Wholesale Primary Solution by Nick Troiano

[Simon & Schuster] In a divided America, the biggest solvable problem fueling political extremism and dysfunction is hiding in plain sight: party primaries. The Primary Solution is the “thought-provoking” (Arnold Schwarzenegger) answer the country needs. Congress has become an unproductive and unaccountable mess. Polls show that only twenty percent of Americans think it’s doing a good job—yet ninety percent of incumbents are reelected. This shocking discrepancy is a natural outcome of our system of party primaries and their polarizing incentives. Party primaries were invented over a century ago to democratize candidate nominations, but today their exclusionary rules and low turnout guarantee the exact opposite: only a small fraction of votes wind up deciding the vast majority of our elections. The result is a Congress that, rather than representing a majority of Americans, is instead beholden to the fringes of both major parties. This is the “primary problem” in our politics