This Old Democracy
This Old Democracy
Podcast Description
Hosted by Micah Sifry, This Old Democracy explores the ideas, movements and people working to rescue our faltering political system -- and rebuild American democracy on a stronger, more inclusive and truly representative foundation. This podcast is produced in partnership with the Center for Ballot Freedom, a cross-partisan nonprofit dedicated to strengthening democracy.
Podcast Insights
Content Themes
The podcast centers on themes of political reform, voter empowerment, and democratic representation, with episodes covering topics like fusion voting, the challenges faced by third parties, and the historical context of electoral systems. Recent discussions include the examination of fusion voting as a way to reduce polarization and enhance electoral choices for moderate and cross-partisan voters.
Hosted by Micah Sifry, This Old Democracy explores the ideas, movements and people working to rescue our faltering political system — and rebuild American democracy on a stronger, more inclusive and truly representative foundation. This podcast is produced in partnership with the Center for Ballot Freedom, a cross-partisan nonprofit dedicated to strengthening democracy.
On the latest episode of This Old Democracy, Micah Sifry sits down with Jeff Timmer—a veteran Republican strategist turned outspoken defender of democratic norms—for a conversation that is equal parts diagnosis, warning, and blueprint for reform.
Timmer spent three decades inside the Republican Party, serving as executive director of the Michigan GOP and advising major campaigns, before becoming a senior figure at the Lincoln Project and co-founder of Republicans and Independents for Biden. What makes this episode especially compelling is that Timmer is not just naming the problem of democratic backsliding—he’s proposing a concrete structural response.
“I just want to save democracy.”
Timmer embraces the label “Never Trumper,” but he’s clear that his break with today’s GOP runs deeper than one individual. Trump, he argues, didn’t invent the rot; he accelerated it. What was once a secular, chamber-of-commerce party drifted into a theologically driven and increasingly authoritarian force long before 2016. “The cancer has metastasized. There is no saving it,” he said.
Looking toward 2026 and 2028, Timmer warns that the United States may not experience genuinely free and fair elections—not through ballot-box fraud, but through intimidation and suppression.
“We are not going to have free and fair elections in this country in 2026 or 2028.”
At the heart of the episode is Timmer’s argument for fusion voting—an old but powerful reform that allows multiple parties to nominate the same candidate and aggregate their votes. TImmer explains, “Fusion voting is a way people can cast a protest vote without throwing their vote away.”
So what are Timmer and other like-minded patriots brewing up in Michigan? Timmer is helping build Michigan’s Common Sense Party, a centrist party with a single plank: protect the Constitution, the rule of law, and democracy.
Michigan may be the testing ground, but the implications arenational. Litigation to overturn fusion voting bans is underway or imminent in several states.
Despite the gravity of his warnings, Timmer remains cautiously optimistic. “There are far more of us than there are of them—and we need to act like it.”
The challenge now is ensuring that when the public is ready to assert democratic values, our electoral system is capable of reflecting that will.
RECOMMENDED LINKS:
Jeff Timmer’s podcast: “A Republic If You Can Keep it”
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