Writing
Featured
The New York Times · 2025
How to Fix America’s Two-Party Problem
With Jesse Wegman, January 14, 2025
Vox · 2025
The 65-year-old theory that helps explain why the Democrats keep losing
September 3, 2025
Undercurrent Events
Lee's newsletter on democracy, parties and reform.
The Democratic Party is about to make the most predictable mistake in American politicsDemocrats will win in 2026 and 2028. The problem is winning in a system with a two-year half-life.March 23, 2026
The moderation debate fiddles with 2% while democracy’s dimensionality collapsesPresidential vote now determines 98% of House outcomes.October 29, 2025
Why you can’t just ban gerrymanderingFair maps require a definition of fair. There isn’t one. There are infinite ones.May 26, 2026
Latest posts
- “Open the primaries” is the wrong answer to the right questionJune 11, 2026
- Campaign finance reform for a multiparty AmericaMay 29, 2026
- Why you can’t just ban gerrymanderingMay 26, 2026
Selected articles
Since 2023, most of Lee's writing appears in Undercurrent Events. Browse it by topic.
2026
“US democracy has repaired itself before. Here’s how we can do it again.”, Vox, February 2026
2025
“How to break the doom loop of modern American politics” (with Barry Burden), Wisconsin State Journal, November 2025
“How a simple electoral change could marginalize political extremism”, The Contrarian, September 2025
“Why America Has the World’s Oldest Politicians”, Governing, September 8, 2025
“The 65-year-old theory that helps explain why the Democrats keep losing”, Vox, September 3, 2025
“Is There Room in American Politics for the Don Bacons of the World?” (with Dustin Wahl), Ripon Forum, September 2025
“What Elon Musk Gets Wrong About Our Broken Political System”, Politico, July 8, 2025
“The big reason why Republicans should worry about an angry Elon Musk”, Vox, June 2025
“Democrats keep saying America is an ‘oligarchy.’ Is that true?”, Vox, April 28, 2025
“How to Fix America’s Two-Party Problem” (with Jesse Wegman), The New York Times, January 14, 2025
2024
“The Case for More Parties” (lead essay in forum), Boston Review, Summer 2024
“One Real Step Toward Transforming Congress” (with Cerin Lindgrensavage and Robert Oldham), Politico Magazine, April 9, 2024
“RFK Jr. is poised to be a chaos factor in November”, CNN Opinion, March 28, 2024
“The two-party doom loop”, The Boston Globe, February 23, 2024
“The Confusion About the U.S. Economy Reveals Everything About Politics Today”, Time, February 23, 2024
“America’s Political Divide Is Poisoning Our Food” (with Dustin Wahl), Mother Jones, January 31, 2024
2023
“The Only Way to Fix Congress” (with Dustin Wahl), Time, October 2023
“Matt Gaetz Is Half Right: The House leadership model is obsolete. But Gaetz is part of the problem.”, The Atlantic, October 9, 2023
“PR and Presidentialism: Yes, We Can” (with Scott Mainwaring), Democracy: A Journal of Ideas, Fall 2023
“Our two-party political system isn’t working. The fix? More parties.”, The Washington Post, July 5, 2023
“Wish You Had More Political Choice? The Answer Isn’t a Third-Party Candidate.”, Slate, July 3, 2023
“The Presidential Race Could Use a Third Party—But Not a Third Candidate”, The Bulwark, June 2023
“This one reform could fix our broken elections” (with Aziz Huq), The Dallas Morning News, January 21, 2023
2022
“What We Lose When We Lose Competitive Districts” FiveThirtyEight, June 2022
“How Democracies Revive,” Niskanen Center, April 2022
2021
“Why Bipartisanship in the Senate is Dying,” FiveThirtyEight, September 2021
“Why The Two-Party System Is Effing Up U.S. Democracy,” FiveThirtyEight, June 2021
“How much Longer Can this Era of Political Gridlock Last?” FiveThirtyEight, March 2021
2020 and earlier
"The two-party system is killing our democracy," Vox, January 2020
"The two-party system broke the Constitution, The Atlantic, January 2020
"Let a Thousand Parties Bloom, Foreign Policy, October 2019
"To save our democracy (and our sanity), blow up the two-party system," Boston Globe, October 2020
"Escaping the Partisan Death Spiral," Cato Institute Policy Report, August 2020
"How Hatred Came to Dominate American Politics," FiveThirtyEight, October 2020
“Why There Are So Few Moderate Republicans Left,” FiveThirtyEight, August 2020
"The Case for Proportional Voting," National Affairs, Winter 2018
"Hyperpartisanship could destroy US democracy," Vox, September 2017
"The Best Way to Fix Gerrymandering Is to Make It Useless," New York Times, June 2018
On why the 2020s will be a decade of reform
"The Republican and Democratic Parties Are Heading for Collapse", Foreign Policy, September 2020
"Trump's Election May Have Been the Shock We Needed", New York Times, November 2019