Back Posting: The Myth of the Independent Voter

In this early lead up to the 2024 presidential election we hear a lot about the role that independent voters will play in the outcome. According to some analysis, independents — voters who are not adherents of either of the two major parties — will likely determine the outcome of the election. There also could be a major impact that results from a determined third-party movement, itself formed by candidates and voters disaffected with the two-party system. But the question I ask is the same one I raised 13 years ago, in the second year of Barack Obama’s first term: Is there really such a thing as a truly independent voter?

I am putting up now the piece I wrote then to look into this question. While there have been some significant shifts on the national electoral scene — substitute, for instance, “Maga Republicans,” Joe Biden’s derisive and divisive term of artifice for adherents to Donald Trump’s version of electoral independence, for the Tea Party movement of 2010 — I think the overall question remains a legitimate one. I offered a possible way forward in my original piece. I still think the approach presented then might still be a viable one, though I’m somewhat more skeptical today that a sufficient number of voters could coalesce around the tenets I posit as the “LCD” principles that could bring most independents together.

While actual party registrations, in states that allow voter registration by party, don’t necessarily reflect it, surveys of voters show an ever greater trend toward those who see themselves as independent — 49% versus roughly 25% who identify either as Democratic or Republican — and so that key element of my initial piece remains valid, if only more so.

Read the piece and draw your own conclusions. I’d be interested in knowing readers’ views on the question.

Originally published on May 3, 2010

In America today the largest group of registered voters is neither Democratic nor Republican. It is independent – no party affiliation. It is how I have been registered my entire voting life.

Independents form the plurality – plurality, not majority – of voters in this country today. That would appear to give independents huge political power and a force in their own right to be reckoned with.

To some extent, that is what we have seen, whether in the power of independents to elect Barack Obama President, or their power to defeat Obama candidates in Virginia, New Jersey, and most recently, Massachusetts. They have held the “swing” power, and are likely to hold it in the mid-term elections in November and very possibly in the next presidential election in 2012.

Some of the biggest proponents and promoters of this trend, such as economic and political commentator Lou Dobbs, author of the book “Independents Day,” see it as the future wave in American politics. And to some extent, Dobbs and others of like mind are right. But there are serious flaws and limitations to this theory and to the real long-term effect of the independent force in America.

The main flaw and limitation has to do with the source and driving motivation of these non-aligned voters. Many – perhaps most – are just disenchanted with and disabused of both the major political parties. Some are fed up with the state of American politics in general. Some just have not decided to pick a party (and in some states this allows them to pick which party primary in which to vote), some just want to keep their options open while still being mostly inclined to vote for one of the major parties. Or, as in my case, remaining unrecorded with any party enables us to maintain an appearance of being truly independent and unaligned, as much as the reality of our actual voting patterns might indicate otherwise.

Now this is where the theory of the independent movement is flawed and ultimately breaks down, and why I call it a myth. It is because the motivation of the independent voter is so varied and, in fact, is neither monolithic nor ideologically driven. Some have come out of the Left, believing the Democratic Party has not gone far enough in pursuing a leftist-liberal agenda, as well as others who believe it has become too liberal. Others have come out of the Republican Party, believing the G.O.P. has lost its way, has become too liberal or, for others, too conservative. And there are others – perhaps the truest of independents – who despair of both parties and the very political process and system and who want to see an overhaul of the process.

Given this diversity of origin and opinion and, ultimately, objective, this is where the theory of the power of the independent all comes unglued. Independent voters may help vote in an Obama or vote out a Corzine, but they are like an unruly herd of buffalo galloping back and forth between the fence lines of the political pasture. On closer examination, there is no given trend or makeup, whether political or ideological, to this vast herd of independents. And this is a key reason why there is no, nor can there be, any viable “Independent Party.” If we consider the two major parties fractured, so much more so would be this mythical “Independent Party.”

What we have seen are movements – or more precisely, one movement in particular – emerge from this larger movement (trend would be more accurate), and that is the Tea Party movement. While Tea Party adherents clearly derive from a range of more mainstream political views, the bulk one can say are from the right-of-center persuasion, primarily the Republican Party. And this is the issue, that there is no one center of political thought around which independents might gravitate.

Were the Tea Party movement, for instance, to congeal into a Tea Party Party, it almost certainly would be doomed to fail and, in effect, would in most cases likely serve to elect those liberal left-of-center candidates the Tea Party people would most like to unseat. No, with all due respect to Lou Dobbs and his persuasion, the independent trend as it currently stands is not a viable political force and, as such, is a myth.

That said, there may be one way and one way only to move this independent trend (I resist calling it a movement) forward into a viable and cohesive political force. And that is to distill and draw upon the points of the LCD – Least Common Denominator. Not in the pejorative sense of that term, but in the sense of getting to the very basics upon which most independents either already base their independence or to which they can be drawn.

Admittedly this is open to some argument, discussion, even disagreement, but the two that I would propose as most basic core values and to which the greatest number of independents of all origins might be drawn are adherence to Constitutional principles and fiscal responsibility. I believe that for a majority of those who now consider themselves independent, these two values are those they can most likely get behind. There might be some wiggle room in how these principles are interpreted, or how strictly they might be adhered to, but I think these are the LCD core values that would form the basis of any viable independent movement that might lead to significant electoral victories.

This would not be a third party, which I think the facts still indicate would not be viable in America, but rather would represent a shift in voting patterns that would elect candidates, regardless of party affiliation or ideology, who at least adhere to the two LCD core values.

Eventually this would result in profound and ostensibly lasting changes in the two major parties. Though what is truly needed, in the words of educational philosopher Alfred North Whitehead, is a state of continual revolt and not revolution which, in the end, just returns things to where they started. With this pressure of the independents and their insistence on adherence to the two core principles, we might then expect to see a real paradigm shift in the politics of this country and perhaps – though it is a lot to expect – a diminution of the political polarization we now see.

Ideally the two core principles might be expanded on with two additional principles – those of individual responsibility and limited government – but then one risks losing some of the adherents who can agree on the two most basic core values. These added values, however, might draw in those independents who, like me, are of a more libertarian bent. It is when things are pushed into the realm of social legislation – a range of issues that include anything from lifestyle choices to abortion – that cohesion again begins to break down. But here adherence to Constitutional principles might limit the push for such social legislation and hold things together.

In other words, you might not approve of some of my lifestyle choices any more than I might approve of yours, but the Constitution, notably the First Amendment, gives us both the right to believe and act as we wish provided we do no harm to anyone else. My desire to reach out my hand ends at the tip of your nose. Even such a recognition would mark a major step forward from where we are now with polarization of the political dialogue and everyone trying to run everyone else’s life.

Featured Image: Cutting an Independent Path, Stephen Leonardi, via Pexels. Used with permission.

Different Folks, Different Votes: Cotton Bro Studio, via Pexels. Used with permission.

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