I’m an independent voter, and I’m registered as nonpartisan in Nebraska. But I wasn’t always.
I registered Republican when I turned 18 and stayed that way until 2022. I didn’t leave because I suddenly became a Democrat. I left because I realized the party label was doing some of my thinking for me. I’m a Marine Corps combat veteran, a diesel mechanic, a father of five and a writer.
I diagnose problems for a living. If I decide what’s wrong with a truck before I test anything, I can waste thousands of dollars replacing perfectly good parts. Eventually, I realized I was approaching politics differently: starting with a team and then interpreting the evidence around it. So I stopped.
My beliefs don’t fit neatly into either party. I strongly support
the Second Amendment and the right to repair. I support voting rights, including restoring them after someone convicted of a crime has served their sentence. I oppose partisan gerrymandering and support opening our political system to independent voters and candidates.
Sometimes I agree with Republicans. Sometimes I agree with Democrats. Sometimes I think they’re both completely full of it. Being independent doesn’t mean I don’t have convictions. It means no political party gets to decide them for me. I don’t vote for a jersey anymore. I diagnose the problem, look at the evidence and make up my own mind.
Voters have power. Politicians and parties have to earn our votes
I don’t think independents should have more power than Republicans or Democrats. I think voters should have equal power regardless of which political organization they belong to. Including none at all. Political parties should be allowed to organize, endorse candidates and advocate for their ideas. They just shouldn’t own the entrance ramp to American democracy.
The biggest misconception about independent voters is that we’re all sitting in the political middle, unable to decide what we believe. I’m not undecided. I have very strong opinions. They just don’t all belong to the same political party.
I can strongly support the Second Amendment while supporting voting rights for people who have completed criminal sentences. I can believe that government wastes enormous amounts of money while also believing that government has legitimate responsibilities. I can criticize President Donald Trump without becoming a Democrat and criticize Democrats without becoming MAGA. That shouldn’t be confusing. It’s only confusing if you’ve accepted the idea that political beliefs are supposed to come as a package deal.
What people get right is that independents can be unpredictable. Good. Politicians should have to earn votes. I think many independents are less interested in which team proposed an idea than whether the idea actually works. That doesn’t make us enlightened or inherently smarter than partisan voters. We have biases, too. We just don’t have a party membership requiring us to defend the entire menu because we ordered one item from it. Independent doesn’t mean politically homeless. Sometimes it just means I built my own house.
I think appealing to independent and swing voters is healthy. Having to earn votes outside your political base forces candidates to defend their ideas to people who aren’t already wearing the team jersey. The problem is that campaigns often confuse appealing to independents with marketing to them.
Every election cycle, candidates spend millions figuring out which combination of words, advertisements and focus-group-tested messages might move unaffiliated voters. Then the election ends, governing begins and many politicians return to satisfying the parties, donors and activists who helped put them there. That can create a strange political incentive: Campaign toward the middle, govern toward the base, repeat.
Like the market, competition should help politics
I’d rather candidates appeal to independents by giving us something more substantial: clear positions, honest trade-offs and an explanation of how their policies are supposed to work. I don’t need a politician to agree with me on everything. I’d actually be suspicious if one did. I want someone willing to explain what they believe, defend it with evidence and occasionally tell their own side, “No.”
So, yes, campaigns should compete aggressively for independent voters. But don’t study us like some mysterious species wandering through the electoral wilderness. Give us something worth voting for. Then let us decide.
I don’t think Republicans or Democrats adequately represent Americans because I don’t think 340 million people can be neatly divided into two ideological boxes. The two-party system encourages us to treat politics like a package deal. Pick a team, and suddenly you’re expected to inherit its positions on guns, abortion, taxes, immigration, health care, climate, criminal justice and foreign policy.
Human beings aren’t that simple. My problem isn’t that political parties exist. People with shared beliefs should organize. My problem is that two organizations have become so dominant that they effectively control the entrances to political power while convincing Americans those are the only two realistic choices.
Then we wonder why politics feels tribal. I absolutely believe a viable multiparty system is possible, but probably not without structural changes. Open primaries, ranked-choice voting, easier ballot access and ending partisan gerrymandering could give independent and third-party candidates a better opportunity to compete.
I’m not interested in replacing Republicans and Democrats with some new party everyone is supposed to join. I want more competition. If competition supposedly makes businesses better, lowers prices and gives consumers better choices, maybe we should try some of that capitalism everyone keeps talking about in politics. Because right now, America’s political marketplace is basically a duopoly where both companies keep telling us the other product will kill us. I’d like to see another aisle.
— Christopher Moore, Nebraska
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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: I'm an independent. Give me something to vote for | Your Turn
