Co-dependency and the Independence Caucus: Complete Dependency on the Democratic and Republican Parties is not Political Independence

Speaking of pretend-ependents, if you recall, last month I argued that the so-called Independence Caucus could be more appropriately termed the codependency caucus: though the group claims that its aim is "to take our government back from the "big money" special interest groups," in practice the organization actively supports two of the most pernicious "big money special interest groups" in the United States today, namely, the Democratic and Republican Parties. The Political Blotter reports on the group's efforts in California:

I spent a couple of hours yesterday with Bob White, the volunteer Northern California director of the Independence Caucus . . . The Independence Caucus was founded by a pair of Utah men, Frank Anderson and Monte Bateman . . . The idea [behind the organization] is that most, if not all, long-time incumbents on either side of the aisle are beholden to special interests, and that no incumbent is safe if citizens put enough time and effort behind a candidate they believe in . . . White . . . is responsible for California congressional districts 1 through 27. He’s been putting a lot of mileage on his car, crisscrossing the state’s northern half to hit every conservative gathering he can find, trying to identify potential “citizen candidates.” The only criteria, he said, are a commitment to fiscal responsibility and “adherence to the Constitution” – the candidate could be Democrat or Republican, he said, so long as they stick to those two tenets.

The central contradiction inherent to this position is plainly obvious: the group recognizes the failure of the Democratic-Republican duopoly system of government ("most, if not all, long-time incumbents on either side of the aisle are beholden to special interests"), but its solution is to support the reproduction of the problem by strengthening the dictatorship of the Democratic-Republican Party ("the candidate could be a Democrat or a Republican"). By excluding third party and independent candidates from consideration, and thus making membership in the Democratic or Republican Party an explicit criterion for consideration, the group makes a mockery of its moniker, pretending that complete dependency on the Democratic and Republican Parties is the criterion of political independence.