Since 2004, the number of Americans who identify as political independents has skyrocketed. In the first decade of the 21st century, nearly two-thirds of American voters affiliated with one of the two major parties. Now, this figure is less than half, and there are slightly more political “independents” than either Democrats or Republicans.
“It was never unusual for younger adults to have higher percentages of independents than older adults,” Jeff Jones, an analyst with Gallup Polls, told Axios in April. “What is unusual is that as Gen X and millennials get older, they are staying independent rather than picking a party, as older generations tended to do.”
The rise in political independents is part of a larger trend. Jones argues that it’s due to a broad “disillusionment with the political system, U.S. institutions and the two parties, which are seen as ineffectual, too political and too extreme.”
Axios proposed that antsy, unsatisfied independent voters were the reason that control of the White House, Senate or House has flip-flopped between the two parties almost every election since just 2004. The American electorate’s disaffiliation from both major parties is not novel, but it’s an indication that the electorate is disenchanted with their present options.
While they’re not constitutional creations or even intrinsically necessary to the life of a republic, political parties serve an important purpose in the life of democracies as invaluable intermediary institutions in American political life.
As political philosopher Harvey Mansfield argues, although parties are not a part of the formalized constitutional structure, they “appear to be part of the Constitution in the informal sense.” General agreement among political philosophers and political scientists asserts that parties, although not mentioned in the Constitution, “are necessary to the working of the Constitution.” Parties, in the modern world, “are now accepted as legitimate, even respectable instruments of free government.”
George Washington declared his ambivalence about parties, stating that although he wasn’t a party man, he hoped they would be reconciled if they were to become a fact of life in the American political system. Washington identified with the Federalists, but he worked to be seen as above faction.
Parties help make political traditions, according to President Martin Van Buren. Men of similar political dispositions, he argued, naturally joined together in political associations.
Constant telemedia coverage and a primary process that rewards celebrity more than statesmanship hamper both major parties’ institutional control and party discipline. The perennial hope of third-party success has been proved illusory. The solution to a healthy party system and a healthy political system at large will need to come from one or both of our present major parties.
Miles Smith IV is an assistant professor of history at Hillsdale College in Michigan/Tribune News Service