It’s true that 45% of voters claim they are independent. However, it’s not because they don’t identify as R or D, it’s because being an R or D, no longer means anything. Parties used to create platforms, and candidates were chosen to support those platforms. Today, it’s the other way around. We find popular candidates, and platforms are developed around them! Thus, today’s R is more like a 1996 D, and regardless of what they stand for, the most important thing to them is what they stand against. How can a Democrat today be against any tariff? That had been a party platform for decades. They are against it because a Republican was for it. Our 45% independents don’t lean to R or D, but they do lean towards the old party identifications for social and economic issues. I, as what I like to call myself a Conservative Libertarian, am a fiscal hawk that doesn’t care what anyone does as long as it doesn’t affect anyone else.
Michael, I think you’ve put your finger on an important change. Parties once stood for relatively recognizable governing philosophies and platforms, and candidates were expected to fit within them. Increasingly, the personality comes first and the party adjusts around the candidate.
That may also help explain why so many people call themselves independent while still holding views that historically fit somewhere within the Democratic or Republican traditions. They may not have abandoned their principles so much as stopped believing the party labels reliably describe them.
The question for me is whether we can build a political organization around a coherent set of principles again, while still leaving room for people to disagree without being treated as disloyal. That would be a very different kind of party from what we have today.
I believe we have a meeting today in a couple of hours and can discuss this in more detail, but in the meantime let’s think about taking away all party identity from the voting booth. At least remove the labels on the ballots, because they don’t mean anything anymore.
It’s true that 45% of voters claim they are independent. However, it’s not because they don’t identify as R or D, it’s because being an R or D, no longer means anything. Parties used to create platforms, and candidates were chosen to support those platforms. Today, it’s the other way around. We find popular candidates, and platforms are developed around them! Thus, today’s R is more like a 1996 D, and regardless of what they stand for, the most important thing to them is what they stand against. How can a Democrat today be against any tariff? That had been a party platform for decades. They are against it because a Republican was for it. Our 45% independents don’t lean to R or D, but they do lean towards the old party identifications for social and economic issues. I, as what I like to call myself a Conservative Libertarian, am a fiscal hawk that doesn’t care what anyone does as long as it doesn’t affect anyone else.
Michael, I think you’ve put your finger on an important change. Parties once stood for relatively recognizable governing philosophies and platforms, and candidates were expected to fit within them. Increasingly, the personality comes first and the party adjusts around the candidate.
That may also help explain why so many people call themselves independent while still holding views that historically fit somewhere within the Democratic or Republican traditions. They may not have abandoned their principles so much as stopped believing the party labels reliably describe them.
The question for me is whether we can build a political organization around a coherent set of principles again, while still leaving room for people to disagree without being treated as disloyal. That would be a very different kind of party from what we have today.
I believe we have a meeting today in a couple of hours and can discuss this in more detail, but in the meantime let’s think about taking away all party identity from the voting booth. At least remove the labels on the ballots, because they don’t mean anything anymore.