An article on Monday's Politico.com (link at bottom) reports that "there are now more Americans who consider themselves politically independent than at any other point in the last three-quarters of a century." The precise numbers from the new Pew Research Center polling:
38% of Americans currently call themselves Independents; only 32% of Americans (i.e. leftist 20 percenters plus loyal interest groups) say they belong to the democrat party; and a rather putrid 24% admit to being republic partisan gop-ers.
Now, I'd concede that some of those 38% calling themselves Independents really aren't Independents at all, but instead are far leftists and far right-wingers who (in a prima facie exhibition of mental illness) actually consider the democrat party and republic partisan party not to be far enough to the left and right, respectively.
But regardless of those in dire need of professional help, the 38% figure includes plenty of real (i.e. non-doctrinaire) Independents and makes it undeniable that Independent numbers are on an historic rise. Which really isn't surprising at all...
Not surprising, what with two parties that have become increasingly rigid, extreme, mean-spirited, ill-willed and non-tolerant to opposing viewpoints in recent years. There's simply very little place in either party anymore for anyone who's not a mindless, blathering, hateful left-wing or right-wing zombie.
Even the likes of right-winger deity Ronald Reagan, for example, would probably be primaried by the gop-ers' tea party strain in a 2012 gubernatorial race. Meantime, the modern democrat party has become this highly loony, kooky, far leftist fringe sort of creature that is largely unrecognizable to those of us people in Generation X who were actually raised by partisan parents to be sympathetic to that party's interests.
You can keep them both. And apparently, a plurality of Americans now agree. Hey democrat party and gop-ers: Looks like the ranks of the Independents -- the people who decide your election outcomes (since you don't) -- just keep getting bigger and bigger.
Bigger and bigger, kind of like the National Debt (not to mention American military body bags) that you've BOTH been piling up like gangbusters for 12 long years now -- just to put things in very simple terms that even a democrat party partisan or a gop-er can understand.
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0612/77030.html
Posts
