TED Talk: Building a Science of Democracy Repair
Your pre-debate viewing on the aftermath of the 2024 election - and how you can affect it, wherever you are.
As we all wait for tonight’s 9:00pm (Eastern) debate between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump, the Presidential race is apparently right on a knife edge. So are control of the Senate and the House. Within polling error, it is possible that Democrats end up in charge of all three. It is also possible for Republicans being in charge of all three.
No pressure.
Whatever happens this November at the federal level, democracy is in a rickety state. The demographics and the politics of the United States have changed faster than institutions have been able to keep up. It is time for serious repairs.
Whether Harris or Trump wins, in 2025 there will be paths to conduct those repairs. By channeling our inner federalist, we can work at multiple levels - national, state, and local - to represent people better. But what ideas should we pursue?
Today, TED and the Rockefeller Foundation are releasing my talk on how to build a science of democracy repair. It’s available at go.ted.com/samwang. Watch it before the debate, instead of all the commentary. Or watch it now:
Here, I talk about how data and computational simulation can identify effective and practical ways to make government more responsive to all voters - not just Democrats and Republicans, but all of us. Whether it’s anti-gerrymandering legislation, ranked-choice voting, open primaries, or third-party candidacies, we need ways to understand when these changes will work, when they won’t work, and even when they might backfire.
If you’re inspired by the call to action, you can put data analytics to work right now! Maximize your individual power to make change in democracy. The newly-revamped Vote Maximizer shows you where you have the power, not just by who you elect this year, but by long-term changes to the rules of democracy you can support in a state near you. Try Vote Maximizer today.
