But underneath, all three tell the same story. Political parties are important. More specifically, party systems matter. How many parties you have. How they’re elected. Where they’re elected from. They’re how politics are organized — guiding how democracies operate, how politicians behave, and who ultimately ends up in power. The party system you have is a big factor in whether your democracy survives.

We have to switch to a system like the one Germany uses — we need to go from “one” to “more-than-one” winner in at least some of our legislative elections.

For some of the benefits of what that switch to proportional representation would look like — including but not limited to allowing multipartyism — I recommend this piece by New America’s Oscar Pocasangre: Eight reasons to champion proportional representation for the U.S.