The election is nigh, so here’s some recent work for The Washington Post’s Opinion Section that ran with a series on political polarization. The writer Shadi Hamid took a look at where we are, how we got here and how we move forward.

Art direction by the great Michelle Kondrich.

I’m not a political scientist or editorial board member of a major newspaper, but it seems unlikely to me that this issue will be resolved until we deal with America’s counter-majoritarian institutions. In a democracy, a majority of voters are supposed to the ability to elect a government that has the power to govern. In the U.S., the Senate, cap on seats in the House of Representatives, partisan gerrymandering, Electoral College and lifetime appointments to the federal judiciary have created conditions that allow a political party that routinely receives a minority at the state and federal level to wield legislative and executive power. If this continues we won’t have a democracy much longer.

Smarter people than I have written about this. I recommend you check it out.