Are American "Independent" Voters Truly Independent?

[Copernicus]

Qualified Political Parties :: California Secretary of State

Find information regarding qualified political parties here.

www.sos.ca.gov

American Independent Party​

• Victor Marani, State Chairman
• P.O. Box 1479
• Freedom, CA 95019
• (831) 684-6167
• [email protected]
• www.aipca.vote

Anna, I explained this one earlier, but you may have missed that post. This refers to the segregationist party that George Wallace ran for president under. It is "independent" in name only. In reality, it is an extremist right wing party, although it has modernized its rhetoric to a dogwhistle version of its former self. It is not what is normally meant by "Independent", which is usually a label for the unaffiliated. I'm not familiar with the California version of that party, however, and your link led to that organization.

On Friday, Kennedy suspended his independent campaign and endorsed Republican Donald Trump. He has since sought to withdraw his name from the ballot in states where the presidential race is expected to be close, including North Carolina.

I don't know the minuet details of political campaigns, but RFK Jr was certainly "campaigning" and was put on state ballots as an Independent candidate. And isn't Bernie Sanders an actual elected to office Independent?

RFK Jr. can't get off ballot in North Carolina, can't get back on it in New York

Robert F

abcnews.go.com

Spice, RFK Jr. claims to be an independent running for office, but he only means that his party is neither Democratic nor Republican. He is running under the label of the We the People Party. There is no party associated with the label in the Pew Research study. To be a political party, it would have to have an organizational structure, but unaffiliated voters do not have that.

 

[F1fan]

It's time for third or even fourth parties to enter the scene as the duopoly obviously is destroying this country.

And how would that improve the policies and perfomances of politicians?

Any opinions on why there are people who vote reliably for one party or the other but still call themselves "Independent"?

I tend to vote for democrats, but that is only because their policies tend to match my preferences. Republicans have been getting farther away from what my preferences are. Even some democrats are more conservative than me. Oddly I am a registered independent and don't remember doing that. I'm not a fan of labels. I am OK with categories, and if I fall into a certain category then that's what I am. For example I don't label myself an atheist as any sort of identity marker, it just happens to be the category I fall into.

 

[Copernicus]

I tend to vote for democrats, but that is only because their policies tend to match my preferences. Republicans have been getting farther away from what my preferences are. Even some democrats are more conservative than me. Oddly I am a registered independent and don't remember doing that. I'm not a fan of labels. I am OK with categories, and if I fall into a certain category then that's what I am. For example I don't label myself an atheist as any sort of identity marker, it just happens to be the category I fall into.

Interesting, but the analogy with the "Independent" category studied in the Pew Research survey is that their subjects labeled themselves as "Independent". That is an identity marker for them. For you, atheism is not an acceptable identity marker, if I understand you correctly.

Pew does a lot of religious surveys, but they always treat an atheist as someone who self-identifies as an atheist. They never use it as a purely descriptive label for someone who doesn't accept the label (e.g. someone like Einstein was). There is a strong negative connotation to atheism, so many people who consider themselves to lack religious belief tend to reject the label.

 

[Spice]

Anna, I explained this one earlier, but you may have missed that post. This refers to the segregationist party that George Wallace ran for president under. It is "independent" in name only. In reality, it is an extremist right wing party, although it has modernized its rhetoric to a dogwhistle version of its former self. It is not what is normally meant by "Independent", which is usually a label for the unaffiliated. I'm not familiar with the California version of that party, however, and your link led to that organization.




Spice, RFK Jr. claims to be an independent running for office, but he only means that his party is neither Democratic nor Republican. He is running under the label of the We the People Party. There is no party associated with the label in the Pew Research study. To be a political party, it would have to have an organizational structure, but unaffiliated voters do not have that.

I see where we're crossing our wires. I see every party option NOT Dem or Rep as independent. So in my state there are 6 independent parties. And at registration they only asked, Democratic, Republican, Independent, or unaffiliated. Why? I haven't a clue.

North Carolina recognizes eight political parties:

1. The Constitution Party
2. The Democratic Party
3. The Green Party
4. The Justice For All Party
5. The Libertarian Party
6. The No Labels Party
7. The Republican Party
8. The We The People Party

 

[F1fan]

Interesting, but the analogy with the "Independent" category studied in the Pew Research survey is that their subjects labeled themselves as "Independent". That is an identity marker for them.

I'm not sure what party they identify with, as there is no Independent party. It seems to me more of a default. If they end up voting it will be for one or the other.

For you, atheism is not an acceptable identity marker, if I understand you correctly.

Correct. I say that because there's nothing to idenify with, as opposed to theists who have beliefs. I don't identify as a person who rejects the existence of Santa Claus, but I'm in the category that doesn't believe in Santa. My apologies to kids who think I'm mad for not believing in Santa.

Pew does a lot of religious surveys, but they always treat an atheist as someone who self-identifies as an atheist.

I think "identify" is a petty common referent these days for surveys. It's broad and vague. I think it is used broadly since many do have beliefs that they use to create a sort of social identity.

They never use it as a purely descriptive label for someone who doesn't accept the label (e.g. someone like Einstein was). There is a strong negative connotation to atheism, so many people who consider themselves to lack religious belief tend to reject the label.

It's funny that theists will assign more meaning to the word atheist than atheists do, especially negative meaning. It's odd that say a Christian will find an atheist more challenging to their beliefs than Muslims or Hindus.

 

[The Sum of Awe]

I registered as Independent. I sort of wished I registered as Republican instead, so that I can vote for a more reasonable Republican in the primaries rather than someone like Trump getting through. But overall I would vote Democrat in most elections. Since Bill Clinton at least, I always preferred the Democrat candidate. I did like Ron Paul in 2012, however, but still preferred Obama. Okay, actually, in 2016 I did like Trump over Hillary. But after 2020 hell no.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

In online discussion forums, Americans are increasingly prone to labeling themselves as "Independent" rather than "Democrat" or "Republican". Sometimes people take that as a sign that people are abandoning the two major political parties, although you would not know that from looking at how they vote.

See this short Pew Research article from 2019:

Political Independents: Who They Are, What They Think​

See the rest of the article for more detail. The article seems to suggest that people who regularly write posts about political topics and call themselves "Independents" are not likely to be politically independent.

Do you consider yourself an independent? If so, do you consider yourself to be truly politically independent? Why do you think this trend for more people to claim to be Independent is happening? Thoughts?

For awhile American Independents haven't really been that independent but rather quite predictable in voting for one or the other.
I don't consider myself one as I'm aware of my views and voting habits.

 

[anna.]

Anna, I explained this one earlier, but you may have missed that post. This refers to the segregationist party that George Wallace ran for president under. It is "independent" in name only. In reality, it is an extremist right wing party, although it has modernized its rhetoric to a dogwhistle version of its former self. It is not what is normally meant by "Independent", which is usually a label for the unaffiliated. I'm not familiar with the California version of that party, however, and your link led to that organization.

Thanks, yes I did miss that post. Not having seen it I'd wanted in mine to note the difference between NPP and an actual party.

Spice, RFK Jr. claims to be an independent running for office, but he only means that his party is neither Democratic nor Republican. He is running under the label of the We the People Party. There is no party associated with the label in the Pew Research study. To be a political party, it would have to have an organizational structure, but unaffiliated voters do not have that.

He was nominated by the AIP in California, which is what caused some voters, including some well-known ones, to realize they'd registered accidentally as AIP when they meant to be NPP.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

Democrats are an incredibly repressive and restrictive party

I don't think so. Democrats regulate in an effort to protect people and the environment. If you've had trouble getting a building permit because of such regulations, for example, that's not repression.

My brother-in-law, who lives in California, and who is a Trump Republican like you are, complained about the hoops he had to go through to get permits to expand his house, but he got them and had the work done, albeit in about six months more time than he would have liked.

And he complains about the taxes, yet he is quite well off. He prospered in the system he now decries.

He also listens to conservative indoctrination media, which exists in part to get people like you and him to help them deregulate in order to increase profits by getting you to see the Democrats as your problem as you and he clearly do.

I'm guessing that what you're calling repression has barely affected you.

Repression is forbidding abortion, contraception, IVF, same sex marriage, and LGBTQ+ freedoms, and banning books.

they don't care one bit about you.

Yes, that's part of the message that you accepted uncritically. All one need do to dispel that myth is compare and contrast what Trump and Biden accomplished and what they tried and failed to accomplish. I won't rehash all of the things Trump did to American and Biden did for America until American voters foolishly gave the House back to the Republicans initiating gridlock again because I'm sure you've seen and ignored such things before and would again.

Democrats run the most oppressive and least free states in the entire nation that is undisputed by sensible intelligent people who actually know what freedom and liberty is.

Yet like my brother-in-law who hates his state, you live in one of those states by choice - New York in your case.

You are free to relocate to a state more compatible with the Republican vision if you like - maybe Kentucky or Alabama - but you choose not to. Your taxes will be lower and there will be less regulation, but you'll also have much less infrastructure and be surrounded by more ignorance, poverty, and despair.

Would that be a better life for you? If so, go for it. If not, perhaps you should recognize that what you're getting is worth the increased cost and regulation compared to the model the Republicans create where they hold sway.

I've lived in both. I had a medical practice in California that become unprofitable and over-regulated with the advent of the HMOs beginning in the late eighties. Private practices were disappearing and physicians begam working for or with the HMOs. I held out as long as I could, but Medicare couldn't compete with them and my patients signed up for the HMOs for the free eye care or whatever. Eventually, I was not covering my overhead, relented, and took some HMO contracts. My income fell further, my autonomy diminished, my workload increased, and so did my liability.

So, I relocated to rural Missouri in 1998 where I worked 11 more years before retiring. It was a throwback to the fifties. It was a poor community, the roads were in ill repair, meth labs were prevalent, there were a lot of amputees from farm accidents, few went on to college, and a lot of people said ain't. It was a deprived culture. Whereas I initially expected to work as long as I was physically able and then to die and be buried there, before long, I knew that I would not retire there. I would have returned to California had I stayed in the States, but by about 2004, I was becoming disaffected with America altogether, and I knew that I wanted to retire and expatriate as soon as possible.

Funny anecdote. On my first night in the ICU at my Missouri hospital, an ICU nurse named Pansy asked me what brought me to rule Missouri. I was a bit confused but explained to her that though I was flattered that she thought I could rule her state, I was only looking for more control over my own life and practice.

Eventually, I understood that she was saying rural Missouri but pronounced the word rule. That intrigued me. I was aware that some Asians and Americans like Bostonians don't pronounce Rs like mainstream Americans ("watah" for water or "hat" for heart), but that wasn't the case here. She pronounced the initial R like I did.

So I explained that I say 'Roo-rull' and she couldn't hear a difference. So I tried to help:

Me: Say roo
She: roo
Me: rull
She: rull
Me: roo-rull
She: rule

 

[Copernicus]

I'm not sure what party they identify with, as there is no Independent party. It seems to me more of a default. If they end up voting it will be for one or the other.

The point is that claiming to be an "Independent" normally means that you don't identify with any party at all. For statistical purposes, you might be able to list yourself as unaffiliated or "NPP" on a ballot, but that just means you don't have a party. The point made by Pew was that people calling themselves "Independent" are seldom actually politically independent. They tend to defend the policies and politicians of one of the two major parties, making them indistinguishable in terms of behavior from people who do claim to be members of those parties.

So my question was to ask why they don't just say they are Democrats or Republicans? I'm a Democrat, but I have occasionally voted for Republicans or refused to vote for Democratic candidates. It's just that I align myself politically with the policy goals of the Democratic Party most of the time. I tend to vote in Democratic primaries, and I hope that Democrats win. And I want the Democratic Party to control the agendas and committees in legislatures. Just like a great many Democrat-leaning "Independents" who refuse to call themselves Democrats. I don't carry a card or anything, and I tend not to read the flood of political propaganda that I find in my mailbox before elections. I just know what my political bias is and acknowledge it. That's all the label means to me.

Correct. I say that because there's nothing to idenify with, as opposed to theists who have beliefs. I don't identify as a person who rejects the existence of Santa Claus, but I'm in the category that doesn't believe in Santa. My apologies to kids who think I'm mad for not believing in Santa.

I think "identify" is a petty common referent these days for surveys. It's broad and vague. I think it is used broadly since many do have beliefs that they use to create a sort of social identity.

It's funny that theists will assign more meaning to the word atheist than atheists do, especially negative meaning. It's odd that say a Christian will find an atheist more challenging to their beliefs than Muslims or Hindus.

I have some differences of opinion with the points you make about theists and atheists, but that merits discussion in a different thread. It's a well-worn topic at RF.

 

[Copernicus]

For awhile American Independents haven't really been that independent but rather quite predictable in voting for one or the other.
I don't consider myself one as I'm aware of my views and voting habits.

Right. I just wanted to make clear that acknowledged members of the AIP are not "Independents" in the sense under discussion here. Either they acknowledge their party affiliation or call themselves "Independent" but tend to vote for AIP candidates anyway. The issue is that there are so many party-affiliated people out there who deny their affiliation, i.e. tend to prefer a particular party over others.

 

[anna.]

The issue is that there are so many party-affiliated people out there who deny their affiliation, i.e. tend to prefer a particular party over others.

I don't see it as denying affiliation, even though I've voted Democratic as an NPP. The Democratic Party didn't seem a solid fit for me when I left the GOP and I like the independence of not having an affiliation. I don't follow Democratic Party news or local leadership or the like. When it comes time to vote, I vote. I belong to a progressive forum and after all these years of reading posts I'm frequently reminded I'm still not a solid fit. Why should I say I'm a Democrat because someone thinks I should?

 

[Copernicus]

I don't see it as denying affiliation, even though I've voted Democratic as an NPP. The Democratic Party didn't seem a solid fit for me when I left the GOP and I like the independence of not having an affiliation. I don't follow Democratic Party news or local leadership or the like. When it comes time to vote, I vote. I belong to a progressive forum and after all these years of reading posts I'm frequently reminded I'm still not a solid fit. Why should I say I'm a Democrat because someone thinks I should?

That's an interesting perspective. I feel the same way. That is, I don't feel that the Democratic Party is a solid fit for me, but I view both parties as political umbrellas that include lots of people with different perspectives and beliefs. The only real difference between them is that Democrats favor change in the direction of expanding civil rights and public welfare. They have also traditionally favored regulating markets reducing military spending. Republicans favor preserving the status quo and either slowing down or shrinking the role of government in regulating markets. They also favor reducing taxation, but keeping the military well-funded. There are other differences, but the bottom line is liberal/progressive versus conservative/reactionary public policies. Hence, I have no trouble accepting the label "Democrat" without necessarily accepting every policy proposal that they are associated with. They aren't strictly ideological in the sense of being socialist or fascist, but they can attract extremists on both the left and the right, because the traditional parties are necessary to gain political power for moving left or right on the political spectrum. I just don't take the labels as embodying an ideological manifesto of some kind. They are too chaotic to be ideologically stable.

 

[anna.]

That's an interesting perspective. I feel the same way. That is, I don't feel that the Democratic Party is a solid fit for me, but I view both parties as political umbrellas that include lots of people with different perspectives and beliefs. The only real difference between them is that Democrats favor change in the direction of expanding civil rights and public welfare. They have also traditionally favored regulating markets reducing military spending. Republicans favor preserving the status quo and either slowing down or shrinking the role of government in regulating markets. They also favor reducing taxation, but keeping the military well-funded. There are other differences, but the bottom line is liberal/progressive versus conservative/reactionary public policies. Hence, I have no trouble accepting the label "Democrat" without necessarily accepting every policy proposal that they are associated with. They aren't strictly ideological in the sense of being socialist or fascist, but they can attract extremists on both the left and the right, because the traditional parties are necessary to gain political power for moving left or right on the political spectrum. I just don't take the labels as embodying an ideological manifesto of some kind. They are too chaotic to be ideologically stable.

It seems we're both heading in a similar direction even if we might vary on details, but if there's anything I know for sure right now it's that the luxury of details pales in comparison to the necessity of preserving the Constitution, its principles in the rule of law and the peaceful transition of power.