On the latest episode of This Old Democracy, Micah Sifry sits down with Andy Craig — a libertarian election-policy expert whose career arc runs from the Libertarian Party and Gary Johnson's 2016 campaign to writing election-reform language that made it into the Electoral Count Reform Act of 2022.

It's a wide-ranging and unusually candid conversation about how America's democratic breakdown looks from outside the red-blue binary — and why structural reform, not just partisan victory, is essential if liberal democracy is going to survive the Trump era.

Craig, now an election-policy fellow at the Rainey Center and a contributing editor at The Unpopulist, describes January 6 as a turning point, not only politically but intellectually — a moment when democracy reform stopped being theoretical and became urgent:

"This wasn't just some guy with policies I disagree with. This was a threat to the Republic."

From that starting point, the conversation zeroes in on how America's winner-take-all electoral system fuels polarization and minority rule. Craig argues that the problem isn't simply Trump or MAGA, but the incentives baked into the system itself:

"Our electoral system has resulted in a kind of minority-rule dynamic — and that incentivizes more authoritarian measures."

One of the episode's most valuable contributions is Craig's explanation of how the two-party system systematically disenfranchises large portions of the electorate — not only third-party voters, but millions of people trapped in "safe" districts with no meaningful representation:

"If you're in a safe Republican district or a safe Democratic district, you might be 30 or 40 percent of the vote — and you get no seat at the table."

Craig is not completely pessimistic. He sees some hope for the long-term recovery of American democracy.

"[T]here is a backlash to Trump. He won't be around forever. There will be a moment, I think, and we use the term reconstruction for it. And I think that's an appropriate analogy and framework. I mean, we're going to have to do a lot of rebuilding and retooling our institutions to make sure this doesn't happen again. And it's not going to be just returning to the status quo."

The discussion moves beyond diagnosis to reforms that are often mentioned abstractly but rarely unpacked with this level of clarity: proportional representation, fusion voting, and the uniquely American role of state-run party primaries. Craig makes the case that these aren't fringe ideas, but practical tools — many achievable without constitutional amendments — for rebuilding a more representative and less brittle democracy.

Equally striking is Craig's account of the libertarian movement's own fracture in the age of MAGA. There is a core disagreement, says Craig, between libertarians who gravitate toward "burn it all down" politics and others — including Craig and his colleagues at The Unpopulist — who came to see defending liberal democracy itself as the necessary foundation for any serious debate about policy.

As Micah notes during the episode, this conversation maps a political space many Americans rarely hear articulated: socially liberal, institution-respecting, deeply alarmed by authoritarianism — and unsatisfied with a two-party system that repeatedly hands sweeping power to narrow factions.

For anyone thinking seriously about how to get beyond our current democratic crisis — not just survive the next election — this episode is valuable listening.

RECOMMENDED READING

The Unpopulist: https://www.theunpopulist.net/

On the latest episode of This Old Democracy, Micah Sifry sits down with Jeff Timmer—a veteran Republican strategist turned outspoken defender of democratic norms—for a conversation that is equal parts diagnosis, warning, and blueprint for reform.

Timmer spent three decades inside the Republican Party, serving as executive director of the Michigan GOP and advising major campaigns, before becoming a senior figure at the Lincoln Project and co-founder of Republicans and Independents for Biden. What makes this episode especially compelling is that Timmer is not just naming the problem of democratic backsliding—he's proposing a concrete structural response.

"I just want to save democracy."

Timmer embraces the label "Never Trumper," but he's clear that his break with today's GOP runs deeper than one individual. Trump, he argues, didn't invent the rot; he accelerated it. What was once a secular, chamber-of-commerce party drifted into a theologically driven and increasingly authoritarian force long before 2016. "The cancer has metastasized. There is no saving it," he said.

Looking toward 2026 and 2028, Timmer warns that the United States may not experience genuinely free and fair elections—not through ballot-box fraud, but through intimidation and suppression.

"We are not going to have free and fair elections in this country in 2026 or 2028."

At the heart of the episode is Timmer's argument for fusion voting—an old but powerful reform that allows multiple parties to nominate the same candidate and aggregate their votes. TImmer explains, "Fusion voting is a way people can cast a protest vote without throwing their vote away."

So what are Timmer and other like-minded patriots brewing up in Michigan? Timmer is helping build Michigan's Common Sense Party, a centrist party with a single plank: protect the Constitution, the rule of law, and democracy.

Michigan may be the testing ground, but the implications arenational. Litigation to overturn fusion voting bans is underway or imminent in several states.

Despite the gravity of his warnings, Timmer remains cautiously optimistic. "There are far more of us than there are of them—and we need to act like it."

The challenge now is ensuring that when the public is ready to assert democratic values, our electoral system is capable of reflecting that will.

RECOMMENDED LINKS:

Jeff Timmer's podcast: "A Republic If You Can Keep it"

https://a-republic-if-you-can-keep-it.blubrry.net/

This one should get people who care about philanthropy buzzing. In the latest episode of "This Old Democracy," host Micah Sifry and political scientist Daniel Stid have a provocative discussion about what philanthropy is getting right, and has gotten wrong, in the democracy space.

Stid is the former director of the Hewlett Foundation's U.S. Democracy Program and now a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. He offers a candid and critical assessment of the state of American democracy and the often-unintended consequences of philanthropic engagement in the political sphere.

Stid's view is that too much well-intentioned philanthropy has contributed to the hyper-polarization of American politics in the Trump era by funding advocacy for and against the administration. He argues that philanthropic funds have been (mis)used on both the right and the left: viz. Project 2025's governing agenda on one side, and the broad work to shape the electoral environment on the other.

Stid's most provocative argument is that the bulk of foundation spending—on highly visible issues like climate, criminal justice, or immigration—often funds advocates who "see no need to compromise and are pushing views that are really far outside the mainstream." This leads to a "tragedy of the commons," where actors doing what is "rational for them" (advancing their policy agenda) ultimately undermine the political system (the "commons") in which they operate.

Stid encourages philanthropies to develop a deeper, "more holistic conception of democracy," highlighting the Our Common Purpose report from the American Academy of Arts & Sciences (supported by the Rockefeller Brothers Fund). In the OCP report, you'll find some innovative thinking on strengthening both civil society institutions and individual citizens in their communities, as well as an argument on why our nation needs both.

Advocates left and right will disagree with some of what Stid says. But for those who hold a simultaneous membership in Team Democracy, Stid gives you something to think about.

RECOMMENDED READING:

Daniel Stid's must-read Substack: The Art of Association