American Democracy’s Biggest Problem Is A BROKEN CONGRESS | Chuck Todd Politics

Chuck Todd walks through his fascinating recent participation in a political crisis simulation premised on the idea that January 6th wasn't an anomaly — three teams (Institutionalists, Nationalists, and Capitalists) competed for power, and the entire exercise revolved around who could get the capitalists on their side, since their core interest was simply enrichment and instability. The most revealing detail: in the simulation, Congress barely existed and had no measurable impact on outcomes, which Chuck argues mirrors reality and exposes the deeper problem facing American democracy. His blunt verdict: America doesn't actually have a polarization problem — it has a Congress problem, because weak legislatures inevitably create strong executives, Trump simply filled the vacuum a broken Congress created, and the looming gerrymandering wars (with at least eight states set to redraw their maps before 2028) will make Congress even less functional and more purely partisan than it already is.

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