That’s actually been the case for a while, but the trend seems to be accelerating, with Independents now at 42%, Dems at 31%, and Republicans at 25%. Most of the folks shifting over to “Independent” are coming from the Republicans (the Democrats aren’t doing all that hot, but have been stable the past few years).The big question is what this actually means for elections. Certainly nobody can win without a chunk of that Independent plurality, but it makes primary and other party-focused contests more dependent on the extremes. And is the change only label-deep, with folks unhappy over calling themselves Republican but still identifying with GOP political positions? Does it make parties — the GOP in particular — that much more dependent on big money donors? Does it increase pressure for open primaries? Does it make that much difference when people tend to vote for incumbents, and “hate” Congress but “love” their Congressman?
Record-High 42% of Americans Identify as Independents
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I've been listed as an Independent since I started voting at 18. Even though I tend to side with the Democrats more often than not, they've still done enough stuff to piss me off such that I feel no need to declare my loyalty to them.
The problem isn't with the electorate. The problem is with two parties that have set themselves up to relate only to their base, not the middle. The GOP is raising a $50 million war chest just to fight its own internal battle against extremists in the primaries. Unfortunately, those in power get to make the rules and the rules of Washington DC mean that ditching the two party system as it stands today is incredibly difficult.
Despite what people want to think, Occupy Wall Street wasn't some extreme left wing thing — It was really an attempt to see if they could put any cracks at all in that wall. The results are that it is going to be more difficult than people thought.
It's not unachievable, but the road is fraught with peril. A constitutional convention to prevent gerrymandering, for instance, would open up a whole can of worms. An amendment process would work better, but would require huge state to state battles to get it done and keep DC out of the loop.
I'm personally a fan of doing an end run around gerrymandering and making the house of representatives significantly larger. Something along the lines of this: http://www.thirty-thousand.org/ is much closer to what our founders had in mind for an actual representative government.
I wonder if I started the "Disillusioned Party" how many people would register out of sheer snark?
+Les Jenkins Margie has generally been registered Independent, mostly to avoid getting phone calls and junk mail.
I'm registered Dem, not so much because the party and its standard-bearers have always made me happy (definitely not) but because I find it a convenient label that matches, in its professed ideals, what I support and want to show solidarity with.
+John Frost I think the only way to break the two party system is for folks to quit the two parties — which is happening — and for that to eventually gel into a third (or fourth) party that garners enough support to force a change in the statutory structure that supports the two party system. I doubt that will be any of the existing third parties, which are as marginal and extremist along their own axes as the GOP and Dem "base" is.
The problem is that the two main parties, yes, are forced to pander to their bases on either end (though I'm not convinced that, for the Dems at least, the "Independents" are all to the right of them, vs simply being Democrats-Only-Not-In-Name) while in many elements being a centrist party beholden to monied interests; I think this is more true for the GOP, but the Dems suffer from it as well.
Some structural changes might break some of the current systemic issues — gerrymandering, increasing the HoR, etc. — but getting them through any sort of process would be difficult in the ideal (as designed) and even more difficult for the interests that would be lined up against them.
+John Frost you're only half right, or only recently so. We have very short collective memories.
Doesn't anyone remember when, from the New Democrats/Contract for America era to oh, somewhere between Dean and Obama, when literally for DECADES all anyone did was complain about the Republicrats? That you couldn't tell the diff between the parties by platform or position because they were chasing the unregistered middle of the road types.
And then, a couple years ago, the marketing peeps told them that was wearing thin.
Within 18 months they were, and always had been, entirely polarized on everything. It was amazing. And the press, the public… no one seemed to acknowledge the emperor's new clothes. Either party. Surreal. You can track the fewmets in Google.
Yup. We've always been at war with Eurasia. <shudder>
I vote libertarian whenever possible
In some respects, the two major political parties are partnering to maintain the status quo.
Two examples: the "Commission on Presidential Debates," which took over the presidential debates from the League of Women Voters, and "top two" voting systems, in which the top two candidates in the primary, regardless of party, and ONLY those two candidates, make it to the general election.
In such a system, +Rick Gary *CAN'T* vote for the Libertarian; in fact, he may have a "choice" between two Republicans, or between two Democrats (which happened in two Congressional elections in my area in 2012).
I'm not a complete conspiracy-loving cynic, but I believe that the grandstanding fights over things such as the budget and the debt ceiling conveniently obscure the fact that on many issues, the two major political parties are in complete agreement on one thing – incumbents shall prevail.
+John E. Bredehoft Agreed. I don't think it's just about that, but both parties have quietly agreed that they'll be the only game in town, and rigged the system to make that the case.
Proportional representation ends up like the Knesset where every ruling coalition ends up with one or two bug f**k crazy parties in their mix to make up the numbers.
That’s worse . . . oh crap. GOP and the Tea Party.
@Randy — Yeah, Israel and Italy demonstrate how lots of parties cause problems while solving others.