But are you suggesting that more partisanship, right, more partisanship is necessary to achieve what you call democratic renewal in your report? And then I think another question I would have is, what do you mean by democratic renewal? Like, what does that mean?

A great and challenging question.

So partisanship is a word that has really negative connotations now.

We may think of hostile or affective partisanship where all you care about is the victory of your own team, your party, or the kind of complete wipeout of the other team.

And we know from survey evidence that Americans speak, well, some Americans speak in increasingly hostile terms about other parties and that kind of thing.

However...

The main trend in American politics is that more and more people are fleeing the party system entirely.

But is that not underscoring the importance of robust party organizations at the state level?

But before I do that, I just wanted to ask you two, because it, it certainly appeared that way to me, and it seems to be very kind of discordant with, um, traditional or the kind of prevalent view of parties today, but are you suggesting that more partisanship, right, more partisanship is necessary to achieve what you call democratic renewal in your report? And then I think a- another question I would have is, what do you mean by democratic renewal? Like, what does that mean?

A great and challenging question.

So partisanship is a word that has really negative connotations now.

We may think of hostile or affective partisanship, where all you care about is the victory of your own team, your party, or the kind of complete wipeout of the other team.

And we know from survey evidence that Americans speak-- well, some Americans speak in increasingly hostile terms about other parties, um, and that kind of thing.

However, the main trend in American politics is that more and more people are fleeing the party system entirely.

So independents now constitute a plurality of how the American electorate identifies, and independents are systematically less likely to participate in politics or more likely to feel cynical about the political system.

But is that not underscoring the importance of robust party organizations at the state level?