What David Atkins said. I was doing a radio show last week and I said I had no respect for “independent” voters in general. I said they were usually hopelessly underinformed and if they weren’t too lazy to read, they might see that there is no “middle” anymore.
Yep
Agree with Atkins about “centrists” (who are really what Republicans used to be before the party went crazy), but independents are not necessarily centrists, it’s just that neither corporate party represents them.
That’s ok. Independent voters probably have no respect for you either. That is – those who will reflexively pull the lever for whichever corporate party you’re still clinging to, no matter how poorly the candidate is representing you (or not representing you). Why bother looking at past non-performance when it’s so important not to vote for the other guy no matter what?
There are three kinds of people in the world. The uninformed, the evil and everybody else. The evil people prey on the uninformed. It’s the job of everybody else to protect the uninformed from the evil people. Then to inform the uninformed and eliminate the evil people. Not supporting anyone in a two-party political system makes an “independent” uninformed.
You’d think with 40% of the country identifying ourselves as independent and more and more people identifying partisan politics as a hindrance to progress, that the members of the media (and others) might be interested in going beyond the pre-packaged pundit explanation of independents and talk to some independents. According to them, we are Centrists, we are indecisive, we are really Democrats or Republicans – but despite the fact that when one becomes an independent there are a variety of ways that we are locked out of the process and lose our voting rights, millions of us are still choosing to do so. Check out Independentvoting.org if you’re interested in finding out more abou what independents actually are doing to build a movement to restructure politics. Email me at gmandell@independentvoting.org if you want to get involved.
“Not supporting anyone in a two-party political system makes an “independent” uninformed.”
WTF? You are defining independent as a person who is uninformed. This is simply false. Most likely, those not supporting either corporate candidate are those who are most informed about them – and what they have done. Please read the article 2 above this one.
The more you know about Obama and Romney, the less you want to vote for either of them. And the less daylight you can see between them. If you don’t support either, it could be because you understand that it’s nearly a coin flip of difference in what policies will be enacted during the next 4 years. Don’t expect Obama to suddenly start doing anything he mouths off about and don’t expect Romney to want to change anything off the status quo.
Statistically speaking, independents ARE uninformed. According to pollsters, people who identify as independent also lean Republican or libertarian. So when I said “in general”, I was allowing for people who’d made an informed decision. I still think those people are a drop in the bucket.
Liz and Gwen, check out how not voting for any candidate because you’re trying to make a “statement” worked out for the Left in Egypt recently. There’s an old saying that goes like this, “If you don’t buy a ticket, you can’t win the lottery.” Not only aren’t independents buying a ticket, they’re also refusing to accept the reality of the lottery. Pick a side—hopefully the Democratic side—then fight like hell to change what reality looks like.