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100 YEARS
The League of Women Voters-Downeast in cooperation with WERU FM produces a monthly radio program on topics in participatory democracy. It's called the Democracy Forum.
Broadcasts may be heard from 4:00 p.m. - 5:00 p.m. on the third Friday of the month at WERU Community Radio, 89.9 FM Blue Hill. Listen on the web at WERU.org. The show can also be heard in the Portland area at 11:30 a.m., the first Sunday of the following month, at WMPG Community Radio, 90.9 FM Portland, streaming at WMPG.org.
In September, 2018, the Democracy Forum won top honors from the Maine Association of Broadcasting for public affairs radio.
Here is information about our latest or upcoming broadcast.
This new episode will be pre-recorded on September 15; no listener calls will be taken. Comments and questions may be emailed to news@weru.org with Democracy Forum on the subject line.
“If a political party does not have its foundation in the determination to advance a cause that is right and that is moral, then it is not a political party; it is merely a conspiracy to seize power." ― Dwight D. Eisenhower
We'll talk about the history and the future of the two major parties, how parties change and evolve, how/why they splinter. Are the parties too strong or too weak? Are the two major parties in this moment so polarized that the system itself is undermined? Has the modern two-party system made us ungovernable? What reforms and options might be realistic? -- multi-member districts, proportional representation, ranked choice voting?
In case you missed it live, you can listen to this show from the archive at weru.org.
Special Guests:
Lee Drutman, senior fellow at New America. He is the author of Breaking the Two-Party Doom Loop: The Case for Multiparty Democracy in America and winner of the 2016 American Political Science Association's Robert A. Dahl Award, given for "scholarship of the highest quality on the subject of democracy." He is also the co-host of the podcast Politics in Question, and writes for the New York Times, Vox, and FiveThirtyEight, among other outlets.
Sandy Maisel, Goldfarb Family Distinguished Professor of American Government (emeritus); Director of the Colby in Washington Program, 1987-1995; Director, Goldfarb Center for Public Affairs and Civic Engagement, 2003-2012. He is the author of numerous books, including Parties and Elections in America: The Electoral Process, with Mark D. Brewer, now in its ninth edition.
To learn more, follow these links to related content:
"Quiz: If America Had Six Parties, Which Would You Belong To?" by Lee Drutman in the New York Times, September 8, 2021
“Have Democrats become a party of the left?” William A. Galston and Elaine Kamarck, for Brookings, July, 2021
“The Decline of the GOP,” Norm Ornstein in The Atlantic, August, 2020
Breaking the Two-Party Doom Loop: The Case for Multiparty Democracy in America, by Lee Drutman, March, 2020. Watch an interview with the author at Breaking the Two-Party Doom Loop - Political Reform.
Parties and Elections in America: The Electoral Process. by Mark D. Brewer and L.Sandy Maisel, ninth edition, 2020
The Parties Respond: Changes in American Parties and Campaigns (Transforming American Politics) Mark D. Brewer and L. Sandy Maisel, fifth edition, 2018 (essay collection)
“This Maine Initiative Could Shake Up the Two-Party System,” by Hendrik Hertberg in The Nation, October, 2016.
It's Even Worse Than It Looks by Thomas E. Mann and Norman J. Ornstein, April, 2016.
"Breaking Up Is Hard to Do: America's Love Affair with the Two-Party System," Origins: Current Events in Historical Perspective, Marc Horger, July 2013.