Lee Drutman

Washington, D.C., United States

Author and Senior Fellow at New America

Political scientist/ Sr fellow @NewAmerica/ Lecturer @JHUGovStudies/ Podcast - https://t.co/tgWOpC6FeL /Co-founder @fixourhouse/ https://t.co/7zSY2GkIzU

Featured in: Favicon

fivethirtyeight.com Favicon

newamerica.org Favicon

cnn.com

medium.com Favicon

msn.com

theguardian.com Favicon

nytimes.com Favicon

washingtonpost.com Favicon

time.com

chicagotribune.com + 97 more

Articles

The big reason why Republicans should worry about an angry Elon Musk

3 weeks ago | vox.com | Lee Drutman

How the Musk-Trump blowup ends, nobody knows. Most commentary gives President Donald Trump the advantage. But Elon Musk’s willingness to spend his fortune on elections gives him one distinct advantage — the ability to drive a brittle party system into chaos and loosen Trump’s hold on it. Thus far, Musk has raised two electoral threats.
Doomier and Loopier: Why our two-party system will not – and cannot - self-correct on its own.

1 month ago | leedrutman.substack.com | Lee Drutman

We are now almost four months into the second Trump administration. Each day is a reminder that our politics is stuck in a doom loop. Each day feels a little doomier and loopier. Just 11 days ago (who can remember?), the president of the United States publicly expressed uncertainty as to whether he needed to follow the Constitution. "Don't you need to uphold the Constitution of the United States as president?" NBC's Kristen Welker asked. "I don't know," Trump replied.
Democrats keep saying America is an “oligarchy.” Is that true?

2 months ago | vox.com | Lee Drutman

Joe Biden, in his farewell address, argued that “an oligarchy is taking shape in America.” More recently, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez told a crowd of 10,000 in Arizona that “we are witnessing an oligarchy in America.”Biden and Ocasio-Cortez are hardly the first to diagnose the United States as an oligarchy. Sen. Bernie Sanders has been warning about it for years. So have many others, though, recently, Sen. Elissa Slotkin has pushed back against Democrats using the word. So, are they right?
Democrats keep saying America is an “oligarchy.” Is that true?

2 months ago | yahoo.com | Lee Drutman

Joe Biden, in his farewell address, argued that “an oligarchy is taking shape in America.” More recently, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez told a crowd of 10,000 in Arizona that “we are witnessing an oligarchy in America.”Biden and Ocasio-Cortez are hardly the first to diagnose the United States as an oligarchy. Sen. Bernie Sanders has been warning about it for years. So have many others, though, recently, Sen. Elissa Slotkin has pushed back against Democrats using the word. So, are they right?
A Path Forward Out of Political Discontent

2 months ago | newamerica.org | Lee Drutman

The first couple months of the Trump administration have been a harsh winter of discontent in American politics. We barely dodged a government shutdown, the president is issuing illegal orders, and we’re grappling with economic uncertainty. Yet, as winter inevitably turns into spring, will our democratic disaster turn into a moment of renewal? Perhaps.
How Would Constituent Services in American Multi-Member Districts Work?

2 months ago | newamerica.org | Lee Drutman |Anne Meeker

Some reformers have advocated for proportional multi-member districts, suggesting that they would better represent Americans by having more than one member acting on behalf of citizens in the House and the Senate. However, such a shift in representation brings to question how constituent services would work under a multi-member model.
What I told the Democracy Summit audience last week

Mar 11, 2025 | leedrutman.substack.com | Lee Drutman

(Last week, I gave a keynote presentation at Colorado State University’s annual Democracy Summit. I had a great time meeting with faculty and students in Fort Collins, CO. I am grateful for the invitation. Below, I share my prepared remarks, interspersed with some photos from the event. The college newspaper has this nice write-up of the speech)Last October, a striking survey revealed something profound about our national psyche.
The state of our democracy is cracking and evaporating

Feb 19, 2025 | leedrutman.substack.com | Lee Drutman

(This is the second in an ongoing series of posts reiterating the case for proportional representation – here is the first)Welcome to the are-we-in-a-constitutional-crisis-probably-we-are-in-a-crisis times. It's all very strange. It’s hard to believe a phase shift like this could actually happen. Then bam. Suddenly we're here. For several years I've been screaming about the two-party doom loop, and how it erodes the basic foundations of representative liberal democracy.
How Proportional Representation Can Fix Our Democracy

Jan 31, 2025 | newamerica.org | Lee Drutman

On February 2nd, Punxsutawney Phil will once again predict whether we’ll have six more weeks of winter. But here in Washington, we don’t need a groundhog. We’re living our own political version of Groundhog Day. Every morning brings the same exhausting partisan battle. Stakes somehow feel both apocalyptic and strangely artificial. Here’s how our political time loop works: Elections remain perpetually close. The tighter the margins, the higher the stakes feel.
How to Fix America’s Two-Party Problem

Jan 21, 2025 | newamerica.org | Lee Drutman

Lee Drutman wrote a piece with Jesse Wegman for the on how proportional representation could fix our two-party system. That’s proportional representation. Voters vote as they do today, but because districts have multiple members rather than single members, it allows several candidates to win seats without a majority of the votes. When the winning threshold goes down, the number of viable parties goes up.