America’s Anti-Competitive Political Duopoly Undermines Democracy and Innovative Policies

Some time ago, the Harvard Business School launched a multi-year study of American competitiveness. Included in the examination was politics and the harmful consequences of the current two-party dominance, a classic duopoly in the view of the investigators:

“Around the two major parties, the Democrats and the Republicans, has arisen what we call the ‘political industrial complex,’ an interconnected set of entities that support the duopoly. These include special interests, donors (particularly ‘big money’), pollsters, consultants, partisan think tanks, the media, lobbyists, and others. The political industrial complex is big business. And virtually all the players in the political industrial complex are connected to one side of the duopoly or the other—the right or the left—which has contributed to failed competition.

“In healthy competition, industry actors would be competing to deliver the desired outcomes for customers—fellow citizens—and be held accountable for results. Political rivals who fail to serve the public would be replaced by new competitors who do. Instead, today’s political competition is unhealthy competition in which rivals are entrenched, insulated from the pressures to serve customers better, and protected from new competition. The political industrial complex expands and grows, but the nation fails to progress.” (“Why Competition in the Politics Industry is Failing America,” Katherine M. Gehl and Michael E. Porter)

In a competitive marketplace of products and services, companies that don’t innovate and meet the changing needs of consumers fail. In the political marketplace, “Parties compete to create and reinforce partisan divisions, not deliver the practical solutions that are the most important outcome we need our political system to achieve,” concluded the authors. Too often, the goal of the Democratic and Republican parties isn’t to do better by their “customers,” but to win, even if it means campaigns based on nothing more than being the lesser of two evils.

Ideological theater with audiences reserved only for the parties’ extreme bases is the norm today. The parties rarely risk offering new and innovative policy solutions. Instead, yesterday’s solutions are applied to tomorrow’s problems because those proposals reinforce core voters.

Take, for example, Minnesota’s academic achievement gap. It is one of the worst in the nation. In the five years leading up to the pandemic, reading proficiency among Black students hung around 34%. The pandemic and school disruptions have made these dismal figures even worse.

What’s the political response? Democrats propose more spending, much of it on the kinds of programs that reward and reinforce the status quo, even though the state auditor recently said existing efforts largely are ineffective in closing the achievement gap. Republicans, meanwhile, focus on the non-existent “critical race theory” curricula and would impose huge costs on school districts through mandated but mostly redundant  transparency.

This isn’t to argue that teachers shouldn’t be paid more, schools shouldn’t be better funded, parents shouldn’t be involved in their children’s education or that some students wouldn’t be better served by alternatives to public education. But rather than improving outcomes for kids, Democrats want to fund their existing constituencies and Republicans want to divert public money to private schools.

They do so by ignoring evidence-based and cost-effective programs that are proving successful in getting all kids to grade level in reading and math. Solutions are available, but they require an investment in policies outside the ideological narratives favored by Republicans and Democrats. So innovation is given token support or ignored altogether.

The duopoly imposes its control and undermines democracy in ways large and small. Nothing compares to Republican efforts to suppress voter turnout and put election processes (including the actual vote counting) in the hands of faithful partisans. But Democrats also do damage by putting winning ahead of robust elections and undermining public confidence in the process.

Take the coordinated messaging of Minnesota Democrats to oppose a credible and viable primary challenger to U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar. In opinion articles and social media, the challenger to Omar is urged to drop out of the race, not because of opposition to his issues, but because his candidacy will “undermine the party.” Never mind that the demands of Omar and others to defund the police likely cost Democrats several seats in the U.S. House and Senate in 2020. As Gehl and Porter point out, the parties protect their own even when it may not serve long-term interests.

Similarly, less than a week after St. Paul approved a strict rent control ordinance last fall Democratic Mayor Melvin Carter was seeking to change what voters endorsed by a 53%-47% margin. Critics are right that the ordinance is terrible public policy that will inhibit sorely needed housing in the city. But the time to oppose or modify the proposal was before it went on the ballot or waiting for the next election to make the case for revisions. Bad policy or not, voters deserve respect, not the heavy hand of a mayor and city council unilaterally undermining voters’ will.

Yes, what Republicans in many states are doing to protect their power stands alone in its arrogance and usurpation of the right to vote. But democracy also is harmed by a thousand cuts, inflicted by the two political parties who control the industry of elections and governance.

Porter and Gehl point out that the two parties are in the unique position of determining the rules of competition, a reality they call “regulatory capture.” There is no anti-trust law to break up this duopoly. “Free from regulation and oversight, the duopoly does exactly what one would fear: The rivals distort the rules of competition in their (mutual) favor,” write the authors.

Change has to come from we the people through political reforms, including ranked choice voting, changes in how campaigns are financed and independent redistricting commissions. Better public policy will only come from better politics, and better politics start with voters willing to break the duopoly of Republicans and Democrats.