Lee Drutman

A lot of folks warned that pardoning the J6 criminals would create a permission structure for more political violence. They were right. www.politico.com/news/2025/06...

The central puzzle in American politics is why Republicans continue to win elections despite pursuing deeply unpopular policies. The simplest explanation is that issue positions don't matter nearly as much as we like to think they do. www.washingtonpost.com/politics/202...

The only way to end the gerrymandering wars is proportional representation.

You know what's truly spooky? How individual candidates have ceased to matter in US Senate elections. Nationalization and polarization are terrifying forces in our politics. No-one escapes.... The Two-Party Doom Loop. (mwahahaha) leedrutman.substack.com/p/the-modera...

Here is the giant sucking sound of House candidates ceasing to matter in an era of nationalized, polarized, presidentialized politics (hello, does "moderation matter anymore?" debate) leedrutman.substack.com/p/the-modera...

This is the sound of candidates losing the struggle against the crushing weight of partisan gravity. This is nationalization and polarization and presidentialization swallowing everything else. This is the dangerous collapse of dimensionality, in one chart leedrutman.substack.com/p/the-modera...

Winning narrow margins is small thinking. It doesn’t break us out of our gridlock moment. And it definitely does not break us out of the more destructive two-party doom loop cycle I keep banging on about. The problem is the parties, and the party system. leedrutman.substack.com/p/the-modera...

I jump into the moderation debate. I agree with @adambonica.bsky.social and @gelliottmorris.com on the methodology, but I want to draw attention to a bigger issue. The collapse of candidate effects generally. leedrutman.substack.com/p/the-modera...

"Does moderation matter? In our current two-party system? Not really. Presidential vote explains 98% of House outcomes. Candidate quality has collapsed to statistical noise." open.substack.com/pub/leedrutm...

cc: Janet Mills leedrutman.substack.com/p/why-americ...

Must read from @andycraig.bsky.social www.theunpopulist.net/p/want-to-en...

www.youtube.com/watch?v=gADr...