The Weeds: could more corruption fix American politics?

Yes, the New Hampshire primary was this week — and we found an especially wonky way to talk about it.

There's a paper that came out last year called "Political Realism: How Hacks, Machines, Big Money, and Back-Room Deals Can Strengthen American Democracy." If you're a listener of The Weeds, you'll almost certainly find it fascinating.

Author Jonathan Rauch argues that deals, rewards, and favors are all essential parts of actually making the government work. If political parties were stronger — if individuals could donate lots of money, rather than a little — he thinks the government would be able to get even more done.

Listen to Ezra, Matt, and me dive into what this means for the 2016 election in this week's episode — which you can find, as always, below and on iTunes.

Show notes:

• Ray La Raja's book that Matt mentions is Campaign Finance and Political Polarization. You can download it here.
• Alan Abramowitz's book The Disappearing Center
• Matt on how Hillary would make deals — and why liberals might not like it
• Ezra on why Republicans might not actually want to make deals
• Ezra on why we shouldn't be laughing about Trump anymore
• Tim Lee explains why the US Trade Representative's office works
• The case for earmarks on Vox