Politics shouldn't be abusive.

Mobilizing independent voters for a better world.

My amazing podcast co-host Lura Forcum and her non-profit the Independent Center were featured in the Washington Post on Friday.

While there are a lot of great takeaways from the article, I loved this quote from Lura:

“We’re leaving out all these people in the middle who dropped out of politics because it is unpleasant, absurd and inhumane,” she said. “And if we’re offering them a path to political engagement that’s more pleasant than that, I think that we have a huge opportunity. I don’t think it’s nearly as crazy as it otherwise would sound.”

Lura’s comment points to something I’ve been struggling with a lot recently.

The practical side of politics has never had a particularly rosy reputation; one only has to read Machiavelli or Hobbes to remember that our challenges now are hardly unique and likely fairly mild, all things considered.

Real Politics vs. Realpolitik

Let’s be real.

Politics is always hard. It’s about the hardest things humans do.

It’s about diverse people with different interests and values living together, sharing and distributing scarce resources, making decisions about shared and unshared goals, navigating shifting sands of power and vulnerability, and balancing the weight of the past, what’s possible in the present, and our hopes for the future.

Politics is tough.

But there’s nothing about politics that requires it to be abusive.

And abusive it has indeed become.

Sometime the abuse is glaringly obvious, such as Trump’s auctioning off White House access to the highest bidder.

Sometimes the abuse is strategically tucked away, like the way special interests strangle options for safer health care or better education.

But what’s clear is that Americans are feeling deeply abused by our political options.

We’re exhausted, anxious, and increasingly fearful about what our elected representatives will do.

Independents Rising

But politics doesn’t have to be (and shouldn’t be) abusive.

Growing numbers of Americans are responding to our current terrible choices by fleeing altogether, which is one reason why around 36% of eligible voters stayed home altogether in the 2024 election.

But another growing number (and there’s likely overlap between the two groups) are finding that the lack of interest our two major parties have in governing has freed them to vote more strategically: swinging votes, splitting tickets, and jettisoning their membership in any one party for a more policy and issue-focused approach.

Now 34% of Americans consider themselves politically independent and these are, by and large, not Americans with more radical views themselves. They’re actually centrists with moderate views about policy issues that are simply not being represented by either party.

While there's often a lot of focus on third parties as an alternative to our two party stagnation, that option is wildly expensive and very unlikely to succeed, especially given states like my own of New York that effectively destroyed third parties by limiting ballot access.

A more direct and less expensive approach is to mobilize that growing number of independent voters to use their considerable power to back centrist candidates who support the policy positions Americans overwhelmingly support but neither major party is actually acting on.

And it’s those folks who have the ability to shape our shared future, if we can figure out how to mobilize them behind the policies most Americans care about.

A More Humane Future

Despite our awful choices right now, I like to emphasize agency here and we do, fortunately, have agency in this case as in most others.

The reality is that we are so much better than our leaders. And we don’t deserve political abuse. There’s a better politics out there, but we have to find ways to hold our political leaders accountable.

That includes independent voting, but it also includes civic bridge building, better journalism and media coverage, and more support for aisle-crossing politicians.

There are lots of people working across a range of civil society and political spaces right now to change our national dialogue, provide more meaningful choices, and have better policy conversations. And that knowledge gives me a lot of hope.

While it’s true that independents alone probably won’t save our democracy, but they’re almost definitely part of the coalition that will.

Other Resources:

1. Join the Independent Center movement or find more resources, including some great research on what independent voters care about.

2. I love Solutions Journalism and will take any opportunity to amplify their work.

3. I keep a running list of resources to fight polarization and political fatigue on my website (let me know if I’m missing one!). Choose a group and get involved!

Your Turn

What can we do about our abusive political system? How can we hold representatives and leadership accountable? Where do you see the most room for agency and positive change? Drop ideas (or questions or whatever else) in the comments! And if you like what you read, share and subscribe!