If you call yourself an Independent, yet continue to vote for Democrats and Republicans, in what sense are you an Independent? From a letter to the editor of the
DesMoines Register:
If there’s blame to be placed for the polarization of American politics, it lies squarely with the independent voters. Like it or not, we have a two-party system, and independents either have to deal with that fact or get involved and try to change it.
If you want more moderate, effective representation, pick a party and engage yourself in the process. Otherwise, the fringe elements of each party will continue to select the candidates you vote for.
If the “moderate middle” truly makes up 70 percent of the electorate, imagine the power that segment of the population has in choosing our candidates or working toward loosening the corporate, two-party grip on our democracy.
Yet independents continue to remain on the sidelines until the general election and then complain about having to choose between “the lesser of two evils” when entering the voting booth — if they vote at all.
— Steve Berry, Des Moines
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5 comments:
"If the “moderate middle” truly makes up 70 percent of the electorate"
A "moderate middle" comprised of a hodge podge of differing views and interests that would often conflict with one another, along with an (un)healthy dose of extreme low information voters. If I were to even accept that "70%" claim.
I'm not surprised the fetish for "centrism" is arising again, but I hadn't figured it'd be so soon since the 90s. This should be interesting.
All independent means is you're not a member of either party. It doesn't have anything to do with whether or not you're not someone with a lean towards one party or the other.
There are low information voters everywhere on the political spectrum. It's no worse in the center as it is anywhere else.
I think 70% is inflating the numbers. If you're loose with how you define it, including moderates on both sides, then you can get to around 60%.
And it's not a fetish, any more than the people on the left and right are fetishizing their beliefs. It's HOW WE SEE THE WORLD. Trying to characterize it as anything else than just what people think is stupid. Just because it doesn't fit into your stunted worldview doesn't make it a fetish, whatever that even means.
Doesn't this all depend on how we're defining "moderate middle"? If we go by the definition of "not an extremist", then it's easy to come up with large numbers of "centrists". After all the majority in any society are rarely extremists, if for no other reason that most people simply don't put political ideologies above their non political day to day lives & families (especially in more prosperous times). If we're trying to define a concrete political following however, I honestly doubt it's even 50% of the population. People in the center disagree as much as people in the wings. The center left and the center right aren't going to agree on much, and if history is any indicator, they're isn't much hope in unifying them under one political front. In most multi party systems, the center left and the center right usually align themselves with their more solid fronts, for both the sake of moderating them and the fact they have more in common with their "pure" brethren than their centrist counterpart. They may collaborate sometimes, but nothing to the extent of a permanent political alliance. So it's probably not far off to say it's a "hodge podge" of conflicting interests, but isn't that what we'd come to expect with 70% of a nation as diverse as the United States?
Respectfully,
Cox
"There are low information voters everywhere on the political spectrum. It's no worse in the center as it is anywhere else."
Well, I never claimed otherwise, did I?
"And it's not a fetish, any more than the people on the left and right are fetishizing their beliefs. It's HOW WE SEE THE WORLD. Trying to characterize it as anything else than just what people think is stupid. Just because it doesn't fit into your stunted worldview doesn't make it a fetish, whatever that even means."
I was referring to a specific narrative, and not even the adherents themselves. You're right it'd be stupid to brush it all off simply because I disagree with it, as equally stupid to call others "stunted" because they themselves do not agree with you (on some or most things).
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