Pennsylvania

This is a challenge that the Democrats have to face, because the pendulum can swing back in the other direction just as quickly.

My contention is that what is happening now is largely due to regionalism coming in conflict with population densities. NE, SE, Inland Sea (Great Lakes), Upper Mountain, Lower Mountain, West Coast (and even within that SW vs. NW). Each sector is increasingly acting like a separate country - different economic drivers, different cultural and religious backgrounds, increasingly different ground rules and moral structures.

Add into this the fact that the GOP has, since the early 1970s, defined itself more cohesively as an ingroup, something that has only sharpened since 2000, while the Democrats have usually defined themselves as being what the Republicans aren't. That's a precarious place to be, especially since that means that you have more factions contending for power and representation on the Democratic side. Moreover, those factions also tend to form fairly amorphous clusters.

This means that you get reactive politics. Every time you get someone like a Trump or GW Bush in power, that coalition comes together, but it's weak when there is no clear policy or agenda, and defining one is hard when you have the regional biases to contend with. Once in power the GOP also does it's usually trick of gerrymandering, which usually results in an arms race like what's happening this year. That only makes the regional divides stronger.

Additionally we have the city mouse/country mouse divide. Cities by definition have higher populations but smaller areas, and in a geography-oriented political system, that tends to give the country mouse undue influence in comparison to their numbers. That distinction is becoming more stark - by all indications, the low-population-density areas are becoming even emptier compared to the large and mid-sized cities (fewer towns, more urban centers). There's comparatively little common ground between those two viewpoints.

Finally, social media and the end of geofencing is having the impact of siloing people by specific beliefs rather than working towards a common goal; in terms of my field of ontologies - local ontologies are increasingly reasserting themselves compared to global ones.

This means that characterising independent voters is disingenous; it only means that their self-identification is along terms that are increasingly not meant by either of the major parties exclusively, but our current political environment really has no room for a third path.