As my granddaughters are happily enjoying summer camp, I am watching the news about missing girls at a summer camp after Texas flash floods. Did they have NOAA weather radio? Are there rules for summer camps? Is there a way I can help? Can government do something? I think it should. Government is how we cooperate on a local or national basis, but I am not going to advocate for any political party. 

My golf buddies know better than to discuss politics, but last week I heard a commotion at the other end of the table. It was something political. One of my friends started pointing at each of us one by one saying “conservative, conservative, liberal, conservative,…” When he got to me, he paused for a while, then he said “I think you are a …” Yes, he made a guess. I looked at him and said “there are more than two choices.” He answered “no there aren’t.”

We get so mad at the “other side”! We are not listening to each other! My suggestion here is that government should Represent Us. , so, I wrote an essay on the topic. It expresses what I think is the cause of polarization and a course to a better direction.  What do you think? Please comment.

Representative Democracy? Ha! We are blowing it!

Somewhere along the way, we convinced ourselves that there are only two sides to everything. Maybe it is just easier that way. Easier to sort the world into good and evil, red, and blue, us and them, this side of the aisle and that side. But easy does not mean right—or rational. And in our politics, this rigid two-sided mindset has become not just lazy, but dangerous. We have created a country so divided it feels broken, and we have built a system that rewards the worst of us, simply because we cannot imagine anything beyond the false binary we have inherited. We are blowing it—and it is time to say so. 

We talk as if every issue can be resolved by picking a side. You are either right or wrong, Republican or Democrat, liberal or conservative, left or right, red, or blue. Even the word “bipartisan”—which we are told is the gold standard of compromise—still assumes only two camps. That is not compromise; that is dueling monopolies coming to a temporary truce. There’s no room in this system for nuance, complexity, or fresh thinking. It’s a straitjacket on our democracy, and we have strapped it on ourselves.

The result? A political ecosystem that selects for extremism. When the only real competition is between two parties, the incentives tilt toward whichever candidate can rally the loudest, most committed base. That means primaries dominated by the fringes and general elections where voters are forced to pick “the lesser of two evils.” Moderate voices, independent thinkers, and problem-solvers are squeezed out or silenced. We don’t get leaders who represent our full spectrum of views—we get cartoonish avatars of team red or team blue.

This is not just a frustrating process—it is deeply undemocratic. Most Americans hold complex, blended views. They might be economically conservative but socially liberal, or vice versa. They might agree with Democrats on climate and Republicans on crime. But our political system flattens all that out. If you do not fit neatly into one of two boxes, you get no real voice, no real representation.

So how do we fix this? We start by redesigning the system itself—building a democracy that assumes more than two perspectives and empowers voters to reflect that complexity. Imagine an electoral system rooted in proportional representation, where seats in Congress are awarded based on the actual share of votes different parties receive, not a winner-takes-all, district-by-district death match. This would encourage a multi-party landscape: not just Democrats and Republicans, but Greens, Libertarians, Social Democrats, Moderates, Independents, and others.

To complement that, we implement ranked-choice voting (RCV), where voters can rank candidates in order of preference. No more spoiler effect. No more “wasting your vote.” If your top choice does not win, your vote transfers to your next preferred candidate. This encourages civility, coalition-building, and broader appeal—because to win, a candidate must be not just someone’s first choice, but also an acceptable second or third.

But here is the crucial point: RCV only works when voters have a real menu of choices—not just two candidates who survived the same old binary battle. That means our open primaries must advance more than two candidates to the final ballot. The ideal number? Five.

With Final Five Voting, the top five finishers in a nonpartisan open primary move on to the general election. Why five? Because it hits the sweet spot: enough to create meaningful choice, ideological diversity, and genuine competition—but not so many that voters get overwhelmed. It lets independents and third parties break through. It allows moderates to survive. It gives ranked-choice voting room to work its magic—finding not the loudest candidate, but the one who can unite a majority.

This setup also tones down the scorched-earth campaigning. To win in a Final Five system, candidates need to appeal beyond their base and earn second- or third-choice rankings from voters outside their tribe. That changes how people run, how they govern, and how they treat one another.

We pair this with independent redistricting commissions to end the gerrymandering madness that locks voters into rigged districts and fuels political extremism. And we ditch closed partisan primaries, embracing open primaries where every voter, regardless of affiliation, helps decide who makes the ballot.

Together, these changes would shatter the illusion of two sides. They would allow new ideas to surface, new voices to rise, and new coalitions to form. They would not guarantee perfect outcomes—but they would make better outcomes possible. Outcomes based on deliberation, diversity, and compromise—not just tribal loyalty.

Our system was never meant to be static. The Founders did not pretend they had all the answers; they built a framework designed to adapt and improve. That is why the Constitution begins with a mission: to form a more perfect Union. They knew that democracy is not a finished product—it is a living process. And when our institutions no longer serve the people with fairness, representation, and wisdom, it is not betrayal to reform them—it is fidelity to the American idea.

And yet, instead of working together to modernize that idea, too many Americans are reaching for something darker. In a moment of historic gridlock—when the three branches of government seem locked in endless paralysis—millions of our fellow citizens are turning, astonishingly, toward authoritarianism. They see strength where there is force, decisiveness where there is cruelty, and order where there is obedience. It is a dangerous illusion, born of frustration, and it should shake us to the core. Because when democracy fails to function, demagogues rush to fill the void.

That is why we cannot afford to keep pretending that our system is fine. The greatest choice we face today is not left or right. It is whether we give in to decline and division—or rise to the challenge of reimagining our democracy. One that reflects the full complexity, diversity, and intelligence of the American people. One that earns back their trust—not through fear or force, but through real representation, real problem-solving, and real choices. One that restores three functioning branches of government—led by people who respect the institutions they serve and the humanity of those they disagree with. 

We are blowing it. But we still have time to turn it around.