The current political system doesn’t allow for a full range of views, leaving us with a downsized politics that excludes many options that would help the majority of Americans. This is what The Nation’s Katrina vanden Heuvel argues on CNN‘s In the Arena with Reason magazine’s Nick Gillespie. The political polarization holding our nation hostage is less a result of the separation between Democrats and Republicans and more of a disconnect between the beltway and the rest of the country, she says.

Vanden Heuvel points to the unpopularity of Paul Ryan’s budget and the war in Afghanistan as two strong examples that clearly reveal that most Americans are not being represented by our government.

—Sara Jerving