Five Insights On Political Parties in the Wake of Biden’s Exit

Political scientists love to reference a phrase from a 1942 book, which asserts that “modern democracy is unthinkable without political parties.” But, why do we need strong parties? What makes parties so important for a democracy?

To the great delight of political scientists and political observers, President Joe Biden’s withdrawal from seeking the Democratic nomination for the presidency helps answer these questions. A number of pieces have been published explaining how the U.S. got to the current situation of weak parties, what strong parties could achieve, and how to strengthen political parties. In chronological order:

• Depersonalizing Politics​ (Mark Schmitt)
• The Party Is Not Over (Jonathan Rauch)
• A Case Study in Why Political Parties Matter​ (Jennifer Dresden and Cerin Lindgrensavage)
• The Democratic Party Is (Still) Broken​ (Lee Drutman)
• Late to the Party (Daniel Schlozman and Sam Rosenfeld)
• Biden’s Exit and the Dysfunction of American Politics (Oscar Pocasangre and Maresa Strano)

Here are five things I learned from reading these articles (and writing one of them).

1. It Wasn’t Always This Way

From when the mass political party emerged in the 1820s to the first half of the 20th century, power resided in state and local parties rooted in communities. Their strong community connections gave them an understanding of local needs and opportunities to observe and train ambitious individuals for office. They were strong enough to strategically pick and choose candidates to maximize their chances of winning, attract qualified candidates, and prevent extreme ones from running.

Daniel Schlozman and Sam Rosenfeld explain that in the 20th century, two main factors weakened the parties: the president gaining increasingly more power and direct primaries taking away the ability of state parties to nominate candidates. Without a strong network of local parties to select candidates, nominations became more about individual power. To make things worse, the growing importance of money in politics gave more influence to donor networks and transformed parties into little more than fundraising machines.

2. Strong Parties Solve Collective Problems

Getting President Biden to withdraw was a collective action problem: everyone thought it was the best thing to do based on polls even before the ill-fated debate, but few were willing to be the first ones to publicly say it and bear whatever costs might come. A strong party would have not allowed such a momentous decision to come down to one person’s choice to begin with. Mark Schmitt writes that “the choices that led to Biden’s securing renomination were personal and uncoordinated: Biden hinted that he would be a transitional president… but at some point decided his remarkable successes meant he should run again.”

Strong parties provide forums for collective decision-making. They aggregate various individual preferences, sort out differences, and create coalitions in a way that ensures the party can function despite individual disagreements. Ultimately, strong parties exist to prevent one person from amassing power. Jennifer Dresden and Cerin Lindgrensavage put it best: “this kind of push and pull leads to compromises that keep everyone in a party rowing in largely the same direction, without allowing any single person to unilaterally dictate what that direction is.”

3. Devolving Power to Parties Would Strengthen Democracy

It might seem counterintuitive that giving parties more power over their nominations would improve democracy. But a party that controls who its candidates are can build a pipeline of good quality candidates and provide better choices to voters. If a party controlled its nominations, it could direct an ambitious individual to run for local office as training for higher office, creating career paths through the party that attract good talent. Such a party could also stop dangerous candidates or infiltrators. Jonathan Rauch reminds us of how the parties in the 1920s stopped Henry Ford from running for president, in stark contrast to what a hollow Republican Party did with Donald Trump in 2016.

Stronger parties would not come at the expense of the voice of citizens. On the contrary, strong parties would be attuned to public opinion because they want to win elections. Parties have to put forward popular policies and good candidates with wide appeal who can implement those policies and ensure future victories for the party.

4. Parties Are Not the Problem – Two Parties Are

American parties have gotten too comfortable. In many cities, districts, and states they can win simply by virtue of not being the other party. As Lee Drutman puts it, “Democrats and Republicans have a monopoly on opposition to each other, and the lesser-of-two-evils strategy is infinitely renewable.”

Without meaningful competition, they have no incentives to find good candidates, formulate clear policy programs, or engage with public concerns and demands. Democrats only sprang into action when it was clear Biden’s path to reelection was getting narrower and narrower. The risk of losing is what motivates parties and the problem is that parties in the U.S. are not at risk of losing many elections. In part, this is due to the country’s winner-take-all electoral system that makes it difficult, if not impossible, for more parties to emerge and compete.

5. Electoral Reform Is the Way Out

In my article with Maresa Strano, we explain that the solution is not to get rid of parties but to promote better parties. That is done by finding ways to inject competition into elections by facilitating the emergence of more parties at the state level and in Congress. One straightforward reform that would not require changing the single-winner elections is fusion voting, which allows different parties to nominate the same candidate. Fusion voting allows minor parties to participate meaningfully in politics and encourages them to develop a party infrastructure to choose candidates that reflect their interests and to mobilize voters. A more ambitious reform is getting rid of single-winner elections for legislative bodies and introducing proportional representation, which would make it easier for more parties to win seats and make every vote count instead of only votes that get a candidate over plurality.