New York Times columnist Timothy Egan writes for Independence Day that the most despised Congress ever will be returned to office next year in largely its current form, event though independents are the biggest voter bloc in America, with Democrats next and Republicans trailing.
But what is an independent?
When you examine the beliefs of independents, particularly among millennials, they lean Democratic. That is, most policy issues pushed by the Democrats get majority support from the nonpartisans. Combining all the categories, Pew put the pro-Democratic cohort at 55 percent, the pro-Republican at 36 percent. But the two party brands are so soiled now by the current do-nothing Congress and their screaming advocates that voters prefer not to have anything to do with either of them.
The indies still vote. They went for Barack Obama, twice, but hate partisanship. They’ve soured on Obama for not fulfilling his great promise of forging a coalition that is neither red nor blue.
This calculus doesn’t work in Arkansas, where polling shows that the independent bloc leans strongly conservative, bad news for Democratic candidates for statewide office.
Egan’s ideas:
1) Recognize a problem in the plurality being left out of power. 2) Crowdsource money for slates of no-party candidates. 3) Stay involved.
The emerging majority is the most racially diverse, politically open-minded, social-media-engaged generation in history. They’re repulsed by the partisan hacks, and the lobbyist-industrial complex that controls them. You see their influence in everything but the governing institutions in Washington. It’s about time that voice is heard.