What's needed (to put it in programming terms) is gradual refactoring, not a brand new system. We need to figure out small changes that can make things better.

What's needed (to put it in programming terms) is gradual refactoring, not a brand new system. We need to figure out small changes that can make things better. Once we have more confidence in the system we can start thinking about how to make bigger changes safely. Here are a couple of small tweaks that will help a bit: 1. Ditch the electoral college, elect the president by popular vote. There's a concrete proposal for doing that, the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Popular_Vote_Interstate_Compact https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Popular_Vote_Intersta... 2. Fix gerrymandering in congressional districts and state senates. Again, there's a concrete proposal, which recently won an important legal battle in Wisconsin (Whitford v Gill): http://www.fairelectionsproject.org http://www.fairelectionsproject.org Neither of those helps bust open the two-party system, but they'll at least help level the playing field so that the big two parties don't have artificial incentives biased towards special interests. Fixing voter suppression is very important. Anyone know of any good efforts afoot there? As for third parties, I think that's probably best done first at the state level. If one or more states adopt a more proportional system internally, and show it can work well, that would provide a blueprint for implementing it nationally. I guess Trump could get away with some really radical proposal, like using PR for the Senate. Both parties would almost certainly resist that though. He would need substantial popular backing, whereas every bungling decision he makes right now is making him less popular.