Political independents nearing 50% of voters

Submitted by gjohnsit on Sat, 07/06/2019 - 4:03pm

That graph is from Gallup.

In nine states registered independents are the dominant party.

In about half the states that register voters by party, independent voters outnumber at least one of the two major political parties. But here are 9 states where independents not only outnumber registered Republicans AND Democrats

You would think that this overwhelming number of voters would cause politicians to pander, or at least respect independents.
It doesn't.

In California, independents outnumber Republicans. Yet independents are systematically disenfranchised.

Check out how independents are dismissed by the MSM.

After doing some searches it occurred to me that all the articles that dismissed independents come from the Democratic-leaning press.
The same press that dismisses progressive voters and causes, and the same political party that tells it's base to give up on achieving progressive policies.

The most patronizing example I could find was in Vox.

We conducted more than a dozen experiments and surveys across the country and came to the following conclusion. To put it plainly:
People think that being independent is cool.
...
Myth 4: The rise of independents could give way to a third party
...
Myth 5: Independents decide elections...If Americans are merely hiding their party preferences beneath the label "independent," it is unlikely that they are open to being swayed by the party with the most convincing agenda.

This comes from the same group think that has decided that anyone who votes for a Green Party candidate is a "spoiler" because Democrats are entitled to those votes, even if they have no intention of representing those voters.

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Submitted by gjohnsit on Sat, 07/06/2019 - 4:33pm

How Dems really feel about you

Or this Politico article from 2016.

But Sanders’ most dogged grassroots supporters have not disappeared.
They might have left the Daily Kos, but instead they’ve dispersed to more obscure, leftist corners of the Internet, where they are plotting their next moves. Taking up the hashtags #StillSanders and #NeverHillary, Sanders’ staunchest allies—who range from Democrats to Greens to unaffiliated renegades—are lurking in Reddit forums like “Kossacks_for_Sanders,” on emerging niche blogs such as Caucus99Percent and The Progressive Wing, and on YouTube vlogs like “The Sane Progressive,” where their fervor for the candidate and his progressive ideals is still very much alive.

In the wake of Sanders’ endorsement of Clinton (“the dreaded e-word,” as one Caucus99Percent blogger put it), their end game is no longer the White House—at least in this election cycle. But they still think their movement is viable, and they believe it will launch in earnest when they “occupy” the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia later this month to influence the party’s platform and pressure superdelegates to switch allegiance to Sanders. On postings around the Internet and interviews with Politico Magazine, they say that peaceful pro-Sanders protests at the convention, which have the support of more than 30,0000 Sanders voters on Facebook, will pave the way for future progressive candidates to run on grassroots funding.

The purists among these online activists describe their movement principally as one of populist ideals, including mass political mobilization, combating income equality, creating a more progressive tax system and stopping climate change. But a large faction of the movement is also made up of political misfits united in contempt for core elements of today’s Democratic Party: superdelegates, the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement, Democratic National Committee chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz, corporate media and money, what they believe to be widespread election fraud—and, of course, Clinton herself, despite her pending nomination. “What I hope Sanders’ fight does is mobilize the base to organize outside of the Democratic Party, which is and has been for years and obstacle to progressive change,” Joe Shikspack, founder of Caucus99Percent, told me in an interview in the days ahead of Sanders’ endorsement of Clinton.

On “Kossacks_for_Sanders”—a subreddit founded by user “mahakali overdrive,” who is actually a California-based humanities professor—commenters have slammed the Democratic Party’s support of the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal, and rebuked the Justice Department’s decision not to indict Clinton for her use of a private email server at the State Department. Following Sanders’ endorsement of Clinton, some users demanded a “DemExit,” a formal renouncement of the Democratic Party à la “Brexit.” Mahakali overdrive herself, a lifelong Democrat, says she’s not only refusing to vote for Clinton—she will not vote for any politician who is “complicit in endorsing Clinton.” (When I emailed her, she did not want to be identified by name so as to seem politically impartial to her students.) “When I see the Clintonian dynastic corruption which seems to compromise everything and everyone it touches, the Democratic Party is not a party I can support at this time,” she told me.

The strain of Bernie-ism on forums like Kossacks_for_Sanders is distinct from its previous iterations during the Democratic primaries, such as that of the “Bernie Bro”—irritatingly fanatical men on social media who supported Sanders and opposed Clinton based on sexist cultural biases.

Submitted by gjohnsit on Sat, 07/06/2019 - 4:51pm

Meanwhile Dkos is going away

@gjohnsit

Or this Politico article from 2016. But Sanders’ most dogged grassroots supporters have not disappeared. They might have left the Daily Kos, but instead they’ve dispersed to more obscure, leftist corners of the Internet, where they are plotting their next moves. Taking up the hashtags #StillSanders and #NeverHillary, Sanders’ staunchest allies—who range from Democrats to Greens to unaffiliated renegades—are lurking in Reddit forums like “Kossacks_for_Sanders,” on emerging niche blogs such as Caucus99Percent and The Progressive Wing, and on YouTube vlogs like “The Sane Progressive,” where their fervor for the candidate and his progressive ideals is still very much alive. In the wake of Sanders’ endorsement of Clinton (“the dreaded e-word,” as one Caucus99Percent blogger put it), their end game is no longer the White House—at least in this election cycle. But they still think their movement is viable, and they believe it will launch in earnest when they “occupy” the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia later this month to influence the party’s platform and pressure superdelegates to switch allegiance to Sanders. On postings around the Internet and interviews with Politico Magazine, they say that peaceful pro-Sanders protests at the convention, which have the support of more than 30,0000 Sanders voters on Facebook, will pave the way for future progressive candidates to run on grassroots funding. The purists among these online activists describe their movement principally as one of populist ideals, including mass political mobilization, combating income equality, creating a more progressive tax system and stopping climate change. But a large faction of the movement is also made up of political misfits united in contempt for core elements of today’s Democratic Party: superdelegates, the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement, Democratic National Committee chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz, corporate media and money, what they believe to be widespread election fraud—and, of course, Clinton herself, despite her pending nomination. “What I hope Sanders’ fight does is mobilize the base to organize outside of the Democratic Party, which is and has been for years and obstacle to progressive change,” Joe Shikspack, founder of Caucus99Percent, told me in an interview in the days ahead of Sanders’ endorsement of Clinton. On “Kossacks_for_Sanders”—a subreddit founded by user “mahakali overdrive,” who is actually a California-based humanities professor—commenters have slammed the Democratic Party’s support of the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal, and rebuked the Justice Department’s decision not to indict Clinton for her use of a private email server at the State Department. Following Sanders’ endorsement of Clinton, some users demanded a “DemExit,” a formal renouncement of the Democratic Party à la “Brexit.” Mahakali overdrive herself, a lifelong Democrat, says she’s not only refusing to vote for Clinton—she will not vote for any politician who is “complicit in endorsing Clinton.” (When I emailed her, she did not want to be identified by name so as to seem politically impartial to her students.) “When I see the Clintonian dynastic corruption which seems to compromise everything and everyone it touches, the Democratic Party is not a party I can support at this time,” she told me. The strain of Bernie-ism on forums like Kossacks_for_Sanders is distinct from its previous iterations during the Democratic primaries, such as that of the “Bernie Bro”—irritatingly fanatical men on social media who supported Sanders and opposed Clinton based on sexist cultural biases.

Submitted by jim p on Sat, 07/06/2019 - 11:04pm

Can't really read the

@gjohnsit numbers on my phone, but doesn't the graph indicate some dropoff in recent times, but not to an apocryphal degree? That I could be misinterpreting could happen, but...

—

Orwell: Where's the omelette?

Submitted by gjohnsit on Mon, 07/08/2019 - 11:08am

Considering that the internet keeps growing

@jim p
any significant decline in traffic is very bad.
The drop in ranking, from 1,100 to 5,100 is a good indicator.

Submitted by jim p on Sat, 07/06/2019 - 10:38pm

Heh "political misfits"

@gjohnsit to describe those opposed to TPP, etc. It ain't the "leadership" of the Dem party that's out of step. Objectors don't have a case, they have a character issue.

Or this Politico article from 2016. But Sanders’ most dogged grassroots supporters have not disappeared. They might have left the Daily Kos, but instead they’ve dispersed to more obscure, leftist corners of the Internet, where they are plotting their next moves. Taking up the hashtags #StillSanders and #NeverHillary, Sanders’ staunchest allies—who range from Democrats to Greens to unaffiliated renegades—are lurking in Reddit forums like “Kossacks_for_Sanders,” on emerging niche blogs such as Caucus99Percent and The Progressive Wing, and on YouTube vlogs like “The Sane Progressive,” where their fervor for the candidate and his progressive ideals is still very much alive. In the wake of Sanders’ endorsement of Clinton (“the dreaded e-word,” as one Caucus99Percent blogger put it), their end game is no longer the White House—at least in this election cycle. But they still think their movement is viable, and they believe it will launch in earnest when they “occupy” the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia later this month to influence the party’s platform and pressure superdelegates to switch allegiance to Sanders. On postings around the Internet and interviews with Politico Magazine, they say that peaceful pro-Sanders protests at the convention, which have the support of more than 30,0000 Sanders voters on Facebook, will pave the way for future progressive candidates to run on grassroots funding. The purists among these online activists describe their movement principally as one of populist ideals, including mass political mobilization, combating income equality, creating a more progressive tax system and stopping climate change. But a large faction of the movement is also made up of political misfits united in contempt for core elements of today’s Democratic Party: superdelegates, the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement, Democratic National Committee chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz, corporate media and money, what they believe to be widespread election fraud—and, of course, Clinton herself, despite her pending nomination. “What I hope Sanders’ fight does is mobilize the base to organize outside of the Democratic Party, which is and has been for years and obstacle to progressive change,” Joe Shikspack, founder of Caucus99Percent, told me in an interview in the days ahead of Sanders’ endorsement of Clinton. On “Kossacks_for_Sanders”—a subreddit founded by user “mahakali overdrive,” who is actually a California-based humanities professor—commenters have slammed the Democratic Party’s support of the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal, and rebuked the Justice Department’s decision not to indict Clinton for her use of a private email server at the State Department. Following Sanders’ endorsement of Clinton, some users demanded a “DemExit,” a formal renouncement of the Democratic Party à la “Brexit.” Mahakali overdrive herself, a lifelong Democrat, says she’s not only refusing to vote for Clinton—she will not vote for any politician who is “complicit in endorsing Clinton.” (When I emailed her, she did not want to be identified by name so as to seem politically impartial to her students.) “When I see the Clintonian dynastic corruption which seems to compromise everything and everyone it touches, the Democratic Party is not a party I can support at this time,” she told me. The strain of Bernie-ism on forums like Kossacks_for_Sanders is distinct from its previous iterations during the Democratic primaries, such as that of the “Bernie Bro”—irritatingly fanatical men on social media who supported Sanders and opposed Clinton based on sexist cultural biases.

—

Orwell: Where's the omelette?

Submitted by movie buff on Sat, 07/06/2019 - 4:49pm

Re:

But a large faction of the movement is also made up of political misfits united in contempt for core elements of today’s Democratic Party: superdelegates, the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement, Democratic National Committee chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz, corporate media and money, what they believe to be widespread election fraud—and, of course, Clinton herself, despite her pending nomination.

Finally, someone understands me!

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"The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum." --Noam Chomsky

Submitted by WoodsDweller on Sat, 07/06/2019 - 5:22pm

I would draw a distinction

between "not into politics" and "disgusted by Potempkin democracy".
It's true that "independent" does not equate to "persuadable swing voter", which was the prevalent theory in the 90s. If those voters ever existed, they've chosen up sides long ago. They fail to register with a party because the parties fail to appeal to them, but that doesn't mean that the other team has a shot.
The underlying assumption of the progressive movement is that rather than "not into politics", independents (and non-registered voters) can be enticed into participating by offering non-corrupt (no PACs and corporate money) candidates with well thought out policy positions.
The underlying assumption of the fascist movement is that you can build support by offering candidates who clearly hate the people they hate. Looks like they're a little ahead of us.

EDIT: I continue to be amazed that anyone knows we're here.

—

"The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function." -- Albert Bartlett
"A species that is hurtling toward extinction has no business promoting slow incremental change." -- Caitlin Johnstone

Submitted by boriscleto on Sat, 07/06/2019 - 6:22pm

In NY 24

Tens of thousands are registered to the Independence Party because they're too stupid to realize you leave party affiliation blank if you want to be unaffiliated...

For example, in 2016 Onondaga County had: 112,045 Democrats, 86,850 Republicans, 5,174 Conservatives, 1,090 Greens, 1,475 Working Families Party, 15,799 Independence Party, 25 Womens Equality Party, 12 Reform Party, 298 Other, and 78,027 unaffiliated...The Onondaga County Legislature has been controlled by a Republican super majority for years. There has never been a Democratic County Executive (there have only been 4, it was created in the 1960s for Republican John Mulroy. Tried multiple times for corruption, convicted of misdemeanors and fined.) All of the towns in the county are controlled by Rs too.

465,837 Independence Party members versus 2,428,007 people who figured it out statewide. Only 2,651,418 Republicans versus 5,664,922 Democrats. And Trump still won almost all of the Upstate Counties. Those 25,895 Green Party members must have swayed the vote...

—

" In the beginning, the universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry, and is generally considered to have been a bad move. -- Douglas Adams, The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy "

Submitted by snoopydawg on Sat, 07/06/2019 - 6:46pm

This isn't a bad thing...

Although the site does not endorse any candidate, its community is largely composed of Sanders supporters who do not affiliate with a party, including many who have been involved in the 2011 Occupy movement, anti-war protests and environmentalism efforts.

These are the reasons I joined DK in 2005. I thought that Bush was the worst thing that happened to the country and I was more outraged each day about the things he was doing and thought that all we needed to do was survive his presidency and then things would go back to normal. But then I also thought that Bush couldn't get away with the things he was doing and the democrats would finally rein him in. And then that he'd be charged when Obama became president. Ahh the days of being young and naive huh?

"The two major parties monopolize the political space and present us with choices that are completely unacceptable in terms of creating the better world that we are looking for,” says Shikspack, who will join the ranks of Sanders progressives at the Philadelphia convention.

Yup. We have one party and it's the oligarchs' party. Watching how the DNC rigged the primary against Bernie in broad daylight and even admitted to doing it and then seeing people say that they didn't just makes my head spin. lol..they can't see how they put their thumb on the scale for Hillary, but they totally believe that a few ads swung the election. Or stole it. SMDH.

—

Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

Submitted by MrWebster on Sun, 07/07/2019 - 3:49pm

I also joined dk in 2005 for similar reasons

@snoopydawg Went to check and almost a year ago I was banned. DK seemed to be a place for anti-Bush and anti-war diaries and discussion. Yah, little did I know. Little did I know that dk was being used to build up a consultantcy business at the time. There was no anti-war movement-it went away once Obama became president who kept the same policies of Bush.

The resistance of that time period was really no different than the current so-called resistance to Trump--just democratic party hacks who gladly adopt right wing views to attack Trump. Rachael Maddow and others who became known during that period are now some of the most promienent apologists for the establishment democrats. Maddow and others did not sell out--they just become more famous with better pay doing the same. Pundits like Greenwald who kept their values and applied the same standard to Obama were attacked and became the enemy of all democrats. (same with people on this site)

Submitted by snoopydawg on Sun, 07/07/2019 - 7:02pm

Well said

@MrWebster

The same people who were against everything Bush did are once again against those things now that Trump is president. With some exceptions. Imagine what they would have said if Obama wanted to be nice to Russia and make peace with North Korea? Or pull the troops out of Afghanistan and Syria?

This is what makes that place so insane. They don't really support policies, they do or do not support the person in office no matter what they do. Libya should have gotten the anti war band back together because it was done on false pretenses just like Iraq, but because it was Hillary's baby and Obama backed her it was a great idea.

What's really funny is how none of them are calling out the democrats for voting with republicans on Trump's legislation. They only blame the GOP for what's happening to the country without seeing that democrats are fully on board with them.

—

Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

Submitted by snoopydawg on Sat, 07/06/2019 - 7:43pm

Blood in the water

Or the democratic clown car. Heh..this is an excellent take down of the democratic debates and there are too many parts to excerpt. Just read it.

What’s not healthy for a party is when the front-runner, a white man, is waylaid by the ferociously talented up-and-comer, a black woman, who prefaces her attack: “I do not believe you are a racist …” What’s not healthy for a party is when a smug, self-impressed congressman with no business being on the stage flails wildly with juvenile sound bites. What’s not healthy for a party is when a successful red-state governor and a decorated war hero-turned-congressman are forced to watch from home as an oracular mystic with no experience in policymaking lectures her opponents on the folly of having actual “plans” to govern the country.

Granted, these lowlights and many others came during the second debate. Just 22 hours before it commenced, Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom Perez sounded relieved at how relatively painless the first contest had been.

“We talked about the issues. We didn’t talk about hand size,” Perez told me after the end of the Wednesday night debate. (Perez was grinning in reference to the 2016 Republican debate in which Donald Trump, responding to Marco Rubio’s vulgar euphemism, assured viewers of his plentiful genitalia.) “The Republican candidates were only concerned about how they could put a knife in their opponent’s back,” Perez added. “We had spirited discussions. We had some disagreements, but they were all about the merits and the issues. They weren’t, ‘Not only are you wrong, but your mother wears army boots.’”

The front-runner has cloaked himself in the 44th president’s legacy, invoking “the Obama-Biden administration” as a shield to deflect all manner of criticism. And yet, parts of that legacy—from enshrining the Hyde Amendment, to deporting record numbers of illegal immigrants, to aggressively carrying out drone strikes overseas, to sanctioning deep cuts in government spending—are suddenly and fatally out of step with the modern left. This crop of Democrats won’t hesitate to score points at the previous administration’s expense, as evidenced by Harris’ censure of Obama’s deportation policies. And the gravitational pull of the party’s base will continue to threaten the long-term viability of top contenders, as evidenced by the continuing talk of eliminating private insurance and Harris’s own shaky explanations of whether she supports doing so.

Not talking about hand sizes was the highlight of the debate? Okie Dokie..

—

Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

Submitted by WoodsDweller on Sat, 07/06/2019 - 8:04pm

"At least nobody ended up in the emergency room"

@snoopydawg
That's a pretty low bar, isn't it?

Or the democratic clown car. Heh..this is an excellent take down of the democratic debates and there are too many parts to excerpt. Just read it. What’s not healthy for a party is when the front-runner, a white man, is waylaid by the ferociously talented up-and-comer, a black woman, who prefaces her attack: “I do not believe you are a racist …” What’s not healthy for a party is when a smug, self-impressed congressman with no business being on the stage flails wildly with juvenile sound bites. What’s not healthy for a party is when a successful red-state governor and a decorated war hero-turned-congressman are forced to watch from home as an oracular mystic with no experience in policymaking lectures her opponents on the folly of having actual “plans” to govern the country. Granted, these lowlights and many others came during the second debate. Just 22 hours before it commenced, Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom Perez sounded relieved at how relatively painless the first contest had been. “We talked about the issues. We didn’t talk about hand size,” Perez told me after the end of the Wednesday night debate. (Perez was grinning in reference to the 2016 Republican debate in which Donald Trump, responding to Marco Rubio’s vulgar euphemism, assured viewers of his plentiful genitalia.) “The Republican candidates were only concerned about how they could put a knife in their opponent’s back,” Perez added. “We had spirited discussions. We had some disagreements, but they were all about the merits and the issues. They weren’t, ‘Not only are you wrong, but your mother wears army boots.’” The front-runner has cloaked himself in the 44th president’s legacy, invoking “the Obama-Biden administration” as a shield to deflect all manner of criticism. And yet, parts of that legacy—from enshrining the Hyde Amendment, to deporting record numbers of illegal immigrants, to aggressively carrying out drone strikes overseas, to sanctioning deep cuts in government spending—are suddenly and fatally out of step with the modern left. This crop of Democrats won’t hesitate to score points at the previous administration’s expense, as evidenced by Harris’ censure of Obama’s deportation policies. And the gravitational pull of the party’s base will continue to threaten the long-term viability of top contenders, as evidenced by the continuing talk of eliminating private insurance and Harris’s own shaky explanations of whether she supports doing so. Not talking about hand sizes was the highlight of the debate? Okie Dokie..

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Submitted by Dr. John Carpenter on Sat, 07/06/2019 - 9:42pm

So is “better than Trump”

@WoodsDweller but that seems to work for way to many people.

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Idolizing a politician is like believing the stripper really likes you.

Submitted by snoopydawg on Sat, 07/06/2019 - 10:41pm

Pretty low indeed

@WoodsDweller

Not talking about hand sizes or anything of importance during the debates. I don't know how long they went on, but the article says that people only got to speak for about 7-10 minutes. Maybe longer, but still the way it was setup where people could only talk for a minute and then have a 30 second follow up is just damn silly. Back when the debates were run seriously the candidates got to speak as long as they needed to answer the questions and then the other guy got to respond.

It's just theatrical BS the way they are now days. People know that, but they still tune in to watch them.

—

Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

Submitted by LoneStarMike on Sat, 07/06/2019 - 11:27pm

Another key point

Gallup has been conducting this poll (at least monthly) since January of 2004.

The all-time high for self Identified Independents was 47% - most recently in the Sep 4-7 2014 poll and previously in the Oct 3-6 2013 poll.

The all-time low for self-identified Independents was 27% - most recently in the Feb 25-27 2005 poll and a few other times before that.

Independents are at 46% now, so they're one point away from their all-time high.

Here's the other key point to take into consideration:

The all-time high for self-identified Democrats was 40% in the Feb 11-14 2008 poll and is the only time the percentage of self-identified Democrats was this high.

The all-time low for self-identified Democrats was 25% in the Jan 4-8 2017 poll and is the only time the percentage of self-identified Democrats was this low.

Dems are at 27% right now, so that's only two points away from their all-time low.