What is happening here? It’s simple: The Democrats have FOBO, or Fear of a Better Option.

Haven’t heard of FOBO? Let me tell you where it comes from.

Back in 2004, while I was a student at Harvard Business School, I coined the term FOMO in an essay for the school newspaper. In the piece, I skewered a student culture that was permeated by “Fear of Missing Out,” thanks to the seemingly unlimited menu of things to do on campus. All these years later, FOMO has been added to the dictionary, but the other acronym in my column—FOBO—has languished in obscurity.

It shouldn’t. FOBO is becoming only more trenchant in modern life, political and otherwise. When you’re faced with a proliferation of choices, and you know you can’t predict the future well enough to know how your choice will turn out, you’re driven to keep all of your options open for as long as possible. Who knows—you may have even more choices if you keep waiting. In other words, having too many options leads to decision paralysis.

The upcoming Iowa caucuses tell the story. With the large field of candidates and a voter pool that is feeling the FOBO, indecision might emerge victorious on February 3. Seriously, indecision could actually win the caucuses. It might be unlikely, but here’s how it would work. Under the rules for the Iowa caucuses, upon arriving to their caucus site voters will declare a first-choice candidate. They may also choose to remain “uncommitted.” At that point, any candidate (including uncommitted) that surpasses 15 percent support in the initial “alignment” will move on to the next round while the rest will be eliminated. If enough voters declare themselves uncommitted early on, the winner of the Iowa caucuses may end up being … no candidate at all. In such a scenario, Iowa would be represented by a slate of FOBO delegates that could further muddle a close race later on. If you think that sounds crazy, think again. Uncommitted won the caucuses twice back in the 1970s.

Why Are Democratic Voters Stuck?

The first thing to understand about FOBO is that it’s everywhere. Most Americans have slowly awoken to the reality that they live in a world of overwhelming choice. Thanks to Amazon, Seamless, Tinder and Netflix, whether you’re shopping for everyday household items, ordering food, dating or choosing what to watch, you are drowning in options. Making even mundane decisions has become incredibly time-consuming, and stressful, because of the piles of perfectly acceptable possibilities at your disposal. As a result, you spend precious time and energy poring over all of your possible choices only to procrastinate well past the point when you should have decided. You also increase the chance that you will never decide at all: FOBO is the reason that we live in an age that David Brooks calls the “Golden Age of Bailing.” If you just can’t bring yourself to commit, you are prone to never pick anything at all.

Over the past several years, I’ve studied how FOBO has gradually infiltrated daily life, from choosing how you spend your time to how you run your business. Now, the 2020 election cycle has provided the ideal conditions for FOBO to spread to politics.

You cannot have FOBO without choice. This year, an unprecedented field of over 25 candidates threw their hats into the ring. With a cast of characters that has at times included governors, members of Congress, mayors, billionaires and a former vice president, voters are spoiled for choice. In this field, there is something for everyone. There are so many candidates that it can prove difficult to tell them apart, as is particularly evident when they’re herded together in groups of 10 or more, as they were in six of the eight debates thus far.

Trying to pick a favorite candidate when the stage is crowded with faces familiar and unknown is as overwhelming as choosing what to stream on Netflix. So much selection often feels bewildering, especially when a late choice enters the field. It can feel nearly impossible to make sense of it all.

Voters are also drowning in information. The election has overtaken the national narrative, hijacked the internet and consistently dominated the news cycle. A ceaseless onslaught of political advertising and news—fake or otherwise—only serves to exacerbate analysis paralysis. This has caused voters to sit on the sidelines. Why not wait for the next debate, the next hot take, or next the clash on Twitter to make up your mind? Rather than make a decision, you can kick the can down the road, live in the maybe and avoid the hard work of choosing just one option.

When the Perfect is the Enemy of the Good

The problem with FOBO is that it cultivates a sense of ambiguity and dissatisfaction among voters who are otherwise laser-focused on choosing a candidate who can beat President Trump. For 40 percent of Democrats, the most important trait in a candidate is that person’s ability to win in the general election. In fact, beating Trump polls ahead of kitchen table issues like healthcare (12 percent), the economy (14 percent), and the environment (8 percent) taken together. Despite this shared aspiration, the lack of consensus means that the race has the potential to drag on for months, consuming financial support that could be directed toward the general election and cultivating damaging internecine feuds. Rather than celebrating the diverse and talented set of candidates vying for their support, voters will risk looking for the “perfect” candidate (hint: there’s no such thing) and many will end up disappointed and filled with regret regardless of who prevails at the convention.

This is clearly not the outcome that Democratic Party envisioned when it designed the primary process.

If the Democratic Party wants to avoid FOBO in the future, what can be done? It could start by adopting a democratic reform that is gaining ground in pockets of the country: ranked-choice voting. Under such a system, voters select a first-choice candidate but then have the option of ranking other candidates as well. When votes are tabulated, the least popular candidate is removed, and his or her votes are reassigned based on each voter’s personal ranking. This instant run-off process is repeated until one candidate reaches 50 percent support. In this way, ranked-choice voting eliminates the agony and the FOBO of picking just one name on the ballot; voters can have their cake and eat it too. Meanwhile, candidates recognize that they have to do more than just win a plurality of voters. Instead, they must cultivate a broad swath of support so that they can accumulate additional support during the instant run-off process. For precisely these reasons, voters have recently passed referendums that are leading to its adoption in Maine and New York City and other states and municipalities may soon follow.

Ironically, while Democrats struggle to coalesce around a candidate, the GOP has done the exact opposite. So far at least nine states have scrapped their primaries and will effectively award their delegates to the president. While that move has provoked an outcry from parts of the party, it seems that the GOP is feeling so anxious about winning in 2020 that it’s decided there is no room at all for FOBO this year. While that might be a win for the president, it’s a win that comes at the detriment of voters. If you value democratic principles one thing is clear: Voters are better off having to deal with a Fear of Better Options—and having a vote—than having no options at all.