Recently, within our two major political parties there has been conflict and divergent views between younger and older members. In the Democratic party, the so-called progressive wing which leans more to the left is generally younger than the establishment faction. The progressives include younger elected officials aside from a few like Senators Bernie Sanders age 85 and Elizabeth Warren, age 77. Ed Markey, another progressive senator from Massachusetts who is 80, just won his Democratic primary against Seth Moulton, age 47 in a generational face-off. Markey served for 37 years in Congress before his two terms in the Senate, so he certainly can be called a perennial politician, running for office again at age 80. It appears that the Democrats generational wars make exceptions if one is progressive. The Democratic Socialist movement among the Democrats was started by Sanders and younger members like AOC and have pulled the Democrats even further to the left.
The Republican Party’s younger members tend to be more right-wing and include white nationalists and other extremists. Charlie Kirk, one of the conservative leaders, was 32 when he was assassinated while giving a speech on a Utah college campus in September 2025. He founded Turning Point USA a conservative organization for young people which he started in an Illinois garage in 2012. Subsequently, he became a right-wing icon allied with Trump and MAGA. His goal was to oppose progressive ideas with conservative values and his oratorical gifts resonated with young conservatives. After his violent death, Turning Point received a huge number of donations that helped make it one of the nation’s largest political organizations. Political rallies, speeches and gatherings at high schools and colleges attracted stars and large numbers of students, in the thousands to tens of thousands.
So now we have our two major parties dominated by youngsters of the far-right and far-left, with the broad middle mostly vacant. A Gallup Poll of Americans at the end of 2025 had 45 percent of respondents identifying as independents, with 27 percent as Democrats and 27 percent as Republicans. Though the political parties may be veering more right and left, more Americans consider themselves independent or centrists, with neither party providing them with a home. America is an unusual democracy with only two major parties. However, the polls show that a centrist third party is needed, or even a fourth party. But both Democrats and Republicans are strongly opposed, wanting to maintain their duopoly of political power.
The polarization of the two major parties and their adherents makes a centrist third party even more necessary. Why should American voters have to hold their noses and choose between extremes?
www.robertlevinebooks.com
Political junkie, Vietnam vet, neurologist- three books on aging and dementia. Book on health care reform in 2009- Shock Therapy for the American Health Care System. Book on the need for a centrist third party- Resurrecting Democracy- A Citizen’s Call for a Centrist Third Party published in 2011. Aging Wisely, published in August 2014 by Rowman and Littlefield. Latest book- The Uninformed Voter published May 2020