Broke/Broken Broke/Broken

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Broke/Broken
Welcome to Broke Broken, a newsletter and podcast about our broken systems, the disparities they cause, and how we might address these issues. Before we get into the interview today, we wanted to just take a step back and talk a little bit more about why we're talking, why we're starting this newsletter and podcast. And I'm using the word "we" because there's two of us behind Broke/Broken. But you won't be hearing our names because we want things to be really confusing. Is that right?
Yeah, we wanted to create a podcast and newsletter that is as ambiguous and confusing and alienating to people as the systems in which we currently live.
In all seriousness, we want to remain anonymous because, you know, we have full-time jobs and we don't want to jeopardize those jobs, just like many people out there who are afraid to sort of take risks or sort of cheating the system by hopefully remaining anonymous, not trying that hard. But, you know, we'll see. We'll see what happens.
Yeah, we're broke. And we're living in a broken society and we don't have time to look for new jobs once they fire us for being dissidents.
For saying that. For saying that out loud. If you haven't yet, you can go over to brokebroken.substack.com to see the first two sort of releases that we did. We had an interview with author and fellow at New America, Lee Drutman. We talked about the two-party system and also we wrote a piece-- my colleague here wrote a piece about how our inequality is killing us. So awesome. Very bright stuff so far, really uplifting stuff.
If you need like something to take the edge off your day. You just pop on over to BrokeBroken.substack.com and that's where you find things to cheer you up.
That's the remedy right there. So, a little bit about this interview that you're about to hear is, first of all, you know, the one of the biggest things, one of the biggest trials that our nation has seen in some time.
The trial of Derek Chauvin recently happened (note: Derek Chauvin’s guilty verdict was announced less than 24 hours from the time of this recording) and we wanted to talk about obviously individual accountability, but more so— and something that we're really interested here is systemic accountability. So, you know, obviously, Derek Chauvin was found guilty of all three charges that he was charged for. But, you know? What happens next in terms of systemic accountability? So to help us, you know, really dive into this conversation, we talked to Professor of Sociology at the University of Maryland and Fellow at the Brookings Institution, Dr. Rashawn Ray. So I'm really excited to share this interview with you all.
And I wasn't able to sit on the interview this time, but my colleague did a great job interviewing him, and I hope you like it.
Broke/Broken
Well, I'm actually really excited for this conversation because I think we can go a little bit deeper into what we normally do. And I know that you've done so much research on the subject of police brutality and kind of looking at sort of the structural issues in the systems. But before you get into all of that, first of all, thank you so much for joining today. And you know, we're less than twenty four hours of hearing of the guilty verdict of Derek Shoven, the former Minneapolis police officer who was charged in the murder of George Floyd. So I would love to just kind of get your reaction to that, you know, since we're so fresh from the news.
Dr. Rashawn Ray
Well, thank you for having me. I mean, when I think about the George Floyd murder, the Derek Chauvin, the Derek Chauvin conviction, I think that it was a slam dunk. I mean, based on the myriad of evidence that was involved, not only a lot of video evidence, but also an all star prosecution team from across the state, a racially diverse jury, which research documents is more likely to lead to equitable outcomes across groups, which is what we ultimately want. Also, a string of me

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According to a recent CBS/YouGov study, 54 percent of U.S. adults believe the biggest threat to America's way of life is other people in the country and domestic enemies. We are living in an era in which our political affiliations define us and with whom we live, have relationships, and work. We think of those on the other side of the aisle as the “other” and our “enemy”. 
So, how did we get here?
Many argue that while there are many reasons for our current highly polarized state, our two-party structure is a significant contributor and sets us up to demonize those one the other side of the aisle. The system in which we conduct our democracy is set up to foment that demonization.
We spoke to Lee Drutman, fellow at New America and author of The Two Party Doom Loop: A Case for A Multiparty Democracy In America, to discuss how our two party system is breaking our country and contributing to our incredibly polarized state.
“It's important to understand that you don't have to be stuck in an abusive relationship with a voting system that doesn't work,”

Broke/Broken
All right, so here with me today is Lee Drutman. He's a fellow at New America and author of Breaking the Two-Party Doom Loop: The Case for Multiparty Democracy in America... So, Lee, thank you so much for being here today.
Lee Drutman
Oh, great to be having this conversation.
Broke/Broken
So in this newsletter, one of our goals is to kind of highlight where our systems are broken and why and possibly how we can fix those things for maybe a little slightly less broken America. So that's why we really wanted to talk to you about your book, because I think it's a perfect example about, you know, how structurally we're kind of set up for the things that we're seeing today, right? A very highly polarized society and all of that. So before we get into the weeds on your book and the case for a multiparty democracy, I wanted to get, you know, your kind of journey into what got you thinking about that in the first place, a multi-party system. And you know kind of how you came to the conclusion of that.
Lee Drutman
Sure. So my previous book was called The Business of America is Lobbying, which is a book about corporate influence in our politics. And in researching and writing a book, I came to understand that one reason why corporate lobbyists seem to have so much influence in Washington was because Congress had hollowed out or hollowed out its own expertise and had basically given itself a lobotomy and outsourced policymaking largely to corporate lobbyists. And the same problem to me. So I set about thinking about what would be the logical way to fix that problem. And it was somewhat obvious Congress could just invest more in its own staff capacity and its own expertise, as it had in an earlier era. And this was something that seemed so obvious that everybody agreed with me. But it didn't happen and I tried to understand what it was that was preventing Congress from doing this and came to appreciate how much this was a function of a highly polarized Congress and highly centralized two party Congress, that, you know, there wasn't really an appetite for expertise because Congress had become a battlefield, not a policymaking space, and I’m a big believer in Congress and legislatures as essential places where representative democracy happens. And, you know, if you're going to have a diverse, pluralistic society, you need an institution where that diversity and pluralism can kind of work out its disagreements. And that just wasn't happening in Congress. So the problem was really deeper than expertise; it was that our party system had become deeply hyper-partisan. And we have these institutions that are set up to require broad compromise and make narrow, simple majoritarianism very difficult to navigate. And yet we have electoral institutions that are now pushing us very much towards simple majoritarianism. And this is in many ways a