wikipedia sums it up quite nicely. So a culture war is a form of cultural conflict, a metaphorical war between different social groups who struggle to politically impose their own ideology, moral beliefs, humane virtues, religious practices, et cetera, upon mainstream society or upon the other. In political usage, the term culture war is a metaphor for hot button politics about values and ideologies realized with intentionally adversarial social narratives meant to provoke political polarization among the mainstream of society over economic matters, of public policy, and of consumption. So one of the really interesting things about culture wars and prohibition is a perfect example of this is how laws get passed with very little actual support from the general public. So in the early 20th century, we had organizations like the Women's Christian Temperance Union and the Anti Saloon League, and they made a lot of noise, and they also preyed upon a lot of broader cultural fears, associating alcohol and drunkenness with immigrants and big cities and crime. Temperance, on the other hand, was portrayed as an expression of the sort of pure and lily white lovely Small town, old fashioned American values. But even so, broadly speaking, the general population did not support a national ban on alcohol at all. And yet it passed. So this is where I'm getting back to where you were starting to jump to in the beginning. You often talk about a famous Princeton study that demonstrates this phenomenon. Tell us about that study and some of its real world implications in contemporary policy.

[Josh Graham Lynn]

Yeah, so it's just fascinating to me as we sit here and talk about this, that Prohibition has become such a pivotal moment in the American story, the American history. Like, I love that you're doing a whole season on this. So the Princeton University study that you're referencing without being able to show the graphics for might be a little hard to visualize. But the upshot is that the folks at Princeton, they worked with Northeastern, they found that the American people, average American income earners amongst American people appear to have a minuscule, near zero, statistically non significant impact upon public policy. I will summarize that again. The American people have zero impact on, on public policy.

[Ed Helms]

It's literally the opposite of what we all think. And it's the opposite of how we think our government was structured to work. Yeah, right.

[Josh Graham Lynn]

It's nuts. So the way they figured this out is they looked at public opinion polls over a 20 year period. So there's a longitudinal study of 20 years of looking at public opinion polls, and they compared those public opinion polls to the laws that Congress did or didn't pass. And again, the upshot of that is that for the average American income earner, there's zero impact at all. Now when they looked at the same data for folks who can afford lobbyists and those in sort of the higher echelons that control government, they found that there wasn't a direct correlation. But if those special interest groups didn't like something, they had almost a total ability to block it. So if they didn't want it, it wouldn't happen.

[Ed Helms]

What are some contemporary policy examples of this, of how this is, is taking effect?

[Josh Graham Lynn]

Yeah, I think there's a lot actually, and some of them are very, you know, very.

[Ed Helms]

It's arguably, it's arguably every policy really.

[Josh Graham Lynn]

I mean, it really is like. So we'll start with the easy ones, right? Like economic policy. Like most Americans, when they think about how economic distribution should happen, it's actually nowhere near what economic distribution really looks like. Our inequality in this country is a thousandfold worse than, than most people think. So that's kind of an easy issue for us all to agree on. And then there's the Harder ones like guns and abortion.

[Ed Helms]

Sure.

[Josh Graham Lynn]

And the truth is most of the American people want common sense solutions that are best for the most of us on these issues. And instead what we get are, as you've said, ideological hot button, divisive rhetoric and then divisive policy getting passed. And part of the reason for that is that it's actually better for those in power to have arguments about policy. It helps them fundraise in their elections. It actually helps drive the political industrial complex forward.

[Ed Helms]

And it is so interesting that so much of what we hear surrounding these issues is triggering. Right. And that's intentional. It's just trying to get emotional responses out of us because that clouds our judgment and also creating more polarization and adversarial dispositions among the general population makes it easier to control the general population.

[Josh Graham Lynn]

I think there is a truth that for many on some of these issues, it's not just the rhetoric when we talk about guns and abortion. There's a real world implication there. And so I don't want to minimize. It's not just about the rhetoric. It's not just that we are talking about it in an inflammatory way. It actually has a very real impact on people's lives, I think, where when we're talking about the government working on behalf of the people, it's the fact that the laws that get passed and the way the government operates is actually wildly out of step with what most of us would consider reasonable or common sense. And we never have that conversation because that's the conversation that gets lost in the nuance because it doesn't get people fired up. It's not hot button, it doesn't fuel the culture war. And so I think both of those things can be true. Like on one hand this has real world implications on a lot of people's lives. And on the other hand, we could get a lot better at talking about it through a political lens without getting so fired up about the personal impact. It's like the ability to hold both of those things could get us much better outcomes if only our government were designed to do so. And it's just not.

[Ed Helms]

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[Josh Graham Lynn]

Yeah, I mean the simplest answer is follow the money. Running for office costs a lot of money. And so in order to win office, you have to have a big pot of money to spend. And where do you go get that money? Well, you can fundraise from lots of $5 donations, which some people do, or you can go to special interests and the people who have lots of money and ask for big chunks at a time. And that's actually a lot more efficient. You can raise a lot more money a lot more quickly if you get it in big chunks. And I think everybody kind of knows that part of it. But part of what people don't know is that both the Democratic Party and the Republican Party also do a ton of fundraising that they then spend on elections. And when you're in Congress, let's say you want to move a bill forward. You have a great idea, you want to move it forward. In order to move that bill forward, you have to be on a committee that works on that kind of thing. So in order to get on a committee, you actually have to fundraise for your political party. That's how committee appointments end up working. But if you really want to move something forward, if you want to have control over whether or not the committee moves your wonderful idea to the floor of Congress, you have to be the committee chair. And so in order to be the committee chair, you might have to fundraise another $250,000 on top of what you've already fundraised to get into office, to get into the committee. That is not like a maybe thing. That's actually how committee appointments work. There are fundraising goals that are put in place to. The New York Times recently did this incredible exit interview with a whole bunch of people leaving Congress, and they just talked about this. They were like, that's how it works. It's business as usual. And it's so corrupt.

[Ed Helms]

Right? It's corrupt and legal.

[Josh Graham Lynn]

Right.

[Ed Helms]

It's corrupt and baked into the system that we have.

[Josh Graham Lynn]

By some accounts, members of Congress, when they get into office, have to spend up to 70% of their time fundraising for reelection. And I don't want to paint a picture that these are bad people. It's just. That's the reality of the system. So it could be Ed Helms runs for Congress and, contrary to popular belief, is a really good guy who wants to do really good things. And yet you can't do good things because you have to spend your time fundraising if you want to do those good things. And so it's a trap. And like all systems, this one exists to protect itself.

[Ed Helms]

And it feels like it's such a cliche to say, like, it's the system or we're gonna put the system on trial, but that kind of is the deal. Like, that's exactly what we're dealing with, our political system right now.

[Josh Graham Lynn]

It's totally the deal. And, you know, unfortunately, most of us don't think that it's our job to change that system.

[Ed Helms]

It is. It's up to us. You and me, Josh.

[Josh Graham Lynn]

It has to be. Yeah. Most of the two of us that are here do think it's our job to change that system.

[Ed Helms]

There are a lot of reasons that we feel polarized as a country right now. And you know, we can point to the ob wedge issues, we can point to the information silos, the social media and all of these things. And those are very real. And they're cable news, which is very corporate and cynical, and these are very real factors. But there are also a number of structural factors that are wedging us. Things built into the political system, things engineered to polarize us even further. And I wonder if you can talk a little bit more about those more structural issues.

[Josh Graham Lynn]

Yeah, sure. I think very often it's so easy to point to the media environment and of course we should, because it's a huge part of the problem, but it's not the whole problem. And it is getting to this other piece that we don't think of. You just started talking about it. Our primary system or gerrymandering. So start with gerrymandering. I think most people know the word gerrymandering at this point and they understand that it's bad because it cuts people out of elections that they should otherwise be able to vote in. And the problem with gerrymandering is that in some 87% of races for the U.S. house, we already know which party is going to win the election before it even starts because the districts have been drawn to protect the party that's already in power. And the reason that that happens is that when your party wins elections, you get to be the one to redraw the district for the next election. It would be like a Super bowl winning football team getting to set all of the rules for the coming season to favor themselves. This is politics, not a game. But like, you can see how it happens if instead of having politicians draw district lines, you gave the power to, let's say, voters from across the political spectrum. I'm using a number that is real here in the state of Michigan and also in Washington, they use nine Democrats, nine Republicans and nine independents overseen by judges following rules to draw their new maps. And as a result, they draw districts that are much more competitive, much more fair, much more reflective of the population.

[Ed Helms]

You said much more competitive. What are the numbers on how gerrymandering has affected the competitiveness of. Of congressional elections?

[Josh Graham Lynn]

Yeah, so this year the number might have been 83%, but it's always between 83 and 87% of congressional elections have no competition at all. And that's kind of an abstract concept, right? Like, what does that even mean, no competition? And it's in the primaries we get to vote for. Like if you're a Democrat, you vote For Democrats. If you're a Republican, you vote for Republicans. I'll come back to that in a second. If you have a gerrymandered district where you know the Democrat is going to win, then all the only thing that matters is that primary. And then by the time you get to the general election, yeah, sure, there's a Democrat and a Republican voting, but the districts have been cut up in such a way that only the Democrat can win in that district. And of course the same thing happens on the other side too. I'm just picking on Democrats here. So let's just talk about primaries for one second.

[Ed Helms]

Well, I just, I just want to put an exclamation point on that because it still blows my mind. It, it Over 80% of congressional elections are non competitive.

[Josh Graham Lynn]

Right.

[Ed Helms]

And, and what that means fundamentally is that they aren't really elections. Like they're not, they're just kind of a rubber stamping ritual, a process, a kind of like a quaint nod to the past. But it isn't, it's not an actual election.

[Josh Graham Lynn]

Well, and the result of that is that we as the people don't actually have the power to hold politicians accountable because there's no, there's no threat for them. They get into power and they know they're going to be able to keep their power, even though it feels like we might be able to vote them out.

[Ed Helms]

We're doing the song and dance. We're doing the song and dance of putting a Republican and a Democrat against each other. But in 80% of districts, one will always win. Yeah, yeah.

[Josh Graham Lynn]

And so you, you asked before about like the divisiveness of this. What ends up happening is that because there's no competition in the general election, the primary election is actually where we choose the candidate who's ultimately going to go on to win. And in the primaries you only have Republicans running against Republicans and Democrats running against Democrats. And we've all heard the term like so and so got primaried and so they lost. And that's because in the primaries there's a much narrower group of voters who are voting. And so the party tends to be more extreme with their rhetoric, tends to elect more extreme candidates because you've got such a narrow amount of voters making their voices heard. And just to put that in numbers, what ends up happening is that 5 to 8% of total voters in any given place end up choosing the candidate who's going to ultimately win, which is again, it's like, it's crazy to think about 5 to 8% of voters choosing the candidate who then breezes through the general election and wins.

[Ed Helms]

And we, we know that generally the voters that participate in primaries are the most sort of extreme voters of that group.

[Josh Graham Lynn]

Yeah, it's the party base. Right. We've all heard that term a thousand times. They gotta play to their base voters. Those are the base voters. They're the ones that show up.

[Ed Helms]

And this is why we see so many politicians emerge that everyone's kind of shaking their heads like, how did this guy get nominated? How did this lady get there? Like, that seems crazy. Well, it's because like the most hardcore fervent partisans are the ones nominating those people.

[Josh Graham Lynn]

So you brought up before this sort of question about the media environment.

[Ed Helms]

Yeah.

[Josh Graham Lynn]

And I still think it can be hard to visualize, really. Like, why is it that this structural or systemic problem that we were just talking about leads to the extremism? Because still. Right. Like, can't the media just shut that down? Can't we just, like, isn't it all a social media problem? And so just a thought experiment, like imagine if the majority of Congress and the Senate and the presidency were filled with people that had won in really competitive elections where they had to answer to a majority of voters across the country. They would be talking to Democrats and Republicans and independent. Because in order to get beyond 50% a majority, you have to do that. Now you put any random congressperson on the news and instead of saying crazy stuff about the other side, you've got someone in there who is actually a rational, thoughtful. I don't even want to use the term moderate because it's not about moderating the politics, it's just about being representative of the people who are supposed to put you there.

[Ed Helms]

Right.

[Josh Graham Lynn]

And so you would be putting people into the media who have enormous megaphones who really do define our culture. Like our, our politicians tell us how to be very often. And so the power of changing the system way upstream, primaries, gerrymandering, is that you elect people who then become spokespeople for our culture and reflect back to us something that's much more positive, much more nuanced and much more thoughtful. And I think that gets lost in this conversation somehow.

[Ed Helms]

You're saying that more level headed people will reach higher levels of government and they will be the mouthpieces that we see on the media. And that more measured kind of dialogue will have a cultural impact on all of us.

[Josh Graham Lynn]

Absolutely, yeah. And I'll just add one thing to it, which is like we already established in our conversation about primaries and gerrymandering that ended with money. In politics, like the incentive, if you're running for office, you are incentivized to be more radical because that's how you win. You are incentivized to be a better fundraiser because that's how you win. If we change those structures so that you are incentivized to be more responsive to the people, less of an egomaniac, more, you know, more interested in representing a diverse coalition of voters, if that's the incentive that actually helps you win office, then you will likely elect people who fit that description.

[Ed Helms]

How do you change those incentives?

[Josh Graham Lynn]

It's really easy. I can't believe we haven't done it already. So it comes down to policy. I like to just boil it down to the simplest language that I know, which is you just have to change the rules of the system that we're in. So we talked about the rules. Rules like who gets to draw district maps. In order to fix gerrymandering. You give the power to voters instead of politicians. Now you have voters drawing maps that are more representative. And this already happens across the country in a few states and they do work better.

[Ed Helms]

And when you say voters, commissioners, jury.

[Josh Graham Lynn]

Duty, so you know, jury duty, you get called in and you sit on a jury. This is similar in that you join a commission that is responsible for drawing those district maps.

[Ed Helms]

Right. And that's one of those things like that is such a no brainer. Right. And yet we're in this feedback loop where the people that are making those rules are the people that benefit from their, the existence of gerrymandering. So they, and so, so, so what then becomes the way that citizens can make those changes or force our representatives in government to make those changes?

[Josh Graham Lynn]

Yeah. So the ballot initiative process is actually one of our best tools. It's not the only tool, but it's certainly one of our best. And so in some states, citizens can get together and propose a initiative to put on their ballot to be voted on. And that just, that requires collecting a bunch of signatures. It usually requires fundraising to do so, and lawyers and political strategists. It's work, but it's totally doable. And it can be led by thoughtful, committed citizens. It really can. And then you run a political campaign, you win your ballot initiative and you have changed the law in your state.

[Ed Helms]

Yeah. And I think a lot of people don't realize how much power citizens can have in that way, what ballot initiatives can do and that they're really, they are really just initiatives from the citizenry. They're Not. It's not a. That doesn't have. It's not a political process. It's something that goes. Citizens initiate, and it goes before voters. And so things like gerrymandering, which no politician is incentivized, some might have the sort of moral backbone to. To. To back it up, but they're not incentivized to fix gerrymandering because they're all benefiting from it. So it is up to us. And Represent Us has seen a lot of success with ballot initiatives.

[Josh Graham Lynn]

Yeah, we absolutely have. And I don't want to understate the necessity to also put pressure on politicians at the state level. So ballot initiatives give us the chance to do direct democracy, but America is a republic, not a direct democracy. And so very often we need to elect people into power and then hold them accountable and responsible. And so one of the things that we've started to see is that the more our movement builds power, the more that we are able to actually use that power to tell politicians, if you don't start fixing things, we're going to vote you out. Now, of course, that's not going to work in Congress yet. That's a ways off. But in cities and in states, it is the next frontier of how we create change.

[Ed Helms]

Yeah. What are some others?

[Josh Graham Lynn]

Oh, the most exciting one of all has got to be ranked choice voting.

[Ed Helms]

There you go, everybody. All right.

[Josh Graham Lynn]

Everybody gets pumped when we say ranked choice voting. I know it sounds so boring, but I gotta say, I was at a gathering of some people a couple days ago, and somebody in the corner of the room was like, you know, the problem is that ranked choice voting is so confusing and it's really hard to explain to people. And somebody across the room was about to speak up and say, like, are you kidding me? You're just ranking things. Like, what's your favorite? What's your second favorite? What's your third? It's not that hard. But instead of that, this guy from Australia was like, excuse me, if I could just speak up for a moment. We've only ever used ranked choice voting. It's what we always do, and every single one of our elections is run that way. And it just, like, it just makes sense. And, like, how could you possibly think it's confusing? You're just. It was fantastic to actually have somebody from a country. And then there was somebody from Ireland who said, yeah, you know, we've been using it forever as well, and it's just a better system than what you guys use here in the U.S. u.S. Yeah. So I Will explain.

[Tina]

Is that right?

[Ed Helms]

Australia has used ranked choice voting in all of their major political.

[Josh Graham Lynn]

That's just how they do it. Yeah, I did not realize that.

[Ed Helms]

That's amazing.

[Josh Graham Lynn]

Yeah. There's like eight countries around the world that use. That mostly use ranked choice voting. There's cities across the US that use it and a handful of states as well now.

[Ed Helms]

So it's really interesting the amount of misinformation and disinformation that's out there about ranked choice voting because a lot of entrenched power on both sides of the political spectrum realize that it's a shakeup for them.

[Josh Graham Lynn]

Yeah. So of course, the people that are saying it's terrible are the ones that have the most to lose. So the established party interests. The reason it's amazing is that in our current system, you very rarely see folks winning with more than 50% of the vote. Especially if there's a third party running for election or in a primary, you know, multiple people winning. You can, if there's four, let's say there's four candidates running in a primary, you can win with 26% of the vote. You just need your little portion plus one.

[Ed Helms]

Right. Which is kind of bonkers.

[Josh Graham Lynn]

It's nuts, right? It's really. Yeah.

[Ed Helms]

Like 26% of the vote.

[Josh Graham Lynn]

So it sounds reasonable. Like, shouldn't the person with the most votes win? Yes, of course they should. Which is really different than shouldn't somebody who got support from a majority of the public win? And what's so important about when you use ranked choice voting is that you actually require a candidate to have more than 50% support amongst their constituents in order to win. Make sense? You need more than 50% support. And so that's the most important thing here. And I want to just harp on it for a second. Like, instead of if it was you and me and two other people running for office, I would only need to find my 26% in order to win. And that might just be like only the dog lovers or only the crazies or whatever you want to say. Only the people who think that the roads should all be painted Blue. That's my 26%. But if I have to get more than 50% to win, then I have to speak to a majority of the electorate. And to put that in real terms, progressives are usually about 25% of the electorate, conservatives are somewhere around 30 and the rest are anywhere in the middle. And so you can't win with either just conservatives or just progressives. You have to start broadening your base so when we talk about incentives, if I have an incentive to reach a bigger base to win office, I'm going to have to do that. And then once I get into office, I have to answer to those people. Ranked voting makes sense.

[Ed Helms]

And so your incentive is to temper your message and not cater to the extremes.

[Josh Graham Lynn]

Totally.

[Ed Helms]

I mean, how much more chill would our world be?

[Josh Graham Lynn]

Right.

[Ed Helms]

And how much elected officials felt, felt a need to speak to a larger.

[Josh Graham Lynn]

Audience and not only speak to them, but then be accountable to that audience once they get into office? Right, because then you're kicking them out. But I do want to answer the question. I know people are going to be listening and thinking like, yeah, but you haven't said how it works or what it is. It's really simple. You choose your first candidate that you think is the best and then you rank the other ones in order. So number one, Ed, number two, Josh, number three, Jane Doe, et cetera. It's literally, that's the whole entire thing. You just rank your candidates in order rather than choosing one. And then as the votes are calculated, they're able to figure out who has a majority support.

[Ed Helms]

Another term for ranked choice voting is instant runoff. Right. Is that a, Is that a phrase that, that kind of. I think I like that phrase because it helps me understand that it's sort of a. Then the vote counting is a sort of multi step process. Can you walk us through that a little bit?

[Josh Graham Lynn]

Sure, yeah. The application of that is really simple. If, let's say there were four people running for office, and let's say I'm going to use you as an example again, let's say Ed gets 51% of the vote, like the first choice votes. The election is over. Ed has won because he got more than 50% of the vote. But let's say you only got 49% and then there's three of us who are splitting up all the rest of that other 51%. If that were the case, the vote tabulators would then look at everyone's second choice votes and apply those until somebody reaches more than 51%. And since you were already at 49, it's very likely that people who voted for me, number one, maybe voted for you second. And so you got my votes and you won. Sometimes what happens though is that instead of somebody getting 50, it's really spread out. It's 26, 24, 25, 25. And so those second choice votes actually can move. It can make it feel kind of like a horse race where someone's ahead and Then someone else gets ahead. But it's just the same as the runoff elections that they currently use in Georgia, where if nobody gets more than 50%, you have a second election.

[Ed Helms]

Right.

[Josh Graham Lynn]

But you've already cast your votes for your second election, so you don't need to come back to the polls.

[Ed Helms]

Right. You say the ranking is. The ranking is your sort of second round of.

[Josh Graham Lynn]

Yeah, exactly.

[Ed Helms]

Of the votes.

[Josh Graham Lynn]

It.

[Ed Helms]

It is so elegant, it's so simple, and it's so intrinsically fair.

[Josh Graham Lynn]

No wonder we don't use it.

[Ed Helms]

Yeah, no wonder we don't use it. Exactly.

[Tina]

At California Psychics, we know that sometimes you can wake up thinking.

[Ed Helms]

I don't.

[Josh Graham Lynn]

Know if I'm in the right career ew or the right relationship.

[Tina]

But whatever your life dilemma, at californiapsychics, we'll give you the guidance you need to feel certain about your life choices. And because we only connect you with the very best, we guarantee, if your reading isn't life changing, it's free. California psychics. Visit CaliforniaPsychics. Visit CaliforniaPsychics.com today for limited time offers.

[Josh Graham Lynn]

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[Ed Helms]

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[Josh Graham Lynn]

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[Josh Graham Lynn]

Mm.

[Ed Helms]

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[Ed Helms]

I didn't realize you did that.

[Josh Graham Lynn]

We can also send you samples fast and free. Wow.

[Ed Helms]

I mean, I always thought I needed a designer to come to my home, but scheduling's always a nightmare.

[Josh Graham Lynn]

Notwithblinds.com, we're on your schedule. And there's no haggling pressure or hidden fees either. Hmm.

[Ed Helms]

I just might have to do more.

[Josh Graham Lynn]

Whatever you need. How about you tell me what you had in mind?

[Ed Helms]

Okay, then. So the first we're looking at is for guests coming over, and I'm thinking of something.

[Josh Graham Lynn]

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[Ed Helms]

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[Josh Graham Lynn]

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[Ed Helms]

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[Josh Graham Lynn]

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[Ed Helms]

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[Josh Graham Lynn]

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[Ed Helms]

Get in the zone Autozone restrictions apply. Duralast brake pads only. There's another really interesting bit of represent a strategy that has echoes in Prohibition, the Volstead Act. Prohibition was overturned in sort of a, a movement that grew state by state. And it turns out this is part of a larger trend of laws that have passed in this same kind of incremental way. Tell us about how that factors in to represent US strategy.

[Josh Graham Lynn]

Yeah, it's actually a core piece of our strategy is to follow in the footsteps of the prohibitionists, the anti prohibitionists, and learn that throughout American history, passing state laws is ultimately what often leads to a federal victory. And it's not just prohibition. We've seen the same thing with interracial marriage, which took 200 years of effort, about 64 losses before they finally got their first victory. 64 years of losses, I should say, before they got their first victory. But those of us alive today might be more familiar with the legalization of same sex marriage, which actually only took about 12 years from its first victory to becoming federal policy. And so what we see is if we're going to change the government, if you're going to change some big societal issue, the path that has been used very often in the US is to win laws in the states. As you build a movement, as you shift the culture around those laws. So city by city, state by state, we fix things and then move on to making it federal. But I think what's interesting about this as pertains to the states is you might think, well, if we're winning in the states, we're not fixing the federal government, but constitutionally, the US states have control over the federal elections. That's just how it works here in the US it's how our republic was designed. When you change a state law, you're not only building momentum for that federal change, but you actually have the power in many states to directly affect that federal election in your state.

[Ed Helms]

And it doesn't take as much momentum as people might think. Right, right.

[Josh Graham Lynn]

It's those first few victories are often really challenging. Marriage equality lost 31 times before they got their first state victory. Now in our issues, what about Weed, man?

[Ed Helms]

That's one of them too, right?

[Josh Graham Lynn]

Weed's killing it.

[Ed Helms]

Come on.

[Josh Graham Lynn]

Right. But yeah, it's like once you get to a certain number and there's no magic number. But what we've seen happen is that those first few victories are slow and they're few and far between, but then eventually you get your second, third, fourth, fifth victory and they start to pile up.

[Ed Helms]

These are you're saying victories, meaning like states building states, changing laws, like 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 states starting to change these laws.

[Josh Graham Lynn]

Right. And then historically, what has happened is that, again, there's no magic number, but once you get up to maybe the 6, 10, 12 number, there tends to be a real acceleration in states passing that same law. Right, right. And so we think of it as a tipping point where you get to a certain number of states and then this acceleration happens where many, many more states get on board. And then usually after that tipping point, it's not very long until federal victory happens.

[Ed Helms]

Very cool.

[Josh Graham Lynn]

Yeah. It just means there's hope.

[Ed Helms]

Yeah. Right. Because people. I think people think it's so overwhelming to just, like, change a massive federal law. And that does feel overwhelming and almost incomprehensible. Like, how do you do that? But it does start small. You can start with these state initiatives, and then it really is a domino kind of momentum thing. And it's cool to sort of see that track through history with some of these major cultural moments. Prohibition, marriage equality, and so forth. When people are advocating for the American government to work better, that is part of a really remarkable legacy of work that goes back, really to the founding of the country. Ever since we got this country going, there's been an ongoing effort to just make it work better. Can you speak more to that legacy broadly and what it's really looked like over the last 200 years, since the.

[Josh Graham Lynn]

Very beginning of our government, we've been redesigning it. It's this idea of a more perfect union. Right. And maybe it goes without saying, but I need to say it anyway, that our union has always been far from perfect and continues to be far from perfect to this day.

[Ed Helms]

I do love that we've already talked about more perfect, more perfect. Let's just make it more perfect. Like, we're getting there. It's always going to be more like, we always have to be making adjustments, trimming the sails.

[Josh Graham Lynn]

And we've sort of talked about it like, women didn't have the right to vote, people of color didn't have the right to vote. There have been really big changes in who's allowed to participate in our government and how the rules work. But the way I like to think about this is we absolutely need everyone's voice to be heard. So any restriction of the right to vote is an abridgment on someone's freedom, and that's a problem, and it needs to be fixed. And. And at the same time, we have to have a system that is responsive and accountable back to the people that put our elected officials in power. And so Represent Us is about taking the ideas of progress and the sort of momentum and legacy that has been built by the civil rights movement, by the suffragists, and saying, we will continue to perfect this union by making it work better for we the people, more perfect.

[Ed Helms]

We'll get there. What would you say to our listeners out there right now? Anyone who might be feeling a little disenchanted or like, what can I do? How can I be part of this process? All of this sounds great, but it's a little out of reach for me and I'm just depressed. Like, what would you say to connect to that person?

[Josh Graham Lynn]

One of the best stories I've ever heard is a story to four retired women who called themselves the badass grandmas. It was two independents, a Democrat and Republican, who all just decided, you know what? North Dakota's got too much corruption and we got to do something about it. And so they, working with represent us and working with some of our partner organizations, did all of the work necessary to get a ballot initiative written, raise the money, get the legal advice, build a political team, and they actually won. And North Dakota went from having some of the weakest transparency and ethics laws in the country to having some of the strongest. And as a result of that, there were changes in their government. Like, this is real stuff that actually matters. Started at a coffee shop.

[Ed Helms]

Isn't that the state where no politicians had to disclose gifts that they got from lobbyists? From lobbyists or. Yeah, that's right. So lobbyists could just give them anything. And there was no transparency at all.

[Josh Graham Lynn]

Right.

[Ed Helms]

And these badass grandmas were just like, no, that's not okay.

[Josh Graham Lynn]

We need to see the dirty work. Yeah.

[Ed Helms]

If you're going to be dirty, we need to know. And then, then we're going to vote you out.

[Josh Graham Lynn]

That's right. Yeah.

[Ed Helms]

Good for them. Can they. Can, can they run for president or is that a.

[Josh Graham Lynn]

We've actually. We've been cloning them.

[Ed Helms]

Yeah, good. That sounds good.

[Josh Graham Lynn]

Well, Josh, movements are built in the modern era. There you go, people.

[Ed Helms]

Yeah. Thanks so much for coming on Snafu. I really, really appreciate it and I think our listeners will too. Just hearing a lot of your insight and point of view on this stuff. This is a show about history's greatest screw ups. And I just want to thank you for trying to make our country a little less screwed up.

[Josh Graham Lynn]

It is absolutely my pleasure, the opportunity to have such a thoughtful conversation and to really dig into this stuff. Is is amazing and just glad to be a part of it. So thanks.

[Ed Helms]

Right on. Thank you, sir. SNAFU is a production of iHeartRadio Film Nation Entertainment and Pacific Electric Picture Company in association with Gilded Audio. It's executive produced by me, Ed Helms, Milan Popelka, Mike Falbo, Whitney Donaldson and Dylan Fagan. Our lead producers are Carl Nellis and Alyssa Martino. Additional production from Steven Wood, Olivia Canney and Kelsey Albright. Our story editor is Nikki Stein. Our production assistants are Nevan Kalapali and Ekemene Ekpo. Fact checking by Charles Richter. Our creative executive is Brett Harris. Our associate producer, Tori Smith edited this editing, music and sound design by Ben Chugg. Engineering and technical direction by Nick Dooley. Andrew Chugg is Gilded Audio's creative director. Our amazing theme music is by Dan Rosado. Special thanks to Allison Cohen, Daniel Welsh and Ben Rysaka.

[Tina]

At California Psychics, we know some people can't read the career warning signs. Like your boss. Still not knowing your name.

[Ed Helms]

You, Tina, Lisa, Sheila, whatever. Get that report to me by lunch, okay? It's Carrie, ma' am. Just get it done, Terry.

[Tina]

So talk to California Psychics and receive the career guidance you need. We only connect you with the very best, so guarantee if your reading isn't life changing, it's free. California psychics. Visit CaliforniaPsychics. Visit CaliforniaPsychics.com today for limited time offers.

[Ed Helms]

Get in the zone. AutoZone.

[Josh Graham Lynn]

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[Ed Helms]

Well, I do need a bundle of things.

[Josh Graham Lynn]

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[Ed Helms]

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[Josh Graham Lynn]

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[Josh Graham Lynn]

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[Ed Helms]

AutoZone restrictions apply. Duralast brake pads only. You're listening to an iHeart podcast.