And highway deep canvassing
Gallup gathered polling data in December that show 45 percent of Americans now identify as political independents. That poses two questions: What do independents do with that information and what do Democrats do with it?
“[I]ndependents’ passive, uncoordinated approach is self-defeating,” writes Conor Friedersdorf at The Atlantic. The essayist, himself a right-leaning independent, considers what it means to be, as the Bible suggests, in the political world but not of the political world. Basically, unfocused and powerless:
And with younger cohorts identifying as independent at much higher rates than older cohorts do—more than half of Gen Z identify as independent—the problem is going to only get worse with time. Indeed, a CNN poll from September suggests that the variability in views among people who self-describe as independent is increasing rather than decreasing.
They want more than a binary choice but cannot say what. Independents are nonbinary themselves, some leaning liberal or conservative, others progressive and libertarian. What to do?
First, independents are most structurally disadvantaged when Republicans and Democrats each carve up congressional districts for their own benefit. Independents can mitigate this by pushing for nonpartisan redistricting commissions that aim to encourage competitive general elections.
Second, independents should push for open primaries. Starting this year, New Mexico will allow voters with no party affiliation to vote in primary elections. But in 2024, voters rejected ballot measures in Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, and South Dakota (a combination of red, blue, and purple states) that would have enabled ranked-choice voting, open primaries, or a combination of both.
[…]
Third, independents should champion a Congress where all members are empowered to represent their constituents. When voting for elected leaders, we should recall the critique of former Representative Justin Amash, who has pointed out that the speaker of the House was not meant to function like the leader of only the majority party, manipulating House rules to advantage the partisan agenda of leadership. Speakers as conservative as the Republican Paul Ryan and as progressive as the Democrat Nancy Pelosi have done the job that way, but the role should be that of an official working on behalf of the entire House to ensure smooth, equitable procedures. One measure of whether Congress is functioning as it should––and one matter that independents as a group should track––is whether all House members, regardless of seniority or party affiliation, are empowered to bring bills or amendments to the House floor for an up or down vote.
That’s not likely to happen anytime soon, but independents should resist the temptation to check out, and “instead focus on what unites most independents: frustration with the two-party system’s long-standing failure to deliver results that are good for the country, and a desire to end the duopoly on power that persists because Republicans and Democrats have skewed the rules of the game.”
Except that “increasing rather than decreasing” variability of views among independents means that they are unlikely to find enough common ground to focus more on changing the duopoly than blaming it. Many younger Americans are not “joiners.” They see themselves as fiercely independent. The problem this independent faced in the wake of Bush’s Iraq invasion was needing allies to fight back. I went to where I knew I could find them in bulk, even if the local Democrats could be cliquish, wary of newcomers, and no more uniformly aligned with my views than Friedersdorf would find among younger independents.
But Democrats should be paying closer attention to that 45 figure, not just the percent part but the age part. It suggests that a lot of younger Americans are not buying what they’re selling, are never hearing about it, or perhaps believe that Democrats will never show rather than tell them that they’ve got their backs.
Many younger Americans under 45 feel disconnected from the political process. They see it as a game played for the benefit of an older, donor class and not for them. So they vote less. But it’s because younger people vote less that party poo-bahs pay less attention to their concerns. And so the young vote less. It’s a self-reinforcing cycle. If younger voters suddenly began voting at the rate of their elders, they’d find both major parties are all suddenly ears. Just don’t expect the Democratic Party to change first.
Democrats as a national party sometimes seem to be in a groove so deep that they cannot see over the top of it. They need to step outside their political comfort zone and innovate, experiment, take risks.
Not content to wait for that, Sign Guy is on street corners and overpasses here five days per week, strutting and posing like Mick Jagger to dance music for those independents. He’s become a local character, a roadside attraction, a friend, and hopefully a trusted messenger. If 45 percent of Americans identify as independents, nearly half of the 12,000+ commuters who see Sign Guy each week are potential voters Democrats need to win in the fall.
Except using the same old micro-targeting and voter contact methods Democratic campaigns employ each and every election, too few independents will be asked to vote or be offered any reasons to. After Labor Day (when most normies begin paying attention), their friendly neighborhood Sign Guy will ask them to vote. Not for his party, his candidates, or his issues, but for their own empowerment. Working solo, Sign Guy avoids the usual issue-barking of thickets of protest signs: impeach, oppose, defend, support, abolish, etc. Instead, controlled messages are about commuters’ lives. Independents want and need to be seen, not barked at. I don’t knock a few hundred doors. The “doors” come to me by the tens of thousands.
Call it highway deep canvassing.
