Why there are more Independents than Democrats or Republicans
Bo Brusco | January 27, 2022
Around 40% of Americans have identified as Independent since 2011, according to Gallup. One need not look far into the past, or even the present, to see why most Americans are disenchanted with the other two parties.
Gallup Poll shows shift in Electorate
As I recently reported for The Lynnwood Times, a new poll from Gallup illustrates a shift in the electorate. Essentially, the percent of Americans who identify as Liberal or left-leaning has dramatically dwindled as Biden’s approval ratings plummet.
This shift is noteworthy because Democrats have historically held the endorsement edge over Republicans. In fact, at the beginning of 2021, Democrats held a solid 9-point lead over Republicans, a lead they’ve held since about 1991—with the exceptions of 2001 to 2003 and 2010 to 2011. So the fact that 2021 ended with Republicans having a 5-point advantage (47%) over Democrats (42%) is significant, to say the least.
Image from Gallup.
But for me, the most important data in this Gallup report was that Independents have been the majority in America since 2011. Yes, since 2011, an average of 40% of Americans have initially identified as independents, while only 29% identified as Democrats and 27% as Republican.
The “initial” identification refers to Gallup’s surveying method. For example, the data in this particular report came from interviewing 12,000 randomly sampled adults in the U.S. In these interviews, Gallup asks Americans to identify as Democrat, Republican, or Independent. However, those who identify initially as Independent are asked a follow-up question: “whether they lean more toward the Republican or Democratic Party.”
Image from Gallup
Upon discovering that independents largely outnumber either of the popular parties, I was first, encouraged; every election cycle Americans are told that voting independent is throwing away your vote—but according to this data, that’s only true because too many of us believe that claim.
Second, I was actually unsurprised. It stands to reason that most Americans are disenchanted with both parties—I definitely am. I’ve long believed that both parties are so hypocritical that they’re basically the same useless party, they’re just separated by tribalism in its most petty form.
I actually set out to write factually why it is that there are more Independents than Democrats or Republicans, but as you can imagine, it didn’t end up sounding very objective. My publisher said it sounded too much like someone who was dissatisfied with both parties (duh), and I decided to scrap it. But, after adding a bit more to it, I decided to publish it here. Enjoy.
Why are there more Independents than Democrats or Republicans?
The political left and right are becoming less recognizable by their founding principles and more interested in tribal warfare, identity politics, and virtue signaling—expending their efforts on surface-level squabbles that have zero impact on the American people. Perhaps no time in history depicts this truth more than the beginning of June 2020.
Amidst the confusion, fear, and chaos of the COVID-19 lockdowns and the racial tensions following George Floyd’s murder, the faces of the two parties took to the theater. On June 1, 2020, President Trump posed with a bible for a photoshoot in front of St. Johns Church in D.C. A week and a day later, Nancy Pelosi and Senate Democrats knelt in silence in the capital building, wearing kente-cloth stoles.
For me, that 8-day period was profound. I looked at Trump’s photoshoot and scoffed. I thought, “yeah, that’s really what we need right now.” But when I saw Pelosi and friends doing the same, I was in disbelief. “Wow, really?! Is there not a single politician who is actually interested in taking action?” I wondered.
Then, while America was in lockdown, essential workers continued to stock shelves, make coffees, and keep hospitals afloat. Meanwhile, government offices, even at the city level, basically slowed business down to a halt—drastically increasing process times for unemployment and workers comp claims. And though many politicians sang the praises of those deemed essential, calling them “heroes,” Congress failed to pass any sort of hazard pay for them.
Next was the dismantling of confederate statues. Regardless of one’s opinion on the matter, the fact remains that said removal did little to help marginalized Black Americans. According to the 2020 Census, Black Americans still maintain the highest poverty rate in the country (19.5%).
This trend of making surface-level gestures without enacting significant policy or substantial action continues today. While the middle and lower classes trudge through economic setbacks caused by the pandemic and record-high inflation prices, America’s leaders consider doubling the IRS’s auditing efforts—a move which might include requiring banks to report IRS transactions over $600.
To add insult to injury, members of Congress—who make laws that affect individuals and businesses alike—are allowed to get rich from trading stock. In fact, data compiled by unusualwhales.com estimates that 35 members of congress made more from stock trading in 2021 than SPY, an exchange-traded fund that owns all the stocks in the Standard & Poor's 500 index.
But instead of taking action to help the average American, politicians dabble in tic-for-tac battles on Twitter and launch their own podcast shows—ever finding new mediums through which they can make empty gestures to their respective tribes.
Unprincipled: Democratic Party
And as far as principles are concerned, both parties seemed to have strayed from their fundamental differences. Back in 2012, Psychologist Jonathan Haidt gave a Ted Talk titled, “The moral roots of liberals and conservatives.” Going beyond principles, Haidt examines the fundamental values of both parties.
At the beginning of his talk, Haidt states that Liberal people are more open to new experiences. “It really is a fact that Liberals are much higher than conservatives on a major personality trait called ‘Openness to Experience,’” Haidt explains. “People who are high on openness to experience just crave novelty, variety, diversity, new ideas, [and] travel. People low on it like things that are familiar—that are safe and dependable.”
Comparing this hallmark of the Liberal Left to a recent poll from Axios offers insight into how political tribes may no longer be guided by their morals. The poll surveyed 850 college students nationwide in November 2021 and found that 37% of college-aged Democrats “would not be friends with someone who voted for the opposing presidential candidate,” compared to only 5% of Republican students.
What’s more, 71% of Democrat students said they would not “go out on a date” with someone who voted for the opposing presidential candidate, whereas only 31% of Republicans said the same.
Of course, this survey was relatively small, focused solely on college students, and may say more about how the younger generation feels towards certain presidential candidates than an entire political party. Nonetheless, it is noteworthy that these members of the open-minded political tribe might be more close-minded now than their tribal opposites.
Examining Biden’s presidency through this same lens of open-mindedness, one could argue that the Democrat President is uninterested in new experiences or change. While this is disappointing for all who hoped Biden would make good on his campaign promises—like the one about student loan forgiveness—it shouldn’t come as a surprise.
During his presidential campaign, Biden addressed potential donors at a fundraiser in June 2019. He told them he didn’t want to “demonize” the wealthy before acknowledging that he believed the income equality issues should be addressed. But then he assured them that “no one’s standard of living will change, nothing will fundamentally change.”
Stacking Axios’s findings up with the Democratic Party’s proclaimed beliefs creates a salient juxtaposition. The party’s official website reads, “Our party is strong because it’s built on advancing our Democratic platform and forging positive solutions that include everyone. As Democrats, we believe that every person in this nation should be treated with dignity and respect” (emphasis added).
It could be argued, then, that this defining principle of inclusion is disposable when it comes to members of the opposing tribe, resulting in a heightened sense of exclusivity and stripping this core principle of its meaning.
Unprincipled: The GOP
In his Ted Talk, Haidt shares the results from a 2012 questionnaire that sampled over 30,000 people from various countries. The survey revealed how the Liberal left and Conservative right value different moral principles over others. One principle that Conservatives endorsed significantly more than Liberals was Ingroup Loyalty, which may explain Conservatives’ affinity for order, tradition, familiarity, and not to mention borders.
Trump famously ran his presidential campaign on the promise to build a wall at the U.S.-Mexico board. During his Presidential Announcement Speech, Trump said, “I would build a great wall, and nobody builds walls better than me, believe me, and I’ll build them very inexpensively. I will build a great great wall on our southern border, and I’ll have Mexico pay for that wall.”
But in today’s Republican Party, commonly referred to now as “the party of Trump,” loyalty seems more like a grifting tactic than an actual principle. As Conservatives set out to build this wall, a nonprofit called “We Build The Wall” led fundraising efforts to realize Trump’s promise. However, hardly any of the money raised actually went to the wall.
According to The Texas Tribune, the organization’s leaders, former Trump advisor Steve Bannon and “We Build The Wall” Founder Brian Kolfage, pocketed the majority of said funds. But stealing from the pockets of their own supporters is nothing new or foreign for the Republican Party, and Trump himself is an expert.
From his “Stop the Steal” campaign to his innumerable emails requesting payments for Trump club memberships have all proven to be nothing more than a multifaceted grift.
On an especially heinous occasion, The New York Times reported how Trump tricked his average Joe donors into making recurring payments—accruing over thousands of dollars in some cases. How can a party that historically values loyalty participate in such widespread financial cannibalism?
What’s more, the GOP’s official website now cites election integrity as one of its fundamental principles. “The Republican Party has always stood for freedom, prosperity, and opportunity,” the site reads.
“Today, as those principles come under attack from the far-left, we are engaged in a national effort to fight for our proven agenda, take our message to every American, grow the party, promote election integrity, and elect Republicans up and down the ballot.”
Forgoing the argument that a party that aims to strip all women of their right to physical autonomy clearly doesn’t care that much about freedom, it seems hypocritical of the party to suggest it values election integrity.
At the end of 2021, The Guardian reported that Republicans introduced 262 bills in 41 states “with the intent to hijack the election process.” The article attributes these hijacking efforts to Trump’s “Stop the Steal” campaign, stating, “The largest number of bills is concentrated in precisely those states that became the focus of Trump’s Stop the Steal campaign to block the peaceful transfer of power after he lost the 2020 presidential election to Joe Biden.”
In addition to these Bills, GOP leaders have also conducted intense gerrymandering since the 2020 election. The best explanation for the party’s actions is that it has a biased interpretation of what “election integrity” means. The worst explanation would be that it cares more about obtaining power than any of its aforementioned principles—not unlike its Liberal counterparts.
Indistinguishable Parties
It’s no wonder that when choosing between Democrats or Republicans, a significant portion of Americans would prefer to be Independent. As the mainstream parties have long ceased to be led by their principles and are seemingly uninterested in helping their own, it’s almost as if the Democratic and Republican parties have become synonymous. The only difference remaining is between blue and red.
