Let's Find Common Ground - Is Everything We're Told About Independent Voters Wrong? Jackie Salit and John Opdycke

Episode Date: February 15, 2024

Independent voters make up well over 40 percent of the voting public. But you wouldn’t know that from media coverage, which focuses almost exclusively on red versus blue. Independents are often overlooked or seen as wishy-washy, bending in the wind. Our guests on this episode say that’s a big misconception.  In this show, we look at a huge group of voters, including many young people, who make up a growing slice of the US population. Significantly, the number of American voters identifying as independent is at a record high. Our guests are both political experts. Jackie Salit is the author of Independents Rising and president of Independent Voting, an organization dedicated to bringing respect, recognition, and reform to independent voters. John Opdycke is president of Open Primaries, which campaigns for primary elections in which every American can participate, not just registered Republicans or Democrats.

Record numbers of Americans say they're politically independent. Independence are the largest voting group in the country, 43%. According to a Gallup poll released last month, independence outnumber those who identify as Republican or Democrat. But you wouldn't know it from the media coverage. No, you wouldn't. Political reporting is all about red versus blue. Independence tend to get overlooked and mischaracterized.

We're going to find out why the assumptions about them are often wrong. The parties are vehicles of division right now. That's just how they operate. It's not a mystery. That's what they do. They don't want to come to a deal. They want to keep this thing a mess because it allows them to raise money and demonize the other side as the bad guys. This is Let's Find Common Ground. I'm Richard Davies.

And I'm Ashley Milntight. In this show, we find out why so many people, especially young Americans, are disillusioned with the two main parties. Our guests are Jackie Salot and John Oppdike. Jackie is the author of Independence Rising and President of Independent Voting, an organisation dedicated to bringing respect, recognition and reform to independent voters. John Oppdike is president of the group Open Primaries, which campaigns for primary elections that every American can vote in, not just registered Republicans or Democrats.

We spoke with both of them early last year. Jackie, if there's one thing that a lot of people misunderstand about independent voters, what is it? I would say the one thing is that when an American decides to identify themselves as an independent, they are making a statement both about themselves and about their feelings about the state of politics in this country. And I sometimes like to say that they're making a statement of non-compliance with the system. And I think that it's time that that purpose and that sensibility is respected and recognized across the political field. Independence care deeply about this country

and they don't like the direction that things are going in. Yeah, I would say that the biggest misconception is that independence are moderates that were somehow in between Democrat and Republican. If you try to attach some kind of ideological label to independence, you miss the whole point of independence. It's not an alternative ideology. It is a cry for help It is saying we can't believe this is the state of American politics Can't we do it differently? Can we do it better? Can we break free of all the the old? Cold war era ways that we do things

But a lot of people Reduce all that to, these are moderates. And I think that's dead wrong. Independent voters played a vital role in elections and as citizens. How many people identify as independent or just simply reject party labels. What we know is this, nationally, 42 to 46% of Americans say they identify themselves as independents. That includes the nonpartisan voter registration states and the partisan voter registration states.

When you look at voter registration, the numbers are skyrocketing. Independence are on track to be the largest or second largest group of voters in the 30 states that have partisan voter registration by the year 2030. In some states, they're already the biggest number of voters. Could you just explain for listeners what's different about those 30 states from the others. What do we mean by partisan voter registration? Well, when you register to vote, you have to indicate, do you want to be a Democrat? Do you want to be a Republican?

Do you want to be a libertarian, a green, a peace and freedom, some other party? Or do you want to not be in a political party? And of those 30 states, they sometimes they call those independence blanks, or unaffiliated, or declined to state, or none of the above, or, you know, they have different terminologies for them, all of which are derogatory. Jackie, John said that the number of independence people will identify as independences is growing fast. Is that your experience? Oh, very much so. And it really is across all sectors of the

American public. In the month after the events of January 6, the number went up to 50%. But when you look at different groupings of Americans, whether it's Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans, you know, 40 to 45% identify as independence. Among Latino Americans, the numbers are above 40% in some states even higher. Among younger African American voters, 30% among the so-called millennials who we just used to call young people. And why are a lot of people rejecting the party label and describing themselves as independent? The number one reason that people say they become independent is that they want to vote for the person, not the party. The number two reason is that the political parties are corrupt and interested

more in their own power than they are in what's good for the country. So it sounds like from what you just said, Jackie, that a lot of young people are calling themselves independent. Across the board, how does it look? You know, it's one of those phenomena, there's a lot of things that feed it, I think. First of all, they didn't go through some kind of social political event or process in which a particular party became identified as the leadership force or as the best political reflection, whether that was the Democratic Party for civil rights and anti-war, the Republican Party for the Reagan Revolution, you know, different cultural, social, political trends that tied

different generations, right, to one or the other political party. Younger people are coming of age now and they're kind of like, well, wait a second, this thing looks like a mess. We need to reimagine the process. We need to redesign the thing here. And I don't know that either political party really represents the kinds of things that I'm concerned with. And so I think that's what's driving it. Joan, anything to add? things that I'm concerned with. And so I think that's what's driving it. Joan, anything to add? Maybe one thing to add is that,

you know, there are real consequences for the failure of the bipartisan political establishment to solve in any meaningful way, some of the generational issues, whether it's the border, whether it's infrastructure, education, like you can't just turn these issues into political footballs and use them to gin up the base of support year after year, decade after decade and not expect there to be consequences.

So one of the consequences is that more and more Americans don't trust either party to think about the country. They're just thinking about their own party in the next election cycle and how this issue going unsolved is gonna help them. That's one of the tragedies or ironies of American politics is that unsolved issues are more valuable than solved issues.

unsolved issues are more valuable than solved issues. What do you mean by that? That unsolved issues are of greater use to the parties than solved issues? Well, as long as the border is, I'm not obsessing on that issue, I'm just using it as an example, because it's a humanitarian crisis that going back to, you know, Ronald Reagan, they've been trying to fix it and they can't. Well, that's because the Republicans love the fact that there's a mess there because they get to raise millions of dollars and gin people up and look at this. Look at these migrants coming forward and coming through a border and the Democrats equally gain certain things about how racist the Republicans are and how anti-people of color they are.

And they can project how mean-spirited they are. We're the party of compassion. They don't want to come to a deal. They want to keep this thing a mess because it allows them to raise money and demonize the other side as the bad guys. And that's easy politics. There are a lot of different types of independence. Can we make some generalizations about who they are and what they think?

I would say there's probably three generalizations that you could make. One, in a society that is governed entirely by two-party premises, they've decided that they don't want to be categorized that way. To me, that's a big thing. This is a society, by the way, as you know, that obsesses constantly about identity and about people having the right to identify themselves as they choose, whether that's relative to gender or racial and ethnic heritage. But in this arena, if you identify yourself as an independent, this is frowned upon or

distrusted or discounted. So number one, I think a generalization that can be made is that people are saying, you know what, the categories that exist don't apply to me. Secondly, independence tend very much to want to live in a society that has harmony, that has mutual respect for fellow Americans and believe that there is a way to run a society in which everyone can share in prosperity and progress.

And third, I would say a generalization that you could apply is that independence are forward-looking. I think they have a vision of a political system that is not so entirely governed by partisan destructiveness. One of the things that question makes me think about, are there any generalities? I think face is that by and large, political science, professional political pundits have found a way to apply partisan generalities to independent voters and make them fit. Because independence are not another species. You know, they live in the United States, they vote, they typically have two choices when they vote. And you can go through a dishonest process to make independence look just like Democrats and Republicans

just like Democrats and Republicans, in the search for generalities. Jackie's answer to Ashley's question, I found to be hopeful and refreshing. Yet America is constantly being portrayed as rigidly, deeply divided. Do the views of the majority of voters actually intersect on a number of hot topics? Sure. I mean, most people want to live in a nice and decent house and have opportunities for their kids and have a meaningful job and be able to take vacations and have enough money

to both take care of a family and do fun things. It's not that complicated really, but so many people are just finding it harder and harder to find that in their lives. to find that in their lives. As John was saying earlier, unsolved problems are great fundraising tools and great tools for inflaming people and bringing people out to vote out of fear. The parties are vehicles of division right now. That's just how they operate.

It's not a mystery. That's what they do. And they inflict that on the American public. You know, Jackie said this thing in an op-ed a couple of years ago. I don't remember what the topic was, but this, I remember this jumping out at me. What the parties do is they convert our differences into divisions.

I've always carried that very close to my heart because I think that is one of the biggest calamities of modern American politics is that here we are this rich diverse country of unbelievable difference in the most glorious, wonderful way and converting that in some kind of alchemy into hardened, rigid, partisan division is such a disservice because those differences, and again, I'm just stealing from you, Jackie, so you'll allow me, Those differences are our biggest strength. They're what make this country so wonderful and so productive and so powerful and to reduce it to

division is a real disservice to the people in this country. What do we do with this? How do we have a political system that more accurately reflects the true views of voters? What I like about it is that right now there's a lot of different people trying to answer that question. And we don't have a consensus, which I think is a good thing, because that is a serious political mission. So people are building third parties like Andrew Yang and the forward party. There's efforts that I'm involved in to reform the primary system, which excludes independent voters and segregates people. There's efforts to change the way we do vote counting and draw districts.

There are all kinds of experiments going on, and hopefully some combination of all that is going to lead to a less partisan control political system. John Optike and Jackie Salitt on Let's Find Common Ground. One of John's arguments in our interview is that very large numbers of Americans don't trust the two main parties to solve problems. Instead, they think about how they're going to do in the polls. One example is immigration. Bipartisan attempts to reform the asylum process and deal with the crisis at the border fell apart very recently.

And there may well be other examples of performance politics in this presidential election year. We'll have more from John and Jackie in a minute. I'm Richard. I'm Ashley. Let's Find Common Ground needs your help. We speak to a lot of smart people who are working together across political divides. Help us tell their stories. Text to donate. Tap in the numbers 53-555 on your phone and then type in the letters CGC into the message. Our podcasts are reaching thousands of people with each episode.

Our audience numbers and downloads are the highest among podcasts produced in the bridging space. Every dollar raised goes to reach new subscribers and make more shows. So text to 53555 and use the letters CGC. You can also donate at our website, which is commongroundcommittee.org. Now back to our interview with John Updike and Jackie Salant. Independence are shut out of most primaries when only Democrats or Republicans can vote. Is that unfair?

And if so, why? It's very unfair. It's unfair because these are publicly funded and publicly administered elections, which goes to the point Jackie was just making about this, this conflation between the government and the political parties. The primaries is one area that you see that conflation most dramatically. But it's not just an issue of unfairness. What we have set up in this country is a system in which in order to get elected to office, be it Congress or state

legislature or even president, it's a two tiered process. First and most importantly, you have to satisfy the most engaged partisan activists. Those are your true constituents. Then you have to go on to a general election, which 80% of the time, you either don't have an opponent or you have a token opponent. So the primary becomes the only election of consequence in 80% of the elections in this country. So essentially, we're turning over real power, real influence to small bands of the most partisan Americans.

And then we wonder why 80% of our members of Congress act like petty partisans. Well, they're not stupid people. It's because that's who elects them. So it's yes, it's unfair to independence. They should be included, but the whole system should be re-engineered so that the American people in all their totality have more influence and say so than small bands of partisans. If we were to open up primaries, party primaries to all voters, including independence, what would that do?

If you want to really change the game, you have to go to what they've done in California and Alaska, Nebraska, and Washington state, which is get rid of party primaries altogether. Just have a public primary where all the candidates run, all the voters get to vote for whoever they want. So you're not locked into a predetermined set of candidates based on your party registration. You just vote for the candidates you want. And then the most popular candidates, it might be the top two, it might be the top four at very state to state, they go from the primary to the general election. See, what that's about is about the voters. See, what that's about is about the voters. That's saying we want a system designed to give maximal flexibility, fluidity, choice to the voters.

Look, I'm not just speculating here. We've had open primaries now or nonpartisan primaries in Nebraska for 90 years. In Nebraska, you get Democrats and Republicans sponsoring legislation together. You get coalitions coming together across the political aisle every day of the week. It's the norm. It's not some, oh my God, can you believe that Democrats and Republicans are working together? No, it's the norm in Nebraska. And Nebraska is a really conservative state. Yeah.

A state where Republicans clearly dominate. And Democrats get this. Democrats have a majority of committee chairmen ships in the state legislature. In a red state, which voted, I think, 70% for Trump in the last election, Democrats have a majority of committee chairmen ships in the last election. Democrats have a majority of committee chairmanship in the state legislature. Why? They don't elect people based on party, they elect them based on merit. They got rid of the partisan system. So all kinds of things are possible when you chuck the red-blue control of the system.

I think I gather from both of you that you yourselves are politically independent. Am I right? Oh yeah. Yes. Can you each talk a little bit about why and how long for how that came about? Jackie? Sure. Well, I grew up in a pretty politically active family, very active in the anti-war movement

and the civil rights movement. I grew up in New York City, and I was involved in various community organizing efforts, including an effort to win collective bargaining rights for welfare recipients and to create a union of people receiving public assistance to negotiate over terms and conditions, etc. And while doing that, I encountered a number of elected officials in New York City municipal government

who were African American and Latino, who were Democrats, who'd been elected as Democrats, but who had been denied the opportunity to rise up to a position of greater power, both in elective office and within the party by the party bosses. And so we had long discussions about what to do about this and came up with a collaborative effort that became known as the New Alliance Party in which these mainly black and Latino elected officials ran for public office both as Democrats and as independents. And so in the course of using independent politics to leverage the position of poor communities, of communities of color, and to have political independence be a tool to challenge the power of the party

bosses. It basically became clear to me independence was the way to go. And one thing that's really interesting about that is you don't sound like you're a moderate? I have never been a moderate about anything. No, you're right. I'm not. I'm not. But allow me here. If you are concluding that I come from the left side of the spectrum, which in many respects I do, I am not in any way, shape, which in many respects I do.

I am not in any way, shape, or form a traditional leftist. I think the left in general in this country has given its fealty to the Democratic Party. It's been very, very hostile largely to independent politics and to creating coalitions that go outside of the boundaries of ideology. And that I couldn't disagree with that political orientation more. John. Well I come from the exact opposite from Jackie in that my family could not be more unsophisticated politically. And I was arrogant enough when I went away to college, I said, I'm going to change that.

I'm going to learn something about politics. And I had a girlfriend who was from Chile, and I got close to her family and I'm like, geez, I'm a straight A student, but I literally know nothing about how the world works at all. And my freshman year of college at the University of Michigan, I joined the young Democrats and the young Republicans in the same week. And very quickly learned that that was, how shall we say, frowned upon. Honestly, it was a rude awakening that this was not a learning environment. This was a contact sport. You had to pick

a side. And I felt very turned off by that. And I got lucky in that I met very soon after that experience. I met Lenora Filani, who Jackie was her deputy campaign manager. She was running for president as an independent first woman, first African American. She came to my campus and spoke and I was blown away because she was talking as an independent and was talking about the world and about these issues and was not lining up Democrat or Republican. And I felt drawn to that. I think the audience for this podcast were pretty open-minded and we probably change our minds from time to time. What is the one thing that both of you would like to do when it comes to changing our perceptions

about independence? Jackie, you're first. I would ask your listeners to consider the following. The American public has outgrown the existing system. And we're in kind of a funny position of trying to shoehorn all of our political aspirations and all of our political convictions into a system which is now outdated and which forces people to distort themselves and forces communities to distort themselves. And I would ask your listeners to consider that and to be willing to involve themselves in activities that help to create new kinds of processes

and new kinds of political institutions that are more suited to where we are as a country today. I think that's very poetic and beautiful and I couldn't agree more. I would like to ask your listeners that whenever they're reading an article or listening to MSNBC or Fox or whoever they listen to, and they hear the word Democrat leaners or Republican leaners, that they stand up and they yell at the TV and they say, that is a fraud.

Because what they do is they take independence and they say to them, yeah, you're an independent, but who do you lean towards? And independence will say, well, you know, last election, I voted Democrat say, aha, you're not really an independent, you're a Democrat or Democrat leaner or a Republican leaner. It's one of the tools that's used to prevent the political system from growing, as Jackie is saying. The political system needs to grow to catch up with the American people.

Those words, Democrat leaner and Republican leaner, they might seem innocuous. They might just seem like, oh, it's typical jargon used in Washington. No, it is an offensive, violent term used to maintain the status quo. So I want people to get angry about it. Noted.

John and Jackie, thank you both so much for coming on Let's Find Common Ground. Our pleasure. Well, thanks so much for having us. Really great to talk to you. Jackie Salat and John Optike on Let's Find Common Ground. I'm Richard Davies. I'm Ashley Miltite. Thanks This podcast is part of the Democracy Group.