Ross Barkan is a partisan for a healthy American electoral system—his political imagination and career both depend upon it. The New York magazine columnist, who’s had stints at The Guardian and The Village Voice, writes from the left, but he often provokes bleeding hearts instead of aligning with them. In 2018, he dabbled in electoral politics as a state Senate candidate, representing his native Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, with NYC mayoral front-runner Zohran Mamdani as his campaign manager; Barkan