Dartmouth political scientist Sean Westwood — director of the Polarization Lab and one of the leading researchers studying why American politics has become so toxic — joins the Chuck Toddcast with a counterintuitive opening argument: America has actually been more polarized in the past than it is now, and polarization itself is a normal feature of democracy. What changed is that the Cold War spent four decades artificially suppressing American polarization by giving the country a unifying external adversary; once the Soviet Union collapsed, the Pat Buchanan wing of the GOP emerged from hibernation and the country returned to its more natural fractious state. The real threat, Westwood argues, isn't disagreement — it's the structural changes that have allowed disagreement to metastasize into something all-consuming. He walks through the menu of possible reforms — ranked choice voting, all-party primaries, stronger party control over nominations — and is refreshingly candid about the tradeoffs: every fix comes with its own problems, moving from a two-party to a multi-party system would be enormously difficult (most multi-party democracies still end up with two dominant parties anyway), and the most realistic reform is simply restoring stronger party control, though Congress will never vote for anything that threatens its own members. 

The conversation broadens into a sweeping diagnosis of what's actually broken. Westwood argues we're creating a world where if you don't opt-in to politics, you simply won't encounter it — meaning voters increasingly lack the basic information needed to hold elected officials accountable. He warns that any election denialism from one side gives the other side a permission slip to do the same, that America is experiencing more democratic backsliding than most observers want to admit, and that AI-powered microtargeting is about to make the information environment dramatically more disruptive than anything we've seen so far. Westwood identifies the Senate's malapportionment as the single most destructive feature of American politics, and observes that interracial marriage used to be the great cultural wedge before being replaced by raw partisanship — meaning partisan identity has now absorbed every other source of social division. He notes that Democrats have created litmus tests that will never win in rural America and that many modern legislators simply don't have governing skills but are very good at getting attention because humans are predisposed to focus on threat and conflict. Westwood's most haunting closing observation: telling voters they no longer live in a democracy can become a self-fulfilling prophecy, and that's a risk both sides need to take far more seriously than they currently do.

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Timeline:

(Timestamps may vary based on advertisements)

00:00 Sean Westwood joins the Chuck ToddCast

01:15 The origin of the Polarization Lab?

02:45 Partisanship is the area where negativity is rewarded

03:30 America has been more polarized in the past than it is now

05:15 The Cold War suppressed polarization

06:00 Once the Cold War ended, the Pat Buchanon wing of GOP emerged

07:00 Polarization is normal in a democracy

07:45 Structural changes that led to polarization are the threat

08:30 Potential “relief valves” to ease polarization

09:30 Structural changes come with both improvements & negatives

10:15 Ranked choice voting can lead to district in election outcomes

11:30 Stronger party control is the easiest and most realistic fix

12:15 Moving from two parties to multi party would be incredibly difficult

12:45 Congress won’t vote on reforms that threaten their own power

13:30 Even in multi party systems there’s generally two strong parties

14:30 Members don’t just dislike the other party, they dislike their own party

15:30 American third parties struggle to leverage their position

16:00 Ross Perot’s candidacy sobered up the two major parties

17:45 Mark Cuban is the only person who could run successfully as an I

19:00 Places with electoral reforms typically had overwhelming one party control

20:15 In California & Texas you aren’t running “typical” candidates

21:30 All party primaries can help to alleviate some polarization

22:45 Redistricting muddies election data, makes it harder to form conclusions

24:30 It’s important to disagree, but disagreement can’t become all consuming

26:00 Many Trump voters who don’t love Trump but want to “own the libs”

27:15 We’re creating a world where if you don’t opt-in to politics, you won’t see it

28:00 Americans won’t have the info to hold elected officials accountable

29:00 Newspaper delivery used to correlate with likelihood of voting

31:00 Local info can be easily accessed online, but still needs journalists

32:15 Public media is seen as a mouthpiece of the left in America

33:45 We’ve been reversing all the progress on fairer districts

34:30 Any election denialism gives a permission slip to the other side

35:15 Voters see democratic pullback from one side & want their party to do the same

36:15 We’re experiencing more democratic backsliding than we’d like to admit

37:45 The impact of big data and microtargeting

38:30 AI will make microtargeting far more impactful and disruptive

39:45 Partisans have become self-sorting geographically, but it’s incidental

41:15 Partisanship can become contagious 

42:30 American politics urban/rural divide mirrors politics in Germany

44:15 Democrats created litmus tests that will never win in rural America

45:00 Dems would do well to make social issues determined by local governments

46:30 The malapportionment of the senate is most destructive to our politics

49:30 If you truly object to what your rep is doing, you have to take action

51:15 Haven’t had a consequential update to the democracy since before FDR

53:00 Interracial marriage used to be cultural wedge, replaced by partisanship 

55:30 Many legislators don’t have governing skills, but good at getting attention

57:00 Humans are predisposed to focus on threat and conflict

58:30 Our information ecosystem is built to inflame, not moderate

1:00:45 Telling voters you aren’t in a democracy can be self-fulfilling