David Faris
I think Democrats should have this debate, but my point is that no policy platform is going to win three or four consecutive national elections for Democrats because we know policy isn’t what decides elections; that’s not how most voters make decisions.

So there are no policy changes that are going to reverse the overall trajectory that this society is on right now. We have to address some of the structural barriers to progressive power in this country, and we need to take those things as seriously as we do the policy fights within the party.

“WE’RE IN THE MIDST OF A SLOW-MOTION UNRAVELING OF DEMOCRACY IN THIS COUNTRY”
Sean Illing
I definitely want to get into some of these structural barriers, but let’s be clear about this point you’re making. A lot of people still think there’s some meaningful connection between policy outcomes and voter decisions, but there’s a good bit of political science research to suggest that’s just a fantasy.

David Faris
Right. People just don’t seem to make the connection between policies and the party in power.

So, for example, the Democrats passed Obamacare and gave millions of people heath care, and yet tons of people who benefited from it have no idea what it is or how they benefited. And it’s like that with a lot of policies — voters simply don’t connect the dots, and so they reward or punish the wrong party.

I think the idea that we’re going to deliver these benefits to people and they’re going to be like, “Thank you Jesus, thank you for everything that you’ve done, let me return you with a larger majority next time,” is just nonsense. It’s the wrong way to think about politics.

That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t do things for people, but we’ve got to be serious about how elections are won. And they’re not being won on the basis of policy proposals or policy wins.

Sean Illing
In the book, you say that Democrats are engaged in “policy fights” and Republicans are waging a “procedural war.” What does that mean?

David Faris
The Constitution is a shockingly short document, and it turns out that it’s extremely vague on some key procedures that we rely on to help government function at a basic level. For the government to work, cooperation between parties is needed. But when that cooperation is withdrawn, it creates chaos.


Since the ’90s, when Newt Gingrich took over Congress, we’ve seen a one-sided escalation in which Republicans exploit the vagueness or lack of clarity in the Constitution in order to press their advantage in a variety of arenas — from voter ID laws to gerrymandering to behavioral norms in the Congress and Senate.

Sean Illing
What the Republicans did to Merrick Garland was one of the most egregious examples I’ve ever seen.

David Faris
Right. They essentially stole a seat on the Supreme Court — a swing seat, no less. But they correctly argued that they had no clear constitutional obligation to consider the president’s nominee for the seat. They didn’t violate the Constitution. They violated the spirit of the Constitution. They violated the norms that have allowed these institutions to function normally for years and years.

This is the sort of maneuvering and procedural warfare I’m talking about, and the Republicans have been escalating it for two decades. And they’ve managed to entrench their power through these dubious procedures.

The result is that the structural environment is biased against Democrats and the Republicans have engineered it that way.