“Who are the real independents?” I seem to have touched a nerve, prompting responses by email and by others on this site. But I think both miss the point: “Independent” should be more than just non-affiliation with Democrats or Republicans. When an “independent” repeats verbatim the talking points of MoveOn.org, it is hard to interpret such an expression as that of a real independent, regardless of party membership. It’s just a member of the far left who declined to join the Democratic Party, perhaps because the Democrats are seen as insufficiently far-left. Similarly, when a Tea Partier claims to be an “independent” while repeating far-right memes about President Obama’s birth and conspiracies at the Federal Reserve, that’s not really an independent either, even if they happen not to be a registered Republican.
If “independent” is to have any real meaning, then it needs to be grounded in some core principle other than just non-membership in the two main parties. Members of the Green Party, the Democratic Socialists, the Communists, the Libertarians, the Constitution Party, and other parties to the left of Democrats or to the right of Republicans are not really “independents”. So let’s stop the semantic gamesmanship pretending that it is in order to stake an undeserved claim to the credibility of the genuinely independent center.
One positive element in the responses, though, is to call attention to particular issues like open primaries and term limits as harbingers of centrist “independence”. Unfortunately that doesn’t completely solve the problem, because extremists often like these issues for their own purposes as well. For example, in 2004 and 2008, some partisan Democrats and Republicans sought to use “open primaries” to sow chaos in their respective “enemy” camps. Remember Rush Limbaugh’s “Operation Chaos” trying to encourage partisan Republicans to use open primary laws to extend the bruising intra-party battle between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton? And back before Arlen Specter joined their side, partisan Democrats sought to use primary support for his ultra-conservative opponent to try to target him for defeat. And by way of analogy, let’s not forget how some partisan Democrats try to plant racist signs at “Tea Party” rallies in pursuit of their campaign to cast all dissent as “racism”. Open primaries may be a good idea, but they are not hallmark of “independents”.
Similarly, term limits seem centrist on their face, but can also be co-opted by partisans and extremists. Term limits might help real independents access the ballot, but they have equal potential to provide access for extremists and partisans as well. Greens, Democratic Socialists, Libertarians, etc, also support term limits, and they aren’t really “independents”, they are partisans and purists.
What we need to differentiate real independents from the poseurs is a guiding principle. I suggest pragmatism and moderation as better guiding principles than merely non-membership in the two major parties. Pragmatism contrasts brightly with the no-compromise-allowed purist demands of partisans and extremists (for examples of this on both left and right, see the recent health care debate), and thus provides a much more clear test of who the real independents are. And moderation in tone contrasts nicely with the routine demonization and name-calling that has grown to dominate the rhetoric on both left and right, thus providing another useful test.
And yes, Charlie Crist is a good example of both, as is the Independence Party in Minnesota. But they are independent not because they are unaffiliated with Democrats or Republicans. It’s because they pursue pragmatic policies instead of following an ideological line and because they addresses issues instead of endlessly regurgitating standardized talking points about how awful and terrible those Other People are.
Though I do wish he would tell those poseurs to get off the lawn.
The author welcomes serious responses by email. Extremist talking points will be printed out and used to line the bottom of a very dirty litterbox.