The Chuck ToddCast
Full Episode - U.S. Is Drifting Toward Competitive Authoritarianism + How To Fix America’s Broken Political System
15 Dec 2025
Chapter 1: What incident highlights the rise of antisemitism discussed in this episode?
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Chapter 2: How is social media linked to the increase in antisemitism?
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That's Q-U-I-N-C-E dot com slash Chuck. Free shipping and 365-day returns. Quince.com slash Chuck. Use that code. Hello there, happy Monday, and welcome to another episode of the Chuck Toddcast. We are ticking ever so closer to the holiday break. First night of Hanukkah, 10 days to Christmas, 16 days to New Year's Eve, and of course...
What I'm counting down five days until the University of Miami's debut in the college football playoff. I've got a pretty good I've got a pretty, pretty sort of robust show today that's going to hit a bunch of topics, a fascinating and an incredibly important topic. A study by some from some folks from the Council on Foreign Affairs about the state of the United States and its democracy.
Extraordinarily important read. I'm going to pass on the highlights in a minute. Fascinating new poll from the Searchlight Institute on corruption. And more importantly, it's not about the concern about political corruption. It's about what voters believe is corrupt corruption. versus sometimes what lawmakers view as corrupt.
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Chapter 3: What reforms are suggested to improve America's political system?
Here's a hint. Let's just say that they don't share the same definition of what is political corruption these days.
Chapter 4: How does ranked-choice voting address the issues in the two-party system?
The interview today is with Nick Troiano. He is founder and runs an organization called Unite America. They've been He also wrote a book called The Primary Problem, meaning it is the primaries, partisan primaries that are at the, it's his thesis, that are at the root of our polarization, the root of pretty much probably 70% of our problems, particularly our problems and our inability to
to get things done. We talk about a lot about various small d democratic reforms that could be necessary, would be necessary. He's somebody that tried to run as an independent and saw all of the barriers to entry for third parties and independents. And part of the goal, I think, of Unite America is just simply to open up the democracy to everybody.
Right now, this democracy is not open to everybody when it comes to competition for political parties or ideas. There is a major barrier to entry. It is not financial. It is structural. And that is the heart of that conversation. It is Monday, which means we're going to hop into the time machine. And I'm just going to give you one hint at what I'm going to be talking about in the time machine.
Monorail, monorail, monorail. How many of you will figure out what I'm going to talk about based on that hint? Guess what? I won't actually find out the answer to that, but I thought that would be a fun little clue. We'll do some Ask Chuck, and I have a few thoughts on the state of college athletics, given what happened, what we're watching at the University of Michigan. But I'm going to start...
with the news out of Australia. It's pretty painful, first night of Hanukkah around the world, that this is what all of us had to wake up to on Sunday morning here in the United States and what the world is grappling with. And that is just yet another reminder that anti-Semitism is at an ugly level globally right now. Look, anti-Semitism is not new. We've gone through fits and starts.
Anybody who's Jewish knows the history. We know the history of this quite well. the rise and falls of attempts eradicating Jews, blaming Jews for financial problems, blaming Jews for cultural problems. We are the smallest of the major religions. We are the smallest of groups that there are. It's amazing how much power so many people try to attribute to us.
And we're not even 3% of the world's population. Obviously what we've been, there's a lot of people that are looking at this and immediately trying to make a political argument to make the case that it's the left that is supercharging anti-Semitism or the right that is supercharging anti-Semitism. I will remind you all once again, I have only experienced it in stereo. All right.
Before 2015, I experienced very little anti-Semitism, if any at all. I think I shared a story with you. An old friend of mine, we were talking about this one time and Sort of right when the rise of sort of – it was those of us in the press that were starting to feel it first and then it sort of broke open out into the mainstream.
But in 2015, 2016, you can say it was coincidental with the timing of the rise of Donald Trump or if that is what sort of – essentially lifted up the pretext on all of this.
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Chapter 5: Why is it difficult to galvanize the center in American politics?
Um, Why do you think it's been so hard to galvanize the frustrated center in America?
Well, first, I would also say on this topic of what is the ideology of this movement that wants to make politics better? I think centrism comes short in describing it because it really is not about living in what many people view as a mushy middle.
It is about- No, it's not about just everything's a compromise. It's just that- That's not what it is. That's why I always say, no, no, no, no. I'm an incrementalist. I empathize with your idea on here. Let's try one step.
Yeah.
It's about also people that want to find common ground. So no matter where you are in the political spectrum, you can work with others to see what you have in common to actually get something done. And that's how the biggest, most durable change that we've seen as a country work. When we look at the landmark pieces of legislation that have passed the Congress,
whether that was civil rights or social security or Medicare or welfare reform and a balanced budget. These things were votes of a majority of both parties doing it together and to be sustainable, not what we're seeing today.
The promise of primary reform is that for every state that adopts it, it effectively liberates both senators and the representatives from those states from being beholden to the base to being representative of the whole And so you don't need to win in all 50 states. If we can abolish party primaries in 10 states, that's 20 US senators.
It's a fifth of the Senate that actually can have more leaders who are willing to work with each other on issues of national importance. That's never been more important for the country. When I think about where we're at right now, facing the rise of artificial intelligence,
whether we get this right in terms of setting the right rules for the road, having the right oversight in place, making the right investments, that's going to be hugely consequential for our economy and national security and our society.
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Chapter 6: What reforms can help fix America's broken political system?
You know, it's clear the Constitution is going to have to deal with campaign finance issues because you can't do it legislatively. And we've got to deal with age limits. Right. I'm all for this age issue, but they're only you have to do it in the Constitution. So the point is, is that I can be, I'm almost like a squirrel with this. I'm like, ooh, I like that reform. Oh, yeah, I want to do this.
There's a lot of, I've been, you go to these gatherings too.
Chapter 7: How do primary reforms impact voter representation?
I get invited to many of these sort of gatherings, whether it's a fledgling third party movement, a fledgling reform movement, you know, those advocating a constitutional convention, the folks at the Forward Party. You've got the Open Primaries, which is another organization that's working in a similar fashion. I know there's a loose connectivity between these groups, right?
You guys, you know, you're all rowing in the same direction, but everybody has their own sort of lane and their own thing. And maybe it's you already are biased that you have to start. Do you think you feel like there is an order to the reform that's necessary here that, you know, before we get to X, we've got to do Y. And before we get to Y, we got to do Z.
Well, I think two things are true. One is we have a beautiful system of federalism in our country, and we can do this in an experimental way at the state level. And that is the way that these reforms have gotten done in the past and will today, which is states can change these rules without an act of Congress or a constitutional amendment.
And by virtue of building momentum around reform, it will put more pressure on Congress and potentially create an environment in which constitutional change is possible. So I think the state by state route is both a strategy and an opportunity to try different things. And the second thing is I and we did not start with primary reform as being our North Star. We got there through
examining what sits at the center of both what is most viable and could be most impactful. And I do think that abolishing party primaries is the biggest possible change that we can make right now that can open the window for other potential changes down the road, particularly changes that require legislatures to do something. Because
For them to do something on this issue, they need to be more representative of the population who supports these reforms than they are today. So I both support an experimental approach to this, and we support primary reform for a very particular reason, which I do think it is the most solvable problem right now.
Well, and that's the key, which is what's a problem you could solve first? And I think there's no doubt about that. This feels like a, you know, again, I called myself an incrementalist. This is an incremental step that could actually, you know, open the door to a whole bunch more of ideas. Do you find yourself frustrated that that other reform minded folks don't see this as the core problem?
I think I was frustrated in year one or year two when we're back at the same table and arguing, no, this one, no, this one, and realize we're 30 people in the room. There's 350 million people out there. Those are the folks that we need to be talking to. My orientation changed. This is a positive sum approach to a movement.
When you look at the environmental movement or other movements, there's not just one policy that they're behind. It's a diversified policy. approach, including what could be done at the state or federal level. And so it doesn't frustrate me that there are multiple potential pathways to making our democracy better.
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Chapter 8: What innovative approaches are being considered for democracy?
on particular candidates or particular policies, but we do agree that government should represent a true majority of Americans. And then let's have the argument once we have a government that can represent us.
I know you said in a few states where there's not a referendum option that you're trying to work in the state legislature. Obviously, you have to go with the lowest common denominator stuff. Is it simply allowing independence in primaries? That's about the about the best you can hope for in convincing a legislature to do something?
In the near term, I do think that legislators will take more time to bring along to more ambitious reforms. But let's remember that California adopted its all-Canada primary system by legislative referral. So some states' legislatures might be willing to at least put it on the ballot. It takes leadership, though. Governor Schwarzenegger was... instrumental in that campaign.
And when I look at incoming governors like Abigail Spanberger, who serves in one term in Virginia, maybe this is something that she'll champion as part of her legacy there to say, this will be good for the Commonwealth out into the future. Let's get this done. I think when we have executive leadership that leans into the issue, legislatures may be more likely to follow.
Look, I mean, I'm just ecstatic that as a Virginia voter, I don't have to register by party and I at least get a choice what primary, you know, and I always just find the competitive primary and I vote in it. So I, you know, Virginia is a place where you feel like no matter where, what your ideological stripe is, you at least have some say in the conversation.
But Virginia may also repeal a constitutional amendment on redistricting reform in a couple of months. And California just did it. And I look at what happened there. There was real momentum on redistricting reform just four or five years ago. And I would bet, frankly, that movement had more momentum than your movement did.
We were part of that, actually.
And it's amazing how that flipped that quickly. Are you at all, I mean, are you at all demoralized at how people who are reformers are going, yeah, but on this? I mean, I just have struggled, you know, and I've had this debate with friends out in California.
I said, look, I just don't understand why if disenfranchising voters in Texas is bad, why is the answer disenfranchising voters in California?
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