These fuckwits have given us this current hell.

"It's not too late to get on the right side of history, but it's getting dangerously close."

Both sides are not the same. One is evil and fascist ( repukes) and the other party the Democrats are still trying to preserve our constitution, rule of law and fundamental democracy.

People complain about political polarization and abandon the parties.

But what they really have done is abandon the primary process to partisans.

And then they are surprised when the candidates coming out of the primaries are politically extreme.

Which just makes more people complain about their choices continuing the cycle.

The real choices are in the primaries and people are increasingly shutting themselves out of that process.

That is to say, you are right that this turns the process over mostly to the primaries, and that can be a problem.

But the more important question is WHY? If you look at the long term trend, most of the growth of "independent" has come from penle deciding to no longer identify as Democrats.

But poll after poll says that they STRONGLY support the things that Democrats supposedly support (environment, economic fairness and opportunity, transparent government, common sense gun violence reforms, single paper HC, affordable education, and so on.) They want all the things we talk about, but they don't want to be associated with us!?

What does that tell us? The issue is not progressive policies. The issue is that the public does not trust Dems to do anything even when we do have majority control.

This is perfectly crystallized by where people stand on the Senate filibuster rule. There is no more anti-democratic thing anywhere in our system,, and the filibuster is the central barrier to all major progress in the past 40 years. Yet when anybody says "Maybe the DNC should only back candidates who are committed to ending the filibuster, we get the Party insiders coming out in the open saying "Oh dearie no. We must not have any 'litmus tests'."

We can't have it both ways. We can't insist on archaic rules that prevent us from making progress and also complain that people are disassociating from us.

I live in Ohio, but couldn't be a registered Democrat even if I wanted to be. Ohio, like many states, doesn't have party registration. When you vote in the primary, you ask for the party ballot you want to vote - or if you want an issues only ballot. That is the process in many states.

That said, I have always considered myself an independent (and I've participated in a lot of these polls). I vote in the Democratic primary. I am a poll observer on the Democratic side (appointed each time by a Democratic candidate - including Obama and Brown). I've phone-banked and pounded the pavement for Democratic candidates, as well as participating in other voter turnout efforts. When the only options with a reasonable chance of being elected are a Democratic candidate and a Republican, I vote for the Democratic candidate.

But, I do not owe my allegiance to any specific party. The Democratic party currently matches far more of my values than the Republican, so if those are the only two choices with a realistic chance of winning, I'm going to vote Democratic. But both parties are more hawkish and nationalistic than I am comfortable with.

If we ever move to ranked choice voting, the Democratic candidate will be either first or second choice - depending on where the third candidate stands on issues that matter to me - with the hope that it will either force Democrats to move to the left - or that a third party gets enough votes in the first round that it might provide an opening for a truly progressive party to replace the Democratic party (without sacrificing the country, as voting third party now currently does). But that's not where we are now. So as a matter of practicality, I lean Democratic (or farther left). So it's not just, or even primarily, the center of the party viewing themselves as independent.

I see this move, not as a downward spiral, but as a hopeful one. We need more people who aren't into my party-or-die politics.

In many places, you have to be registered with one or the other to vote in the primary. I think things are shifting to open primaries partly for this reason.

Glad it works for you and thank you for your efforts working on these issues.

The blue line is going down. The red line is going up. The uncommitted line now leans more blue and less red.

That's bad news for Democrats. We need to get back some of those leaners. We need to focus on core issues. And get serious.

Gallup has regularly asked political independents since 1991 whether they lean more toward the Republican or Democratic Party. Last year, more political independents said they lean toward the Democratic Party than the Republican Party, with the 45% of political independents breaking down into 20% Democratic leaners, 15% Republican leaners and 10% non-leaners. That is a shift from 2024, representing a three-point decline in Republican leaners and a three-point increase in Democratic leaners. Between 2024 and 2025, identification with both the Republican and Democratic parties fell by one percentage point.



Taking into account Americans' party identification and political leanings, an average of 47% identified as Democrats or said they were independents who lean toward the Democratic Party, while 42% identified as Republicans or leaned Republican. This breaks a three-year stretch in which Republicans held an edge in party affiliation.



Party preferences in 2025 essentially reverted back to what they were during Donald Trump’s first term as president, when Democrats held leads averaging five points. Democrats — who usually hold an edge — have had larger advantages than now in 1992 and 1993, 1996 through 1999, and 2006 through 2009.

The shift in the annual average leaned party preferences, moving from a one-point Republican advantage in 2024 to a five-point Democratic advantage in 2025, somewhat obscures the true extent of movement in party affiliation that has occurred over the past 16 months. In the fourth quarter of 2024, which spanned the last month of the presidential election campaign and most of the Trump presidential transition, Republicans held a four-point lead in party affiliation. By the first quarter of 2025, that advantage had disappeared and the parties were on equal footing. By the second quarter, Democrats had gained an edge of three points, 46% to 43%, which expanded to seven points in the third quarter and eight points in the fourth quarter.

maybe try shifting the conversation


Democrats = minimum wage should be $25 an hour !!
Republicans = minimum wage should be $20 an hour !!

partisan reality of elections and beyond.

It's like how Congress has terrible poll numbers, but people are still going to vote largely the same.