Stubborn Facts about the Two-Party System

Democrats are on track to win the midterms by 13 or 14 points which will be the largest win for Democrats since 1974. The loses for Republicans were catastrophic, but the reasons are clear. Trump was unpopular. He asked voters to pretend as if he was on the ballot, and people did. What this election seemed to highlight for Sean and Jay the most, is how strong the President’s approval or disapproval sways voters. The vice president even went so far as to call out Trump on the Iran war, and pointed to it as the cause of the GOP loss. In the last two years, the president has a choice: keep going his own way or start compromising to increase approval for his final days in office. Remember to rate and follow Stubborn Things and stay up to date by following us on X @aei_STpodcast. Comments? Suggestions? Email us at [email protected].

We’ve always had two parties and we’ve always had people who hate it. Some point to Madison as the reason why our government favors two strong parties over a dozen weaker parties. But Madison and Jefferson’s support of the Republican party was to sound the alarm to voters about bad actors in Congress. In large part, it seems like our parties do just that: shine the light on how the other party is flawed. Why two parties? Some hypothesize that our representational government gives way to two-way arguments in which the coalitions form the two stronger parties. Sean points out that it’s not like third parties have always been unsuccessful, such as Ross Perot of the Reform Party. But Jay reminds us, the third party fades as soon as it rises since one of the major parties assumes the energy and motivation of the new group and often their platform gets put into law, as we saw with how Clinton and the Republicans handled the debt in response to the Reform Party.Remember to rate and follow Stubborn Things and stay up to date by following us on X @aei_STpodcast. Comments? Suggestions? Email us at [email protected]

In many ways the beginning of the musical Hamilton, is quite historically accurate. But to Sean, the precision gets loose… especially the election of 1800. So today Sean and Jay are here to set the record straight.Start with James Madison, who isn't even in the capital in 1800; he'd retired to Montpelier. Then John Adams, whom the musical writes off entirely. Adams' New England base secured him against Hamilton's repeated attempts to dislodge him, and the race was far closer than the musical lets on, a few hundred votes in New York and he's re-elected. Hamilton, meanwhile, belonged to the High Federalist faction agitating for war with France; what Adams actually does in 1800 is negotiate the peace that infuriates them.Aaron Burr had no separate faction either. He was a core Republican organizer who out-hustled Hamilton in New York City and helped build what became Tammany Hall. And when the Electoral College tied -an artifact of the pre-Twelfth Amendment ballot- it wasn't "up to Hamilton" to instruct anyone. It went to the lame-duck Federalist House, voting one vote per state, and took 36 ballots.

The midterms are in view, and Sean and Jay try not to treat the tea leaves like gospel. Although Jay got into the limelight through election blogging, he’s realized that it’s difficult to differentiate what he wants to happen and what will happen. This bias doesn’t just influence Jay but is ingrained in the practice of forecasting itself, making election predictions all the more difficult. Nevertheless, what politicians are doing now and how voters are feeling might give us a glimpse into November. Sean notes that unless you’re a wartime president or a great economy president, the ruling president will likely lose house seats, so we might see a wave of Blue representatives. The Senate? Only God knows for certain.

Our founders did not want all of American governance to diverge from England. In fact, the founders were inspired by Parliament's structure, which attempted to represent the desires of the people. Congress was perhaps well constructed but is not currently functioning well. As Wallach argues in his book, Congress is functioning well when the people trust that their interests are properly represented in the legislature. That trust and reciprocal relationship may not currently exist in spades. However, Wallach offers some potential solutions to not only empower better representation but also inspire Congress to pass bi-partisan legislation for the betterment of the whole country.Wallach, Philip A. Why Congress. New York: Oxford University Press, 2023. https://www.amazon.com/Audible-Why-Congress/dp/B0C446NBP5 Remember to rate and follow Stubborn Things and stay up to date by following us on X @aei_STpodcast. Comments? Suggestions? Email us at [email protected].

From 1933 to 1953 we only had two presidents… So we naturally ranked them. When FDR came into office the country was looking bleak, there was a steady economic decline into the Great Depression that could have inspired a revolution. Instead, FDR maintains our democracy but grows the federal government like no other. Sean points how FDR was more moderate than perceived and Jay calls him a Wilsonian progressive but both see FDR as a defender of the republic. Following FDR, Truman "slips into place" as a wartime president but leaves with shockingly low approval ratings. However, Truman’s commitment to civil rights and strong opposition to communism may be his saving grace.Remember to rate and follow Stubborn Things and stay up to date by following us on X @aei_STpodcast.Comments? Suggestions? Email us at [email protected].

Some kooks with sex scandals, securities fraud, and outlandish tweets are winning primaries and even congressional seats. Why are these ideological crackpots winning? And where are the party gatekeepers? On today’s podcast, Jay and Sean discuss how a centuries-long precedent of (primarily) electing the righteous is slowly falling prey to populism. In this podcast, our hosts discuss how the McGovern-Fraser Commission of 1968 may have increased democratic participation in primaries, but at the same time allowed political outsiders and some unique kooks to rise to power. Furthermore, the 1974 amendments to the Federal Election Campaign Act—although they limited the political power of rich donors—took power away from the parties to fund well-vetted candidates themselves.Remember to rate and follow Stubborn Things and stay up to date by following us on X @aei_STpodcast. Comments? Suggestions? Email us at [email protected].

On this week’s episode, Jay and Sean hypothesize about what Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Hamilton, and even Brutus would have thought about our republic in its 250th year. From Washington’s hatred of partisanship to Hamilton’s love of our energetic national government, our hosts analyze what our founders would have admired and what they would have despised in 2026 America. We’d probably hear lots of “I told you so!” from all sides... Hope you enjoy our podcast and our nation’s semiquincentennial!Remember to rate and follow Stubborn Things and stay up to date by following us on X @aei_STpodcast.Comments? Suggestions? Email us at [email protected].

This episode of Stubborn Things comes out a week ahead of schedule, and this one’s for the historiography nerds. This week, Jay and Sean discuss the legacy of historian Gordon Wood, who passed away earlier this month, and the historiography of the American founding. Our hosts lead us on a tour from Charles Beard’s economic interpretation of the founding and framing of the constitution to the “consensus historians” of the mid-20th century who responded to Beard’s theory. Then, they address the shift in the way history was done, with the emergence of Bernard Bailyn, Gordon Wood, and others, all of whom emphasized that the American founding was ideological in nature. Jay and Sean also analyze new histories of the founding, including social histories and critical histories, like the 1619 Project. The episode concludes with a dialogue on how to think about the founders and the founding, 250 years on.Remember to rate and follow Stubborn Things and stay up to date by following us on X @aei_STpodcast.Comments? Suggestions? Email us at [email protected] notes:Gordon S. Wood, a Historian Who Loved AmericaGordon Wood Accepts the 2025 Irving Kristol Award, AEI Annual Dinner 2025George Bancroft’s History of the United States of AmericaCharles Beard’s An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution of the United StatesBernard Bailyn’s The Ideological Origins of the American RevolutionGordon Wood’s The Creation of the American Republic, 1776-1787 and The Radicalism of the American RevolutionJoyce Appleby’s Capitalism and a New Social Order: The Republican Vision of the 1790s and Liberalism and Republicanism in the Historical ImaginationLance Banning’s The Sacred Fire of Liberty: James Madison and the Founding of the Federal RepublicRogers Smith’s Civic Ideals: Conflicting Visions of Citizenship in U.S. History

This week, Jay and Sean welcome Echelon Insight’s Patrick Ruffini to Stubborn Things to talk about how the GOP went from the party of Reagan to the party of Trump. Patrick discussed the Republican Party’s demographic shift and how Trump began to appeal to working class voters during the 2016 election. Jay, Sean, and Patrick also touched on the idea of economic aspiration, potential reversions in the GOP’s demographic gains, and economic and educational indicators of voting patterns. Plus, hear Patrick’s thoughts about the future of the GOP post-Trump and what to watch for in the midterms.Remember to rate and follow Stubborn Things and stay up to date by following us on X @aei_STpodcast. Comments? Suggestions? Email us at [email protected] notes:Party of the People: Inside the Multiracial Populist Coalition Remaking the GOPGrand New Party: How Republicans Can Win the Working Class and Save the American DreamSteadfast Democrats: How Social Forces Shape Black Political Behavior