While our parties may only from time to time have lived up to the mission of truly organizing our political discourse and developing serious nuts and bolts efforts toward major transformations that benefit our society. Yet when they have, the impact had been remarkable. So says today’s guest Daniel Schlozman and Sam Rosenfeld, political scientists and co-authors of “The Hollow Parties: The Many Pasts and Disordered Present of American Party Politics.” In the book they point to two such seminal moments in our modern history. They argue that today Democrats and Republicans are both failing us in a period of hyper partisanship that has modern roots in the 1970’s. In ways, para-political groups, or ‘party blobs’, as they call them, have assumed many of the activities previously attended to by parties. And these SuperPAC’s, think tanks, and media hosts are entwined with parties but they are not actually a part of them. So, were we better off in the days of smoke-filled backrooms and party bosses? We will discuss all of this today on the podcast.