The reckoning: Why disillusioned conservatives are cutting GOP ties

Independent voters are a growing bloc in the American political body, made up in large part of people who have been fleeing both parties in droves. With President Donald Trump being a Republican, that party in particular has been worried about its flagging support in the polls with this group. Now a new survey explains why so many people are becoming independents — namely, that they are disgusted with their original party but do not warm up to the alternative.

“In the United States, partisanship has a greater impact on political behavior than any other social identity,” wrote Alex Tolkin, a researcher at the Duke Initiative on Survey Methodology and The Polarization Lab from Duke University, in the abstract for his study for the journal Public Opinion Quarterly. “However, the proportion of Americans who actively identify with a party, as opposed to Independents who ‘lean’ toward one, is at its lowest point in decades.”

He added, “Existing research offers two explanations for why: First, being seen as partisan is not socially desirable, so people identify as Independent despite covertly preferring one party. Second, nonidentification may be a result of viewing both parties negatively. Using eight waves of panel data from 2016 to 2022, I compare the strength of these competing explanations. I only find support for the explanation-based evaluations of the parties. People switch from partisans to Independents when they view their former party more negatively, not when they seek to make a good impression.”

When analyzing the study, PsyPost's Karina Petrova noted that “the large study relied on data from a national panel collected by researchers at the University of Chicago. The dataset included 4,941 participants surveyed across eight different intervals between October 2016 and November 2022. Tolkin isolated a group of 1,293 respondents who identified as a partisan in at least one survey phase and as an independent in another.”

Petrova later in her coverage noted that “people shed their labels because they view their former party more negatively, not because they view the other party more positively. These results draw on a specific period in American politics, spanning the years 2016 through 2022. This era featured unconventional political figures and highly unusual national events.”

She added, “While Republican voters in the study were more sensitive to policy disagreements than Democratic voters, the data does not indicate whether this is a permanent difference between the parties or a temporary reaction to recent political shifts. The study design exclusively examines individuals who actively changed their political identification during the survey period. It cannot account for broad shifts caused by generational replacement.”

Speaking with AlterNet about bipartisanship earlier this month, Clarine Nardi Riddle — a former Connecticut Attorney General, aide to Sen. Joe Lieberman (D-CT) and co-founder of the influential Washington group that encourages bipartisanship and political independence, No Labels — broke down her own firsthand view of how bipartisanship deteriorated in the United States.

“I've worked in local government; I've worked in state government; I've worked in the federal government; I've worked in the legislative branch; I've worked in the executive branch; and I've worked in the judicial branch,” Riddle told AlterNet. “So I've been able to span all of the branches and all the levels. And I do think there are a number of things that have happened along the way.”

First, she identified how Rep. Newt Gingrich (R-GA) urged lawmakers to not move to Washington DC but instead say in their districts so they could continuously campaign and get reelected.

“I think that was a turning point in people not meeting other people here in DC and getting to know them,” Riddle said. “Because if they only come in on Monday night and leave on Thursday night, they're doing partisan stuff Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, and they're not getting to know their colleagues. They're not getting involved in the community with their family. They're totally focused on partisan types of things.”

She also argued that people are becoming more detached from both parties because of a lack of civics education.

“People here get detached, even though they go back — or if they live there over the weekends, they get pulled into their own narrow things at home, and many times they're not in tune with what's happening,” Riddle explained, adding that social media has likely played a role in this. “The water cooler being online, and people playing off of each other online, and anger personifying itself in that way, whereas it used to be whispered at the water cooler or at the diner. Now it's out there for anybody to see. And I think that's been part of what keeps us apart.”

She also said, “And the other thing — [Sen. Joe Lieberman]” said that he hoped “to put together a civics curriculum for high school kids” through a documentary about his life “because he was seeing that they didn't understand the three branches of government, didn't understand the roles, what the purposes were. It wasn't getting taught.”

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