Mark Cuban is the outspoken owner of the Dallas Mavericks and the main host of ABC's Shark Tank. He's been open that he considered running for President as an Independent in 2020. Today, we talked with him about what the he feels are the biggest problems facing America and what a President Cuban would do about them.
Good interview. Cuban is obviously a pretty brilliant guy, but his polarization thesis, misses the point -- especially as it relates to federal politics. The big issue is the real absence of democratic accountability. The system is designed to serve the interests of the wealthy and there are multiple veto points that help to ensure that outcome. e.g. Gilens and Page's research in 2014 "Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups, and Average Citizens", which essentially demonstrates empirically the degree to which the U.S. is effectively an oligarchy. There was a great book that had similar findings a few years ago by a couple MIT Profs Pierson and Hacker "Winner-Take-All Politics", which highlights some of the mechanisms at work. State politics in Texas obviously may be a different story. Although even in that case, my sense is that it's not really a story of symmetrical bipartisan polarization (which seems to be the implicit thesis of Cuban's political critique). The issue is that one party effectively gained control of the state, and then used every tool available to insulate itself from democratic accountability. e.g. it was part of an explicit and very effective political project by guys like Karl Rove and Tom DeLay in the 1990s and early 2000s to undercut the economic base of the Democratic Party, while bolstering the interests supporting the GOP. Ideas like ranked choice voting and the CA run-off system have a lot of merit on their own too. But the fundamental problem is a lack of small "d" democratic accountability. In a small way, the primary system, is one of the few leverage points that is available. Another potential solution would be to significantly increase the number of House seats. e.g. if we had districts representing 70,000 people instead of 700,000 people, it would also be a way of fixing the problems with the electoral college without having to abolish the electoral college; it would also frustrate some of the more extreme gerrymanders. Granted the House would end up being more like a college campus, but it might be a move in the direction of small "d" democratization.
Good interview. Cuban is obviously a pretty brilliant guy, but his polarization thesis, misses the point -- especially as it relates to federal politics. The big issue is the real absence of democratic accountability. The system is designed to serve the interests of the wealthy and there are multiple veto points that help to ensure that outcome. e.g. Gilens and Page's research in 2014 "Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups, and Average Citizens", which essentially demonstrates empirically the degree to which the U.S. is effectively an oligarchy. There was a great book that had similar findings a few years ago by a couple MIT Profs Pierson and Hacker "Winner-Take-All Politics", which highlights some of the mechanisms at work. State politics in Texas obviously may be a different story. Although even in that case, my sense is that it's not really a story of symmetrical bipartisan polarization (which seems to be the implicit thesis of Cuban's political critique). The issue is that one party effectively gained control of the state, and then used every tool available to insulate itself from democratic accountability. e.g. it was part of an explicit and very effective political project by guys like Karl Rove and Tom DeLay in the 1990s and early 2000s to undercut the economic base of the Democratic Party, while bolstering the interests supporting the GOP. Ideas like ranked choice voting and the CA run-off system have a lot of merit on their own too. But the fundamental problem is a lack of small "d" democratic accountability. In a small way, the primary system, is one of the few leverage points that is available. Another potential solution would be to significantly increase the number of House seats. e.g. if we had districts representing 70,000 people instead of 700,000 people, it would also be a way of fixing the problems with the electoral college without having to abolish the electoral college; it would also frustrate some of the more extreme gerrymanders. Granted the House would end up being more like a college campus, but it might be a move in the direction of small "d" democratization.