The current standoff over House speaker has the potential to transform American politics. Here is what ought to happen: The moderate Democrats ought to join forces with the non-tea party Republicans to elect a speaker willing to work with this centrist majority. And then that new coalition should begin to govern, perhaps with a similar coalition in the Senate.

Is this naive? Of course it is. Any remotely hopeful view of American politics is naive these days. But it's not crazy. There are lots of reasons to believe that American politics are due for a major realignment.

America does not have two ideological blocs. It has at least four: the far left (Bernie Sanders); the center left (Hillary Clinton); the center right (traditional Republicans); and the far right (tea party). Most other industrialized democracies have at least this many parties.

The Republican House has become dysfunctional not because of the incompetence of its members (though there is plenty of that) but because the Republican Party has finally reached its breaking point. What do the religiously inspired social conservatives of the far right have in common with the small government libertarians trying to squeeze into the same tent? Not enough to govern apparently.



Hillary Clinton clearly has more in common with Jeb Bush than she does with Bernie Sanders. Similarly, Jeb Bush would find it easier to negotiate legislation with Hillary Clinton than with Ted Cruz or Ben Carson (especially if neither Bush nor Clinton were worried about fending off attacks from their own party extremists).

The problem with American politics is not that we disagree on the issues. That has been true since the founding of the republic. The problem is that the political parties no longer serve as a tool for organizing and mediating those disagreements. Instead, they exacerbate them. The tribal nature of the political parties prevents constructive governance even when a broad coalition of American voters would support it.

A majority of Americans would support tax reform, immigration reform, infrastructure investment and a host of other significant legislative steps. What's missing is a coalition of the center to sell those commonsense steps. Such a coalition would be effective and durable – if it could only rise above our current political duopoly.

Here is a thought exercise. Imagine a three-way presidential race, with Hillary Clinton and Jeb Bush running on the same ticket. The order of the ticket makes no difference whatsoever. Imagine Bernie Sanders running on the left, and one of the extremists from the Republican primary, say Ben Carson, running on the right. (Donald Trump is such a unique ideological wildcard that I'm going to leave him out for now.)



The Clinton-Bush ticket would crush the field, both because it would marginalize the political tails in each party and because it would signal to the country a commitment to govern. (And remember, neither Bush nor Clinton would have to pander to the "bases" they are now trying to please, so they would be liberated to find common ground.)

Yes, now I have wandered from naivite into fantasyland. But it's only fantasy because of the bizarrely constricted way in which we have organized politics. In most other countries on the planet, Bush and Clinton could run and win together. Or if we were to organize new political parties in America from scratch tomorrow, Bush and Clinton could easily appeal to the pragmatic center, run together and win.

America's two political parties have outlived their usefulness. They no longer usefully encapsulate the disparate views of American voters. Clinton should not be in the same primary as Sanders. Bush, John Kasich and Chris Christie should not be sharing the stage with Carson, Ted Cruz and Mike Huckabee.

The nation has gone through political realignments in the past. (Do you know any Whigs or Federalists?) The inability of the Republicans to elect a House speaker could be a catalyst for us to do it again. If a bipartisan majority in the House of Representatives were to reject the extremists in their parties and elect a speaker (Republican or Democrat) to govern from the center, that new coalition could transform American politics.