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The Realignment

470 | Nick Troiano: Are Party Primaries the Cause of America's Political Dysfunction?

The Realignment

The Realignment

Saager Enjeti, Technology, Policy, News, Marshall Kosloff, International Relations, Politics, News Commentary, Public Policy, U.s. Politics, National Security, Economics

4.82.5K Ratings

🗓️ 9 April 2024

⏱️ 43 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Nick Troiano, author of The Primary Solution: Rescuing Our Democracy from the Fringes and founding executive director of Unite America, joins The Realignment. Marshall discuss the case against party primaries, how politicians respond to the structure of the American political system, the lessons and results of 2020s election reforms, and whether proposed election reforms benefit one side of the aisle over the other.

Transcript

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0:00.0

Marshall here. Welcome back to the realignment.

0:08.8

My guest today is Nick Toronto. He is the executive director of United America, a group that works to philanthropically support

0:15.6

nonpartisan election reform initiatives.

0:18.9

He has a new book out.

0:19.9

It's called The Primary Solution, rescuing our democracy from the fringes. This debate

0:25.7

over the causes of America's political dysfunction is one of the favorite ones that I

0:30.2

encounter on the podcast. Nick is obviously advancing the idea that our primary system

0:34.8

and the empowerment of the fringes of the left and the right are one of the primary means beyond

0:39.4

our country's inability to form a consensus on the biggest

0:43.2

moving forward.

0:44.0

There's a bunch of complicating factors

0:45.7

that Nick and I get in during this conversation,

0:47.7

but I think at a minimum level,

0:49.2

he does a great job with getting the audience

0:51.4

and ideally his readership to understand that oftentimes

0:54.9

politicians might not actually just be corrupt, they don't actually just be bad faith,

0:59.1

they may actually just be responding to the incentives promoted by the system as it works today.

1:03.9

So examining the ways that we could or could not change that system to promote different outcomes

1:07.8

are very, very interesting possibilities.

1:10.6

Hope you all enjoy this conversation and a huge thank you to the Foundation for

1:14.8

American Innovation for supporting the work of this podcast.

1:19.3

Nick Trino, welcome to the realignment.

...

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