Bradley Tusk

Not even that.

It's actually a lot simpler.

Virtually every politician makes every decision solely based on winning the next election and nothing else.

And that's true for the next election and then the next election after that.

And it's a problem in democracies all over the world, but it's especially pervasive in the United States because we have this corrupt practice known as gerrymandering.

And what that allows the two political parties to do is divvy up all the legislative districts so that as a result, the only election that ever really matters is the party primary.

Now, we had a big election last fall.

You guys might have heard something about it.

And in that election, about two-thirds of Americans voted, but that was for precedent.

I live in New York City.

In 2023, we had city council primaries.

Turnout was 7.2 percent.

So I don't know if you guys have ever been to New York, but if you have, you will know we are not a shy people.

And yet, in this city of 8.5 million highly opinionated people,

you could win a council seat with just 8,000 votes.

And the same thing is true in state legislative races, congressional, mayoral, you name it, and it's true everywhere.

So who are those voters?

They're typically the far right or the far left or special interests that know how to move money and votes in low-turnout elections.

they dictate not only who wins office, but then what happens once they're in office.

And that gets us one of two types of government.