The choices on the health insurance exchange are unironically labeled as metals: Bronze, Silver, Gold, and Platinum for the super chi-chi medical services consumer. In the bottom tier, I’m now paying an exorbitant amount for family insurance through the Maryland exchange for what is essentially catastrophic coverage with massive deductibles and out-of-pocket costs.

The government calls these “low-premium” plans, a charade worthy of Catch-22. Pay steadily increasing rates for the privilege of shelling out even more if you actually need medical attention.

This is the “empty your wallet for few actual health services but you probably won’t go broke if you get the cancer” plan. Health insurance that costs as much as your mortgage, except you get no equity and nothing pleasurable or useful out of it.

Of course, one could simply forego paying this extortionist fee for the peace of mind of hopefully not croaking from the financial stress of landing in the ER after an uninsured motorist T-bones you drag racing on the streets of Baltimore because the authorities don’t enforce traffic laws anymore. You can’t fault any American in this position who decides, screw it, I’m not paying for health insurance and taking my chances.

Since I’m the sucker who ponied up, it got me thinking about a feasible way to patch up this hole in the system, especially given the realities of the American health care infrastructure, people’s existing preferences, and the serious limitations of the U.S. government.

Two ideas come to mind, not as complete “solutions,” but as possible avenues for reform:

1. Create a genuine public option for gig workers, self-employed people, and others without access to employer-sponsored insurance, with reasonable premiums and basic health care services that people can actually use.

2. Allow the more than 165 million Americans under the age of 65 who have employer-sponsored coverage to keep their insurance if they like it.

This isn’t single-payer insurance. It’s also not the status quo. It is a new arrangement that would acknowledge the reality of how American health care is currently organized yet improve it a bit with a fair and useful new coverage option for those without employer-sponsored or other government-provided insurance.

If this hybrid public-private approach to health insurance sounds familiar, it is. Back in the Obama era, a more expansive version of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) was supposed to do something along these lines. The public option was ultimately dropped from the legislation after opposition from moderate Democrats and industry groups, while Republicans rejected the entire structure of Obamacare. The individual mandate penalty was later reduced to zero, while the ACA’s subsidy structure has been altered and expanded and then reduced again.

The net result of all this political wrangling over Obamacare is a system in which Americans without employer-sponsored insurance find themselves paying increasingly steep premiums while also facing high deductibles and expensive direct payments for actually visiting a doctor or going to a hospital. Not surprisingly, many people forced on to the exchange dislike these plans and can’t afford them.

Perhaps it’s time to bring back debate about the public option.

On the left, the shiny new (old) idea from progressive candidates this election cycle is “Medicare for All,” a nifty slogan that uses the popular health insurance program for seniors as the basis for a government-financed system for everyone. It’s not entirely clear what the right actually wants on health care these days, but it’s some basic combination of more market-driven approaches, more consumer control, fewer insurance middlemen, and more direct payments to doctors and other providers using tax-advantaged health savings accounts.

If you could snap your fingers and go back to the 1950s, the United States arguably would have been much better off establishing a nationalized health care system from the beginning in the aftermath of World War II, much like the United Kingdom and other European nations did.

But that’s not what the U.S. government pursued.

Instead, employer-sponsored health insurance developed into the primary form of coverage for working-age Americans through favorable tax treatment. Later, the government set up Medicare for seniors and Medicaid for low-income Americans, creating a complicated mix of private and public insurance that evolved over several decades.

Unfortunately, you can’t redo history. Institutions develop over time, and policy is path dependent.

The United States, for better or worse, has built a gigantic private health care system with large insurance and drug companies and millions of administrators, hospitals, doctors, nurses, and other workers employed within it. We also have a major public program for seniors that interacts with the system through payment rates, reimbursements, supplemental insurance programs, and private Medicare plans. And we have countless private contracts and institutional arrangements that determine how and when people receive medical treatment.

Changing course on the U.S. health care system is immensely complicated. So the better path forward might be to fix what needs to be fixed without fundamentally blowing up the system, which more radical ideas intend to do.

If more and more Americans under the age of 65 are falling through the cracks of employer-based coverage as the economy changes and can’t afford the costs of individual-market insurance, let’s create a new public pool for them to buy into with reasonable premiums and basic health services that people can access. At the same time, let’s implement some market-oriented ideas to reduce unnecessary regulations, increase price transparency and competition, and discourage excessive tests and other expensive treatments that provide little benefit relative to their cost.

Draw a little from the left and a little from the right. Do something for the millions of Americans left to fend for themselves in America’s health care jungle.

If health care reform is going to build sustained support among Democrats, Republicans, and independents, it will probably need to be a compromise and hybrid plan that can actually pass and be implemented over several years.

Maybe not a platinum plan, but a gold star for normal Americans.

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Why? The adversarial, tribal, and often unethical values that drive contemporary politics are antithetical to living a reasoned, calm, cooperative, and meaningful life. Politics as practiced today is mostly about dominating one’s opponents, minimizing the concerns of other people, and securing power for partisan priorities and benefits. It’s rarely designed to pursue the well-being of all people and certainly not set up to enhance the positions of those who are not in a particular partisan tribe.

Contemporary partisan politics operates around the view that winning confers authority to impose a party’s preferences on others without restraint and that those who lose elections are either weak or deserving of their minority position.

If politics were a person, you definitely wouldn’t want to spend much time with that individual because they would constantly manipulate and exploit you with lies and self-interested behavior and otherwise act in annoying and dishonest ways. Or a “toxic” person “gaslighting” you, as the kids say.

In contrast to the values that shape politics, human beings desperately need other sources for how to live and act—whether religious, humanist, or experiential—that can help order their personal lives and provide some framework for evaluating the country and larger events. These alternative values work best when they challenge people to resist their worst instincts, as expressed through politics and other combative endeavors.

My favorite principle, bar none, is the basic idea that one should treat all people as equals with inherent human dignity, not as means to some other end or as props in their own psycho-political drama.

This idea that all people are equal with intrinsic human dignity comes from both religious and secular sources. Catholic teaching, for example, rests on the belief that all humans are made in the image of God and therefore have inherent value and worth. The great Enlightenment philosopher Immanuel Kant reached a similar conclusion through moral philosophy, famously arguing in his Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals: "So act that you use humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, always at the same time as an end, never merely as a means."

The Declaration of Independence, of course, puts forth America’s extended version of these liberal ideals as the primary rationale for establishing an independent nation: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”

Likewise, Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights combines religious and secular value sources into a strong foundational vision for well-ordered societies: “All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.”

Anyone who grew up Catholic knows well the Church’s insistence that we are basically nobodies in the face of the vast universe, that God loves all his children equally, and that we should therefore extend this love and respect to others. Personal humility offers a useful way to go about life, understanding that you are neither inherently better nor worse than anyone else and that other people have something to offer that is worthy of respect.

People may possess different physical strengths, intellectual abilities, social advantages, or powers of persuasion. But underneath all these differences, we remain humans and deserve equal moral consideration.

This is not a defense of moral relativism by any means. People’s actions and choices matter, and everyone should be held accountable—before God, under the law, or according to other standards of ethical conduct—for upright and lawful behavior. Treating people as equals does not mean treating all behavior as equally good.

A Catholic upbringing, in my experience, was also very helpful in getting youngsters (and adults) to understand that God was always watching and knew what they were thinking and doing. “Catholic guilt” works for a very good reason: It keeps people honest inside their heads and hearts and provides some guidance for determining personal actions. That is a lesson the Church itself could have adhered to more faithfully in its own behavior over the past several decades.

Philosophers can—and do—bicker over the rigidity of Kantian ethics and his various “imperatives.” But his model of ethical universalism offers another useful corrective to base impulses and petty motivations that lead us all astray.

In addition to directing us to treat others as ends in themselves, Kant emphasized the importance of acting from a “good will” rather than just looking for a positive outcome from a relationship or particular act. This idea is demanding, but the basic lesson is straightforward: How we treat others matters, as do the intentions behind our actions. We should not approach others in a dishonest manner or with ulterior motives designed to achieve some other goal.

Our politics sure could use some of this moral and philosophical thinking.

More personal humility. More equal treatment of others. More honest intentions. More comradely behavior. Less grandstanding. Less tribalism. Less discrimination against others. Less using others for our own purposes.

Religion, philosophy, family, friends, community, art, athletics, and leisure all provide sources of meaning and purpose outside of political conflict. In turn, those values give us standards by which to evaluate politics itself—to determine who or what is living up to higher human standards.

Being independent requires more than just refusing to join a political team. It also involves choosing a better, more self-sustaining framework for moral and political life.

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Political messages and empty promises are no substitute for tangible improvement in wages, benefits, overall living standards, and financial security for working-class Americans.

For context, it’s important to recognize that the “working class” is not a unified group of people. The historical definition does not map neatly onto contemporary America given its origins in industrial-era sociology that distinguished people who earned their pay through labor from those in the middle and upper classes who made money through small trades, business ownership, or investments. In the twentieth century, blue-collar work and jobs with hourly wages typically indicated working-class status, as did household incomes that hovered right around or below the national median.

In contemporary political analysis, education is often used as a proxy for working-class standing, with working-class voters defined as those with a high school diploma, some college, or other technical certification and non-working-class voters defined as those with a four-year or postgraduate degree. Cultural values and attitudes also help to define working-class communities in terms of ties to family, religious and ethnic traditions, major regional employers, labor unions, and music or other popular culture.

Clearly, some combination of type of employment, overall income, educational attainment, and social values helps to differentiate a working-class person from a non-working-class one.

Interestingly, most Americans today do not readily identify as working class. A recent Politico survey found that less than one fifth of U.S. adults label themselves “working class” compared to nearly half who call themselves either “middle class” or “lower middle class.” The percentages were roughly proportional among both Trump voters and Harris voters from 2024.

More telling, only one quarter of self-identified working-class Americans—and around three in ten Trump and Harris voters—believe politicians “genuinely want to help the working class” compared to nearly six in ten who feel they just want “to get votes.”

The crux of the political problem for working-class Americans is clear: no one buys what either party is selling, and few see any substantial progress after decades of unkept promises.

It’s difficult to blame working-class Americans for their cynicism about politics. Look at recent results.

President Joe Biden spent a great deal of time talking about his own working- and middle-class upbringing in Scranton, PA, and admirably tried to orient his administration toward “pro-worker” industrial policy, support for unions, investments in American businesses and good-paying construction jobs, and basic governmental redistribution on health care and education.

But much of this was for naught in political terms. Whether intentional or not, Biden clearly failed to address working-class voters’ core concerns about inflation and the soaring cost of groceries, consumer goods, housing, and energy—along with his deeply unpopular handling of immigration and the southern border. Biden’s administration could certainly point to economic achievements, especially coming out of the pandemic-induced recession, but those achievements did not translate into widespread belief among working-class voters that their lives were improving. Biden’s successor was denied a second term for Democrats, and Biden left office with poor job approval ratings from working-class and other Americans, especially on economic issues.

Similarly, President Donald Trump, despite his personal wealth, has long viewed himself as a champion of working-class economic opportunity and the embodiment of working-class cultural values and discontentment. He has performed very well with large numbers of these voters, particularly those without college degrees. Trump promised to disrupt the status quo and did so in several areas. But, like Biden, he is now suffering serious reputational decline among working-class voters, both in and out of his partisan base, for his blasé dismissal of their economic worries about costs.

Trump’s policies—including tariffs and trade wars, tax cuts that disproportionately benefit high earners, and some reductions in health-care spending—haven’t addressed basic cost-of-living concerns among the working class. The stock market may be booming, but working-class life remains tense and economically tight as the costs of food, gas, housing, and health care continue to constrain financially stretched workers. Consequently, Trump and Republicans now face a potential reckoning in the upcoming midterms.

These disillusioned working-class voters are fed up and increasingly up for grabs.

What do working-class voters want? Even with the diversity of working-class people in America, a clear set of policy goals crosses all segments: a desire for more jobs, stronger economic growth, rising real incomes, decent health care and retirement benefits, attainable housing in a safe neighborhood, quality schools, cheap gas, affordable basics, fair rules for all workers, and lower taxes.

These are not the easiest things to deliver, even for well-intentioned and competent political leaders operating in fairly decent macroeconomic environments.

Working-class voters might be willing to wait for long-term policies to take root. However, this requires both parties to be honest about the scale of the challenge, acknowledge the limits of public policy, and sincerely work together to improve life for working families.

But politicians and parties don’t act this way, so patience among the working class is wearing thin.

Extravagant promises and posturing about helping the working class—whether of a Democratic or Republican variety—will not make up for the lack of concrete improvements in working-class life. It will only make working-class voters more cynical about politics, less trusting of both political parties, and more willing to turn elsewhere for answers.

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As with any good joke, it only works because the underlying premise is basically correct.

Ipsos just released its Global Trustworthiness Index for 2026, including more than 23,000 interviews across 31 countries, and, lo and behold, “politicians” emerge as the most untrustworthy group among all professions on average and the single most distrusted group in 19 of the nations surveyed, followed closely by “social media influencers” and “government ministers” in several countries. Politicians are seen as untrustworthy by two-thirds or more of the populations in Argentina, Belgium, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, France, Germany, Great Britain, Peru, Poland, Romania, South Africa, Spain, and the United States.

In contrast, “doctors” come out on top as the most trustworthy professionals overall and land in first place in 16 of the 31 nations, followed closely by “scientists” among all countries. “Teachers” also receive high marks for trustworthiness in many countries.

As the table below highlights, doctors are viewed as more trustworthy than untrustworthy by a 43-point net margin across all countries and scientists by a 42-point margin. Looking at the bottom of the chart, politicians receive a -48-point net trustworthiness rating, with social media influencers at -44 and cabinet officials and government ministers at -37 on net.

Besides yielding a hearty guffaw about the foibles of the political class, what do these data tell us about professions more generally and politicians specifically? The answer, I believe, is not that doctors and scientists are intrinsically better or wiser people than everyone else. It’s that their professions are designed to create high-functioning members and yield work that is linked to outcomes with clear processes for uncovering and fixing mistakes.

First, the most trusted professionals globally, like doctors and scientists, work in fields that require substantial amounts of knowledge mastery and credentialing before these workers are given any real responsibilities on the job with patients or in the lab. One can’t just announce they are a doctor or a scientist without first proving an understanding of the core concepts, practices, and technical aspects of these professions.

Second, there are serious professional norms and accountability measures for doctors and scientists that far exceed those in other fields. There’s a reason doctors’ medical liability insurance is so costly in many places—if doctors make a mistake at work that seriously harms a patient or perhaps causes their death, they are on the legal hook for their actions. Doctors want to perform admirably not just for these legal concerns, but also for ethical and professional reasons (e.g., The Hippocratic Oath). Physicians want to help people recover from illnesses and injuries to the best of their abilities and through the use of modern medical technology. Scientists may not face as many immediate life-and-death situations, but their work is also subjected to rigorous peer review, oversight, criticism, and replication to identify mistakes and improve the reliability of empirical findings and applications.

Third, and perhaps more nuanced, doctors and scientists generally need to be able to acknowledge mistakes, errors, and oversights and make corrections when problems arise. Doctors and scientists aren’t inherently superior people, but a dose of intellectual and professional humility helps to ensure that both their personal work and their overall fields are successful. Smart, credentialed people make mistakes just like the rest of us. The difference with these more trusted professional fields is that medicine and science both require mistakes and errors to be honestly reported and acknowledged. New, correct information is then incorporated into future work to ensure its success, whether it involves a blood treatment or the development of a new building material or industrial chemical.

The field of politics as practiced today is not at all like these most trusted professions in each of the three areas. In some cases, the lack of formal professionalism is beneficial. One doesn’t necessarily need elaborate credentials and degrees to represent constituents and vote on public policy. In fact, many of these elite signals might inhibit politicians from seeing potential new avenues for policy work or lead them to miss economic or social developments that may be affecting their constituents in negative ways. However, it doesn’t help the country at all when politicians have no idea what they are talking about—on the economy, on national security, on regulation—and cast votes on policies they don’t understand and legislation they probably haven’t even read.

The area of norms and accountability is also seriously lacking in contemporary politics. Job incentives for politicians do not always align with the best interests of voters or the creation of effective public policies that spend the taxpayer’s money wisely. Instead, politicians mainly seek to enhance their profiles and increase media attention, raise money from donors and activists, and secure positions of power from which to dispense goodies to fellow partisans and punish opponents.

Likewise, most politicians do not suffer personally or professionally for lying, misrepresenting facts, twisting evidence, and putting their thumbs on the scale for particular outcomes. In contrast, doctors and scientists who engage in serious misconduct can suffer substantial reputational or legal consequences and possibly be drummed out of their professions altogether. Subsequently, our governing institutions suffer from inconsistently applied accountability measures that sever the policy-making and executive decision-making processes of politicians from measurable goals and policy outcomes. The two parties and their leaders basically do whatever they want—whether it works or not—without any real fear of consequences or reprisals.

Finally, politicians, unlike other trusted professionals, almost never admit errors or mistakes, and few, if any, ever try to improve their work on a consistent basis. If a political leader and his party pursue economic policies that blow up the deficit and fuel inflation, most don’t seem to care and just blame the other side for the situation. When politicians draft legislation full of perverse incentives and unintended consequences, their attitude is to let the courts and the bureaucrats handle the mess, not to clean it up and make it work.

The main difference between trustworthy professions like medicine and untrustworthy ones like politics is that the former field has developed and inculcated serious standards of excellence, personal rectitude, and accountability for its members, while the latter rewards the biggest grandstanders, buffoons, and attention seekers who can’t be bothered to sweat the details on good policy and outcomes.

If politicians want to get off the bottom of the trustworthiness chart, they will need to up their game and take some cues from doctors and scientists about how best to organize their profession.

Although it probably sounds crusty and old-fashioned at this point, the political field could definitely use more overall professionalism, wider recruitment of people with substantive knowledge of industry and technology, ongoing skills training and education about complex national issues, and much higher standards for elected officials, civil servants, and government appointments.

Democracy shouldn’t be turned over entirely to the experts. The lesson is not that elected officials require more education or elite stamps of approval. Rather, it’s that the two parties and the legislative and executive branches need stronger institutions and norms. Government agencies and public officials themselves should want to create the strongest framework possible for training members and staff to evaluate and solve difficult public policy questions facing the country, encourage more nonpartisan analysis of critical issues, establish clear consequences for corruption and malfeasance by members, and implement effective mechanisms for evaluating policies and adjusting them so they work correctly.

If politicians want more people to trust them, they need to perform their jobs in ways worthy of the public’s respect. Just as the doctor ordered.

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For context, Republicans currently hold a trifecta, meaning control of the governorship and majorities in both chambers of the legislature, in 23 states (AL, AR, FL, GA, ID, IN, IA, LA, MS, MO, MT, NE, NH, ND, OH, OK, SC, SD, TN, TX, UT, WV, WY). Democrats hold a trifecta in 16 states (CA, CO, CT, DE, HI, IL, ME, MD, MA, NJ, NM, NY, OR, RI, VA, and WA), and 11 others (AK, AZ, KS, KY, MI, MN, NV, NC, PA, VT, and WI) have some division of power between the two.

In the states where one party completely dominates the other, you’re hard-pressed to find any viable opposition. Why? Because the Democrats are so electorally weak and unpopular in deep-red states that they are incapable of serving as an alternative landing spot for dissatisfied voters, while Republicans are in the same losing position in relation to voters in dark-blue redoubts.

It’s not as if all voters living within these states are card-carrying, straight-ticket Democrats or Republicans, however. With the rise of negative polarization and unitary party control in so many places, we’re beginning to see more voters registering as unaffiliated voters and more independent candidates running as alternatives to entrenched incumbents in one-party environments.

Independent candidacies are more prominent this cycle in several red-leaning states where Democrats are about as appetizing as wet bread. The New York Times recently profiled a few of these candidates in both statewide and congressional elections, including Todd Achilles in Idaho and Seth Bodnar in Montana, both running for the U.S. Senate:

In Idaho, where unaffiliated voters outnumber Democrats 2 to 1, Mr. Achilles is the more prominent and moneyed of two independents challenging the incumbent, Jim Risch. Independents also are running for Idaho governor, both of the state’s U.S. House seats and 12 state legislative seats.

Next door in Montana, another independent, Seth Bodnar, is running for the Senate as an independent, as is Dan Osborn in Nebraska and Brian Bengs in South Dakota. Another, Bill Hill, is running for Alaska’s lone House seat. All those candidacies say a lot about the state of the Democratic Party west of the Mississippi, excluding what’s known, affectionately or not, as “the left coast”—California, Oregon and Washington.

Some of these independents are long shots, none of them are favored, but they all figure they are better off than a Democrat would be.

These developments are leading to many difficult conversations and decisions among state Democrats, most notably in Nebraska and South Dakota, where party leaders are standing down and not running candidates to increase the chances that one of these independents might successfully capture the anti-incumbent vote. In Idaho, meanwhile, Democratic gubernatorial candidate Terri Pickens has said she believes an independent helps her case by drawing moderate Republicans, leaving her to build a coalition of “Democrats, independents, and Republican women.”

Whether independent candidacies and weak opposition parties can overcome severely lopsided environments to achieve regular victories remains to be seen. But the underlying logic is sound: when the opposition party is frail and unpopular, independent candidates offer discontented voters a genuine alternative to the ruling party.

The question then arises: why don’t independents and Republicans figure out a similar strategy to pursue in the big cities of America, most of which are controlled by Democrats?

As of September 2026, 67 of the largest 100 cities are run by Democratic mayors compared to 21 run by Republicans, and the remaining ones are run by either a libertarian (1), an independent (3), a nonpartisan (6), an unaffiliated (1), or an unknown partisan (1) mayor. Democrats have controlled the mayoralties in at least 61 of the biggest cities for the last ten years, according to Ballotpedia.

The days of famous moderate or pragmatic Republican mayors like Richard Riordan in L.A., Fiorello LaGuardia, Rudy Giuliani, and Michael Bloomberg in New York, and Richard Lugar in Indianapolis are long gone. It’s extremely difficult to see Republicans, now closely identified with Donald Trump and his agenda, competing regularly in large metropolitan areas with far more Democratic voters than Republicans and electorates that are more economically and culturally progressive than in the past.

But clearly there are plenty of urban voters—dissident Democrats, independents, and Republicans—who don’t like the leftist shift in their city and would conceivably vote for some alternative that could possibly win. This will almost certainly mean a real independent candidate—not a losing primary candidate running as an independent like former governor Andrew Cuomo, who ran alongside Republican Curtis Sliwa against Zohran Mamdani in the 2025 NYC mayoral election.

Can independents and Republicans get their act together to mount serious challenges to Democratic hegemony in places like Chicago, Philadelphia, New York, L.A., Seattle, or San Francisco? Four of these six cities have had continuous Democratic mayoral control for more than half a century. So the institutional and political obstacles are formidable. Yet conditions can change fairly rapidly with the right candidates and organizational effort.

Republicans, of course, could adjust themselves to be less dependent on Trump and less hostile to urban America more generally.

Barring that shift in tenor and tone, Republicans, like Democrats in many deep-red states, could at least get out of the way and let genuinely independent candidates rally frustrated voters in big cities around practical concerns such as new jobs and economic development, more efficient public services, less corruption, cleaner streets and parks, better transportation, lower property taxes, less city debt, reduced crime and homelessness, and improved schools.

America’s big cities are critical to the nation’s success, and urban residents deserve effective government and better representation. This first requires real political competition—and independents could provide an alternative for disappointed voters who don’t view either the Democrats in power or the opposition Republicans as acceptable choices.

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In partisan terms, Democrats created the New Deal social welfare model of government and determined much of the postwar governing consensus, while Republicans challenged this approach in the late 1970s and 1980s through tax cuts, deregulation, and more conservative social policies. Yet both parties during the last half of the twentieth century operated under the basic assumption that government should advance national economic and security interests, serve as both a partner to the private sector and a check on it, and provide important social insurance measures like unemployment protection, Social Security, and Medicare that markets alone cannot provide.

Political eras are also shaped by the prevailing psychological state of the public. Trust in public officials and institutions, belief in our national values, and general optimism about the direction of the country were generally more pronounced in the postwar decades, even with periods of skepticism about government spending and concerns about corruption or immoral politicians (e.g., the Watergate scandal, Iran-Contra, and Bill Clinton’s intern affair.)

Today, however, one of the defining features of public opinion is cynicism—deep distrust of public institutions and the belief that those who lead us are mostly selfish, greedy, dishonest, and incompetent.

This is not merely the well-documented rise of partisan polarization wherein Republicans hate Democrats, Democrats hate Republicans, and independents hate both parties. Rather, political cynicism indicates a wider belief—across party lines—that elected officials and the institutions of government are incapable of serving the economic interests and social desires of most Americans.

This deeply rooted cynicism has produced three outcomes in modern American politics:

• First, sitting governments have almost no leeway with the public and invariably lose support and legitimacy outside of their core backers—regardless of whether they govern well or not.

• Second, the opposition, assuming it has its act together, is always better positioned to take advantage of cynicism in elections without having to fully articulate a coherent alternative.

• Third, these first two trends combine into an endless cycle of “empty politics.” Driven by the emotional manipulation of Americans’ genuine feelings and fears, this cycle leads to alternating party control of government. Thus, there are no more durable majorities or lasting policy changes in contemporary American politics as perceived failures by incumbents produce more cynicism and a “vote them all out” attitude that fuels a new round of anger, distrust, and disengagement among voters.

Analysts like to call this current mood a “populist” era, which may be true in terms of dominant political factions and policy orientations in many countries. There are certainly populist elements ascendant in both the Democratic and Republican parties and in parties across the UK and Europe.

But more precisely, at least in America, we are living through an era of generalized cynicism among all voters rather than a coherent era of left- or right-wing populism. Americans, of course, have every right to be cynical about government and politics over the past quarter century. Look at the results: multiple contested elections that take weeks to decide and end up in courts, the Iraq War and “war on terrorism” excesses, the Great Recession and Wall Street bailouts, the Covid response and subsequent overreactions, inflation, inequality, partisan gerrymandering wars, dark money campaigns, welfare fraud, tax cheats, huge public debt, more illegitimate and failed wars, and now fears of AI-induced catastrophe.

America is still a rich and powerful country, yet its government is widely perceived as inept and hostile to the interests of most people, with policies that either don’t work or are designed to serve the wealthy rather than working- and middle-class families.

Cynicism has produced highly unstable politics. Donald Trump succeeds Barack Obama and reverses everything he did but quickly loses public backing. The Democratic opposition mobilizes to defeat him, which they do. Trump and his supporters believe his opposition is illegitimate, and then Trump claims the 2020 election was stolen. Joe Biden comes into office on the back of this distrust, reverses most of Trump’s actions, performs poorly on immigration and other matters, and watches his public standing deteriorate sharply. The Republican opposition mobilizes to defeat him, and Trump rides back into office. Trump reverses most of Biden’s actions and again loses public support in less than a year as voters continue to worry about inflation and the cost of living, among other issues. Democrats are now mounting a serious challenge to Republican control of Congress in 2026.

No one knows exactly what will happen after the 2028 election. However, it is a safe bet that the cycle of cynicism will continue.

Why? Although President Trump has clear strengths that address a demand for change among many Americans, particularly on immigration and cultural issues, being straightforward and honest with people and accommodating his opponents to pursue common goals is not one of them. Perceptions of the current president are deeply entrenched at this point. He’s not likely to reverse public cynicism or restore trust in government over his remaining two years.

Likewise, when Joe Biden was president, he promised a return to calmer and less confrontational politics but delivered the opposite in pursuit of progressive goals that appealed more to party activists than voters at large. Then Biden and his administration misled voters about his age-related health decline, and the party put Kamala Harris in his place without any direct primary vote. Voters won’t soon forget these actions. Nor will they forget Democrats’ extreme turn on cultural issues over the past decade and their ineffective immigration and crime policies. The party’s enthusiastic embrace of democratic socialism is not improving matters with a majority of Americans, even with President Trump’s steady decline among independents and others. Until Democrats confront their policy failures and fix their cultural image, they are also unlikely to ease public concerns.

Without first transforming their electoral and governing approaches and acknowledging their past mistakes, neither Republicans nor Democrats will upend the broken political cycle driving public cynicism and distrust of government.

Here’s a stab at not being cynical. It may be possible to reverse—or at least halt—some of this political cynicism by being clear-eyed about what is needed from future political and presidential leadership.

What America needs in 2028 and beyond are ethical, patriotic leaders from all parties who are committed to renouncing the politics of the past and moving away from the era of cynicism. This would mean no more pro-Trump and anti-Trump political wars. No more treating other Americans as enemies based on their vote preference or religion or regional background. No more campaigns bombarding Americans with negative ads, false and misleading claims in the media, and fantastical promises that can’t be fulfilled. No more governing to please party activists and attack partisan opponents.

A new era of political realism and personal honesty is required. If, by some chance, patriotic politicians could emerge from any party and win general elections, they must then resist the urge to cater to ideologues in power, govern with real transparency, admit mistakes and take steps to correct policy errors, be willing to talk honestly with critics and skeptics, and bring opponents to the table.

Maybe this leadership reset will temporarily ease public cynicism about government.

One thing is certain: the age of cynicism will not end with more partisan attacks on other Americans or fantasies about one-man rule with no legal constraints. It can only be overcome by a new generation of Americans deciding they’ve had enough, recommitting to America’s core values of liberty and equality for all, and acting with integrity, self-restraint, and personal decency. It will require political leaders who tell the truth, acknowledge errors, work well with partisan opponents, and pursue tangible short-term goals.

One can only hope for better politics, moral leaders, and effective government—and start to make it happen this year as we celebrate our country’s 250th anniversary.

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Editor’s note: This is a revised version of an article that first appeared in The Liberal Patriot, and it fits well with recent Free Agent Politics posts.

Contemporary politics is essentially empty. It’s a multi-billion-dollar, smoke-and-mirrors machine where the two parties take turns whipping up American economic fears and anxieties about the future into short-term election gains built on the failures of the current guys in office. Worried about China, out-of-control AI, the decline of American manufacturing, the absurd cost of health care, and the inability of your kid to get a decent job and afford a house? Fear not, here come the Democrats and Republicans with emotional activist campaigns, fantastical policy proposals, social media videos about “affordability,” and platforms that “meet the moment” of Americans’ desire for change. They’ll “name villains” and “tell narratives” about who or what is responsible for the sorry state of your life.

“Vote for our party and life will immediately improve for you and America’s proud working class.”

One thing you can be certain about: Democrats and Republicans won’t actually solve any of these issues in a sustained manner. They know it, too. Politics has become a cynical exercise in manipulating people’s genuine emotions for partisan advantage, not a set of serious solutions offered by mature leaders focused on the country’s real challenges.

It’s not that nothing substantive happens in politics. The two parties rotate in and out of government. They pass laws, issue executive orders, create new regulations, spend money they don’t have, and give speeches detailing how they’re on the case of economic improvement.

This is mostly political entertainment: the appearance of action on the biggest economic challenges, accompanied by partisan cheerleading rather than actual governing. If either party truly cared about the cost of living or affordable housing and health care, they’d take cooperative steps to dramatically increase American private-sector growth, help American businesses and workers succeed, provide cheap and abundant energy, eliminate loads of growth-sapping regulations, end unreasonable tariffs, reinforce the legal immigration system, and rein in government spending and deficits that drive inflation and higher interest rates. They’d make it much easier to start businesses, build houses, develop effective means of transportation, update national infrastructure, and receive basic health care.

But Democrats and Republicans aren’t really interested in solving the high cost of living for many middle-class Americans. They’re just biding their time until the new election season approaches when they can blame the other side for letting down Americans or lambast some nefarious force (the elites, the establishment, the oligarchs) that is preventing them from achieving true partisan utopia.

It’s the same cycle year after year. Economic and social reality generates legitimate anxieties among voters—from deindustrialization, new technologies, immigration, high housing or health costs, crime, and cultural changes. The parties spend gobs of money to translate these anxieties into daily media bits, create stories about who did this to them and how the people in power failed, and elevate new partisan “heroes” who promise to fix it all if elected. Democrats and Republicans each win some elections and maybe get a shot at real power. They quickly realize they can’t deliver on the sweeping promises they made to confront China, control AI, shore up global supply chains, straighten out the federal bureaucracy, lower the deficit, remake American health care, rebuild American manufacturing, and create good working-class jobs. So, they make excuses for failing while the other party waits in the wing with new pitches to voters about the incumbent party’s perfidy and why they should be removed from office.

Package fears into a narrative > blame the other side > win elections > confront the limitations of economic policymaking and government > let down the voters > make excuses for failing > lose power > start all over again.

Contemporary political parties are institutionally incapable of being honest with voters about the scale of the problems they confront and the limited tools the government possesses to address many of them.

Realistically, how exactly would the federal government, with its multiple layers of democratic decision-making and entrenched bureaucracy, guide the actions of millions of people and businesses in America and around the world who determine how markets function, secure key resources for production, set up manufacturing supply chains, engage in global trade, address consumer needs, and create new technologies, products, and services?

Short answer: The U.S. government cannot directly control the complex interactions that constitute the global economy. It can shape them, but it can’t direct them. We’re no longer in the postwar 1950s and 1960s, when America’s economic, political, and military power basically ruled the world. There are tangible limits to what politics today can achieve in terms of economic reorganization, a reality that political and policy operators consistently fail to notice as they cook up punchy “issue frameworks” full of state-driven efforts to recreate the golden age U.S. economy.

Political parties excel at articulating people’s fears and worries with emotional rhetoric and intriguing promises. Political parties struggle mightily to devise and implement sound public policies to actually fulfill these promises. In the end, it’s easier to just blame the other side—or rich elites—for all the country’s problems rather than design governmental institutions that effectively carry out the people’s wishes.

The elections go on and on, while the underlying issues remain, and Americans’ disappointment, distrust, and disillusionment deepen.

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Examine recent electoral history. In 2016, Republicans gained unified control of government after Donald Trump won with only 46.1 percent of the national popular vote and an Electoral College vote of 304 to 227, with seven votes for other candidates. After the 2018 election, Democrats regained the House but not the Senate, and then after the 2020 election, Democrats had full control of the national government with Joe Biden’s 51.3 percent of the national popular vote, a 306 to 232 Electoral College vote, and a 50-50 Senate controlled by Democrats through the vice president’s tie-breaking vote. Republicans then re-flipped the House in 2022 but not the Senate, and after the 2024 contest, Republicans again gained unified control of the government with Trump’s 49.8 percent of the popular vote and a 312 to 226 majority in the Electoral College.

So, effectively, the three presidential elections since 2016 have each produced unified party control of government despite the “winning” party receiving very narrow margins—e.g., candidates garnering less than or barely half of the national popular vote. Conceivably, these sharp divisions could produce prudent governance and conciliatory gestures toward the opposition, actions one might expect in a reasonable political system that respects the rights and desires of the minority.

Instead, the victorious parties have treated these victories as broad mandates for pursuing major elements of their respective agendas through the budget reconciliation process, aggressive efforts to shape the federal judiciary through partisan and ideological appointments, and the use of executive actions and federal regulations to advance partisan priorities and overcome institutional obstacles. Among the signature legislative achievements of Trump’s first term was a massive tax cut plan passed solely on party lines. Among the signature legislative achievements of Biden’s term was the “Inflation Reduction Act,” a massive climate change and prescription drug measure passed with zero Republican votes. And among the signature legislative achievements so far in Trump’s second term is another massive tax cut package, the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” passed only with Republican votes.

Of course, there are plenty of unobjectionable bipartisan measures that pass under one-party-controlled governments with attempts by the leaders of both parties to move forward cooperatively on certain national security, public health, economic, or infrastructure issues. But on top of the major ideological priorities of Republicans and Democrats passing solely on party lines in recent years, we’ve also seen aggressive partisan efforts to alter electoral rules, manipulate congressional district boundaries through partisan gerrymandering, use executive orders to target opponents’ policy priorities, and pursue congressional investigations and judicial proceedings involving perceived political enemies and their backers.

This partisan-first approach has produced a recurring backlash: the president’s party lost control of the House in both of the first two midterms during this period. The process then repeats itself after four years as another narrowly decided election gives opponents full control of government again, highlighting what my good friend and old TLP colleague, Ruy Teixeira, and his AEI co-author, Yuval Levin, call “politics without winners”—a permanent stalemate between two essentially minority parties that cannot adjust themselves to achieve sustained majority status.

The tyranny of the tiny majority is what happens when a party tries to turn a plurality or bare majority of national support into near-uniform control of politics and policymaking.

The result is a cycle in which neither party has been able to sustain majority support from Americans for its governing agenda. Instead, they choose to exploit temporary control of government for narrow partisan power and ideological goals that alienate large portions of the country.

This is beneficial for the parties’ media operations, activist mobilization efforts, and fundraising numbers. But it is not beneficial for a nation that desperately needs stable governance, focused cooperation on America’s chief economic and security challenges, and politics that are less engulfed in partisan enmity and contempt.

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An interesting paper from Alex Tolkin, a postdoctoral researcher at Duke, goes a step further to explore the exact reasons why someone who once was a Democrat or a Republican decides to switch and declare themselves an independent. Tolkin examines eight waves of NORC AmeriSpeak data from 2016 through 2022 to isolate roughly 1200 respondents who identified with either of the two major parties in an earlier wave and then switched to being an independent in a later one, and then explores a number of hypotheses about why they moved.

Tolkin’s analysis finds three intriguing explanations for why people might switch to being independent, in descending order of predictive strength: (1) “decreasing favorability towards one’s preferred party was an extremely strong predictor of switching,” (2) “decreasing favorability towards the party standard bearer strongly predicted switching,” and (3) “decreasing agreement with one’s party’s policy positions only partially predicted switching.”

A respondent who viewed their own party less favorably by one standard deviation was more than twice as likely to switch to independent compared to one who did not change their party favorability. Likewise, one standard deviation decrease in favorability towards a person’s presidential candidate made them 1.87 times as likely to switch to independent. Increasing favorability toward a respondent’s “out party” and its candidate also had an impact, but at lower levels of importance. So, there is evidence that people might become independent because of more positive views of the other side, but the more important reason is displeasure with one’s own party and candidates. That’s what really drives people to leave their party identification behind. Issue disagreement with one’s party does lead to switching, particularly among Republicans in these data, but with much less of an impact than party and candidate favorability.

In plain English, people lose their partisan attachments because they think that their own party is bad, that their own presidential candidate is bad, and many (but not all) of the party’s positions are also bad.

It’s not difficult to see how these earlier findings from Tolkin’s research might have applied to the last presidential cycle. For starters, the two parties themselves have been in the toilet for years in terms of public favorability. Similarly, Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, and Donald Trump all received net unfavorable ratings from voters in 2024. And increasing numbers of Americans don’t trust either party’s policy agendas, while many find key aspects of each party’s respective policy portfolio particularly objectionable. The combination of these factors could be enough to drive one-time partisans to declare their independence.

“I didn’t leave my party, my party left me,” makes a lot of sense in this context. Partisan alienation is leading more and more Americans to ditch their old party and become independent rather than take the more drastic step of switching parties altogether.

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The psychology of independence often produces frustration or resignation among political free agents. Some plow ahead with maddening choices election after election and learn to grin and bear it, while others choose to exit the political process altogether. For those who confront the dilemma, there are several strategies for resolving the choices between poor options, at least for the moment.

First, independents will try to determine what is “sufficient” for the current election. “I don’t particularly like either one of these parties or their candidates, but I’ll pick the one who least offends my sensibilities and values or advances a short-term political goal I feel is important.” Judging by the responses to my last column on Trump’s waning support among this group, many independents are engaging in this thinking ahead of the midterms. “I really don’t like the president’s performance in office so far. But I also don’t trust congressional Democrats or Republicans, so maybe I’ll choose divided government to put a check on all of them.” In the past few presidential elections, many independents made similar decisions about sufficiency based on which party and candidate was perceived to be better on key national priorities like inflation and immigration.

A second approach independents employ to temporarily resolve a political dilemma is to focus on one or two issues that really matter to them and make decisions between the two parties based on their positions and performance on these issues. For example, an independent may really care about health care affordability and vote for the party that is promising to do something tangible about it even if they don’t prefer them on other matters. Another independent may really dislike foreign interventions and will vote for the party actually committed to ending American involvement in overseas conflicts. A third independent may care deeply about civil liberties and free speech and reject any party or candidate who tries to restrict these freedoms. Likewise, independents often make unpleasant party choices based on a candidate’s position on taxes, Israel, abortion, or transgender issues. The issue list is long, but by choosing to focus on their most important issues, political independents can make informed decisions between two parties they view skeptically.

A third way independents choose to resolve their political dilemma is to say no to the status quo. “I will vote against whoever is in power and refuses to change anything to make the political system more representative of people like me.” This strategy can lead to third-party voting and refusal to accept the terms of the debate on offer from the two major parties along with support for structural changes to elections and government. An anti-status quo framework may also lead to disengagement from politics. “If nothing is going to change, and the choices are always the same subpar ones offered by Democrats and Republicans, I’m out and I’m going to focus on other things in my life.”

Regardless of the method employed, the end result for independents is perpetual disappointment with unsatisfactory choices and political outcomes they feel unfairly reward the most partisan Americans at their expense.

Yet, as independents continue to make up a large share of the electorate—while the two parties descend further into negative polarization and short-term power struggles—expect these free agent Americans to play a much larger role in determining the outcome of narrowly contested elections. The parties may not respect them as individuals, but independents still control which party is allowed to run things for a while before they decide to vote them out.

If you force a growing number of people to make “least-bad” choices all the time, don’t expect much stability or continuity in politics. This is a rational response to an increasingly irrational and disappointing political situation for independents.

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AP-NORC analyzed nearly 5000 “strict independents” (those who do not identify with or lean to one party or the other) from 21 different survey waves to examine how Trump has performed from the election period into April of this year. As seen in the chart below, highlighting his standing in five different waves, support for Trump among independents has declined 17 points,1 from 43 percent during the pre-presidency period to 26 percent by the end of April 2026. In contrast, support among fellow Republicans has dropped marginally while already low support among Democrats has remained stable.

This examination of strict independents is telling since, in contemporary polarized politics, one would expect partisans and partisan leaners to approve or disapprove of a sitting president regardless of what he actually does. Pure independents, by contrast, have weaker or nonexistent partisan attachments and thus may be more likely to judge a president based on what he is doing in office and his performance on their most important concerns.

Notably, AP-NORC reports that the president’s support among non-college-educated independents has fallen more precipitously than it has among college-educated ones, “dropping from 48 percent during the election and pre-presidency period to 27 percent during the Iran War period. College-educated independents showed less volatility, starting at 29 percent support during the election and shifting to 24 percent during the Iran War period.” Trump’s support has fallen across all racial and ethnic groups, with sharper declines among black and Hispanic independents. Support has also dropped among independents younger than 60, yet remained stable among those independents 60 and older.

On multiple fronts, from the economy to foreign policy, Trump is not performing well in the eyes of most independents. The overall economy and cost of living, however, are major concerns for these disenchanted independents. As the AP write-up on the polling states:

About half of independents who supported Trump in 2024 said inflation was the single most important factor for their vote, AP VoteCast found, and most expressed high levels of concern about the cost of food and gas.

More than a year into Trump’s second term, inflation remains high, fueled by gas prices that remain elevated as the Iran war continues. An AP-NORC poll conducted in April found that about 3 in 10 independents were “extremely” or “very” concerned about being able to afford groceries in the last few months, and a similar share were worried about being able to afford gas.

The analysis found that Americans’ views of the U.S. economy tend to align with their view of the president. Those with negative views of the country’s economy tended to have negative views of Trump, and about 8 in 10 independents described the U.S. economy this spring as poor.

The latest AP-NORC polling from May found that only about 3 in 10 independents approve of how Trump is handling the economy, in line with the roughly 3 in 10 who said that at the beginning of his second term. The April poll found only about 1 in 10 independents—12 percent—approved of how Trump was handling the cost of living.

What will this low approval of President Trump among independents mean for the 2026 midterms? There are still two more months of campaigning to go before the election, but the latest survey evidence from YouGov shows a substantial Democratic lead among the broader group of independents. Although not directly comparable to the pool of strict independents examined by AP-NORC (they did not provide generic ballot information), the YouGov data show that independents broadly would vote for the Democratic candidate for Congress over the Republican candidate by a 43 percent to 24 percent margin, with roughly one third of independents still unsure or not choosing either major-party candidate.

There are myriad factors that go into determining the outcome of an election, and Republicans still hold many cards in terms of their own voters and geographical strengths. But the incumbent party can ill afford to discount independents’ displeasure with the performance of their president if they want to hold one or both chambers of Congress in November.

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However, in May of this year, three academic researchers released an interesting new study on the contours and make-up of this increasingly important population that provides more concrete insights. In their report entitled “Who Are Independents? Are They Moderates?” Eveline Dowling, Nathan Micatka, and Caroline Tolbert used administrative voter-file data and modeled political and demographic information from Catalist complemented with a large national survey to learn more about independents. This methodology differs from traditional survey research alone, where people are typically asked if they consider themselves a Republican, Democrat, or independent with follow-up questions to see if independents lean one way or another or not at all.1

The researchers drew random one percent samples from Catalist voter files in 2020, 2022, and 2023 to explore the composition of voters classified as independents using the modeled data and then compared them with the overall U.S. population. As seen in the table below, showing the 2023 sample, they discovered that independents are overwhelmingly moderate.

Seventy percent of independents in this 2023 voter-file sample are classified as moderate, compared with just under half of the overall population. The percentages were even higher for the 2020 and 2022 samples, both showing more than 90 percent of independents classified as moderate. These data show that independents tend to be younger and less educated than U.S. adults more broadly. Independents are also more likely to be non-Latino white and less likely to be black than the overall population, while Latino representation is about the same. But there are no meaningful gender differences in the composition of independents.

This core finding is notable given other studies relying solely on self-reported party identification in survey data that directionally show independents being more moderate but at lower levels than those seen above. Pew Research, for example, released a nice report in 2019 on independents highlighting, “As in the past, more independents describe their political views as moderate (43 percent) than conservative (29 percent) or liberal (24 percent). These shares have changed little in recent years.”

The three researchers then dove into the 19,000+ respondents in the Collaborative Midterm Survey (CMS), funded by the National Science Foundation, to learn more about the views of political independents. Breaking out independents into those who lean toward Democrats or Republicans, excluding “true” independents who don’t lean either way due to low sample size, the researchers discovered that independents themselves are more likely than partisans to believe that independents:2

• Are more willing to work across party lines;

• Are less emotional about politics;

• Are more willing to consider opposing viewpoints; and

• Do not believe one should have to choose a party to vote in America.

This study therefore suggests that moderation among independents involves more than simply holding centrist positions on key economic, social, and national security policies.

Although there may be some alignment on specific centrist policies—something that I will explore in future posts—this new research indicates that independents place a premium on flexibility in politics, consideration of opposing viewpoints, a desire for cross-partisan cooperation, more political choices, and less rigid partisanship in general. Moderation, in this sense, offers a distinct political identity and framework for better understanding who these independent voters actually are and what they believe.

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There are several emerging political strategies for unaffiliated Americans—offered by an array of independent leaders, organizations, candidates, and thinkers—that are worthy of consideration and support.

Join the fight for political reform.

A notoriously messy and convoluted field, the political reform movement in recent years has sharpened its game and started pursuing tangible efforts that could be transformative for political free agents. Two areas intrigue me the most. One is the legal and legislative push to establish open primaries in all 50 states, and the other is the more far-reaching call for proportional representation in Congress.

As Ballotpedia reports, “As of August 2026, 14 states require open primaries, 13 require closed primaries, 10 require semi-closed primaries, five require top-two style primaries, and in 11 states parties have discretion to choose participation rules for their primaries.”

If you live in a state with closed Democratic and Republican primaries, like Maryland where I reside, and you are one of the more than one million unaffiliated voters in that state, this means you get little to no say in who ultimately represents you. Why? Maryland is an uncompetitive state that leans heavily Democratic, and even more so in Baltimore City where I’ve lived for more than 20 years, so the Democratic primary is the only game in town. Yet unaffiliated voters are blocked from participating in Democratic primary elections for all levels of government and various offices. The inverse situation is true in an uncompetitive heavily Republican state like Wyoming.

Notably, there’s no partisan or ideological distribution of closed and open primary states. Texas is an open primary state. So is California (using a top-two all-candidate primary format). Several southern states are open primary, while many northeastern ones are closed. Other states like Louisiana used to have open “jungle” primaries, but recently reinstated party-specific primaries for congressional and other elections starting this year.

Elections are state-run functions funded by all taxpayers. Yet the State of Maryland, among others, allows the two parties to exclude anyone who is not a declared party member from participating. Yes, you can temporarily switch your registration to join one of the two party primaries but must do so within 21 days of an election and then switch it back if you want to remain unaffiliated—hurdles that do not bother other partisan voters.

As organizations like Open Primaries and five unaffiliated Maryland residents have argued in a legal suit against the state, the closed primary provisions set up by the two parties allegedly violate the constitutional right of independent residents “to vote and participate in all elections held in the State as provided for in Article 1, Section 1 of the Maryland Constitution of 1867 and secured by Article 7 (the “Free Elections Clause”) and Article 24 (the “Equal Protection Clause”) of the Maryland Declaration of Rights.”

At a minimum, if the parties want to close their primaries to keep out hundreds of thousands of citizens legally able to vote, they should forego all public funding and set up their own primary elections using their own funds. The state shouldn’t deny any citizen the right to vote because of their party identification, or lack thereof.

As the number of independent and declared unaffiliated voters continues to grow, expect these citizens living in closed primary states to fight for their right to vote in any election set up and sanctioned by state governments. Unite America and a group of bipartisan House members are also trying to pass legislation (“Let America Vote Act”) to ban closed primaries nationwide for all primary elections for federal office.

The movement to get Congress to change election laws to allow for proportional representation in the House of Representatives is also picking up steam given the latest (outrageous) round of partisan gerrymandering efforts conducted by states controlled by both Democrats and Republicans. The premise is simple: voters should be able to choose any party and candidate they want for congressional representation and have that party represented in Congress based on the percentage of the total votes they receive.

Proportional representation could largely do away with partisan gerrymandering and reduce the ability of the two parties to manipulate single-member districts to their benefit by replacing them with much larger multi-member districts—or a single statewide district—with multiple representatives elected in proportion to their share of the vote. In simple two-party terms, if a state has ten congressional seats and votes 60-40 Republican-Democrat, then Republicans would receive six seats and Democrats four. If a third party managed to get, say, ten percent of the vote, then they would get one seat, and the remaining nine would be distributed to the two main parties based on their vote share. No more parties drawing lines to reduce the chances of other parties getting seats and maximizing their own, and no more partisan efforts after elections to redraw these lines to eliminate competition in future election cycles.

There are different models for how to do this, as groups like Fix Our House and FairVote lay out, but the goal is simple and democratic: let the voters choose who they want to represent them and stop the parties from choosing their own voters.

Back existing or new third parties.

Third parties and their voters often get a bad rap as “spoilers” who are delusional and naive about American politics. At the pinnacle of U.S. politics, there is a grain of truth to this charge. No third party or independent presidential candidate has ever received more than 27 percent of the vote, as Teddy Roosevelt achieved in the 1912 election with his Progressive Party. Ross Perot, the most successful third-party candidate since TR, received around 19 percent of the vote in 1992. In recent elections, however, all third parties combined have at best received only a few percentage points of the total popular vote.

So, it’s fair to say that most third-party presidential bids are quixotic. However, this does not diminish the importance of third-party organizing for offices below the presidency, especially for state and municipal government positions, or if there is any movement towards proportional representation in Congress.

If you believe in consistent economic freedom, civil liberties, and limited government, the Libertarian Party may be for you. If environmental and social justice concerns are paramount, the Greens might be up your alley. If you want more support for unions and working-class policies and candidates, the Working Families Party has your back. If political and electoral reforms and less polarized politics are your thing, consider the Forward Party.

These parties won’t win the presidency anytime soon. But they do offer a landing spot for protest votes and organizing around issues and candidates that differ in important ways from traditional Democrats and Republicans.

Help create a small bloc of independent members of Congress.

Given the impracticality of third-party efforts, former West Virginia Democratic Senator Joe Manchin, a known maverick during his time in office and now a self-declared political independent, along with his daughter and groups like Americans Together and the Independent Center, has started an intriguing new effort called The Independent Leadership Council.

The ILC is not a political party but rather a strategic movement to elect a small cohort of genuinely independent leaders in Congress to help gain leverage over the two parties and pursue legislation that is broadly helpful to all Americans and all regions of the country. The organization’s declaration by its endorsed candidates makes three commitments:

1. Fair Competition. America’s success has been propelled by a radical commitment to competition. The founders understood a simple truth: competition drives innovation, creates accountability, and produces greater opportunity and better outcomes for everyone and our political system should be no different.

As an independent, I will be dedicated to restoring competition through:

• Promoting nonpartisan primaries and politicians receiving a majority of votes to be elected

• Ending gerrymandering

• Supporting term limits

• Championing policies that strengthen opportunity, innovation, and the American middle class

2. Solutions that move our country forward. America’s biggest challenges will not be solved by one party acting alone. They need leaders willing to think independently, work with anyone who has a good idea, and put lasting results ahead of partisan victories.

As an independent, I will not caucus with either party, I will work with anyone to create opportunity, strengthen our country, and deliver results. I believe that my political independence is the single most valuable currency I can bring to the halls of Congress.

3. Genuine Accountability. Representative government only works when elected leaders are accountable to the people they serve. That means constituents deserve more than a vote, they deserve to know why that vote was cast.

As such, I commit to publicly explaining every vote I make on behalf of my constituents. Transparency builds trust, and trust is essential to a healthy democracy.

Above all else, I am optimistic that America’s best days are ahead of her, and I dedicate my work to putting the country above both party and self.

Manchin and his colleagues are currently seeking to elect roughly 10 to 12 independents across the House and Senate united by these three commitments—most importantly, the promise not to caucus with either party. Even if you do not support Manchin’s centrist political views, you can see the potential appeal of electing more genuine independents to office with the power to shape public policy in more beneficial ways beyond the ideological priorities of one party or the other.

The strategy really only works, however, if the margins in Congress remain very narrow as they are today: “As an independent, your strength is in a slim majority because when the key votes come, they’re going to need your vote.”

Support truly independent news sources and media publications that cover unaffiliated voters honestly.

Progressives and Democrats have the New York Times, MS NOW, and numerous political podcasts, liberal magazines, and blogs pumping out party-aligned messages, voices, and opinions on a regular basis. Trump and MAGA Republicans have Fox News, Newsmax, the Washington Examiner, the New York Post, and countless others doing the same.

Independents and unaffiliated Americans face more limited options. They mainly read or watch fairly reliable mainstream sources such as The Wall Street Journal, The Economist, and PBS, or perhaps listen to various unaligned podcaster types like Joe Rogan, or get news and commentary through a range of different voices on X, Substack, and other social media platforms.

Currently there are very few dedicated media outlets that aren’t just telling people what Democrats and Republicans want them to hear or covering the diverse voices of independent America. Independent Voter News and some of the other groups mentioned earlier are trying to do more of this, as is Free Agent Politics.

But given the size and diversity of the independent bloc in America, more than 40 percent of the electorate, it’s sad that these media projects and potentially many more new ones are so drastically outgunned by partisan media. In addition to investing more resources into dedicated independent media outlets, it would be helpful to encourage the big outlets like the NYT, WSJ, and Washington Post, plus the corporate newsletters like Axios, Punchbowl, and Semafor, to put more money and effort into covering independents and their influence on American politics.

Embrace the political depolarization movement.

Independents often point out that they were driven out of two-party politics by the constant hectoring, fighting, and distortions that constitute the daily activities of Democrats and Republicans. Mutual partisan loathing and contempt for others who are not on the team hold little appeal to free agents.

Instead, political independents are increasingly turning to organizations and social experiments designed to reduce partisan and ideological polarization in American life. One of my favorite groups doing this work is More in Common, which does work in the United States, the United Kingdom, Brazil, France, Germany, Spain, and Poland, among other countries, and is dedicated to the goal of achieving “democratic societies in which people believe that they have more in common than what divides them.” More in Common conducts original research (like the report “Hidden Tribes”) that examines the roots of polarization while challenging the idea that people are hopelessly divided. The group also backs various initiatives and experiments to encourage bridge building and cooperation among people. Braver Angels is another great organization “taking a stand against toxic politics” by helping Americans mend personal and family relationships torn apart by political disagreements, find better ways to express their views to others, and understand their perspectives in turn. No Labels is a longstanding independent organization that helped launch the original bipartisan “Problem Solvers Caucus” in the House, and experimented with a bipartisan unity ticket in 2024 before getting browbeaten by groups and donors affiliated with Democrats. Bridge Grades is a relatively new data-driven project that categorizes elected officials based on “how collaboratively or divisively they govern.”

There are many other groups focused on depolarization, like Unite America mentioned above, but their goals are basically the same as most independents’: a political system that is less consumed by sectarian partisanship and more committed to helping Americans work together to solve common problems.

This is just a brief tour of the emerging strategies political free agents of various stripes are undertaking to help change the electoral rules, build alternative parties, elect independents, create a new media infrastructure, and shift overall cultural norms. If two-party politics isn’t your bag, consider one of these five ways to engage in politics on your own terms and in concert with others who think similarly.

Free Agent Politics will try to cover these and other strategic developments among political independents as the 2026 and 2028 elections take shape.

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For more than a decade now, the two political parties have defined their visions and agendas for Americans along strictly sectarian lines. You are either with us, the Democrats, the forces of democracy, or you’re with them, the fascists and authoritarians. Conversely, you are either with me, Donald Trump, the only man capable of “Making America Great Again,” or you’re with them, the communists and the elites.

Millions of Americans—the more than 40 percent who currently do not identify with either party—roll their eyes at this partisan hyperbole. Political independents, despite vast differences in their values, views, and preferred policies, share one common trait: they reject binary politics. It is the one thing that holds them together: “I will not join either of your teams, and I don’t agree to the skewed rules of your political game.”

Binary thinking and team support have their place. Moral relativism, for example, is harmful to society and undermines social order. There isn’t a “kind of good” form of murder, assault, or purse snatching. It’s all wrong and should be punished. Facts are also true and can be proven. The earth is round. Water is made of hydrogen and oxygen. There are two biological sexes, male and female. The United States is made up of 50 individual states plus a federal district and five inhabited territories.

Likewise, affinity with one’s team is both natural and beneficial for humans. Parents favor their children and families over others out of love and the desire to protect them. People take pride in their cities, towns, and neighborhoods. Real sports fans don their colors and root for their teams through thick and thin despite minimal likelihood of making the playoffs (Go Orioles!).

Unlike these positive psychological and factual divides, political binaries are mostly unhelpful to the country. The categories are familiar to anyone who follows politics. Democrats versus Republicans. Blue states versus red states. Our team is good. Your team is bad. Our faction is righteous and has the correct policies. Your faction is wicked and corrupt.

In politics, this split between the two main teams—and within each one in terms of ideological or personality-driven divides—produces enormous social and psychological pressures on members to conform to ideas that are often wrongheaded, misguided, or outright false. Calling out the obvious flaws on your team (”That’s a dumb idea.” or “He’s lying to you.”) often brings opprobrium and ostracism by the team enforcers—party officials, affiliated media properties, and voters themselves on social media.

For independents, neither political party has a valid claim on the truth, the best leadership, or the best policies for America. Look no further than the red-hot issues of inflation and “affordability.” Biden and Democrats claimed they were addressing high prices with their “Inflation Reduction Act,” which was mainly a climate change and health care bill that did little to bring down inflation. Similarly, Trump and Republicans claimed prices would come down when they gained power, and since then, tariffs, massive tax cuts, and new wars have done little to improve the situation or public sentiment.

Independents were mad about Biden’s deceptions on inflation and prices, and now they are mad about Trump’s.

Independents choose a way out

To escape this torture, independents consciously reject binary team politics and the rigid terms of membership dictated by contemporary Democrats and Republicans. Independents don't vote “Blue no matter who,” and they don’t believe in Reagan’s “Eleventh Commandment,” famously declaring, “Thou shall not speak ill of any fellow Republican.”

On the policy front, independents refuse to accept that there is one party line for dealing with America’s economic and social challenges, and they remain open to ideas from across the ideological spectrum or outside of it altogether.

Some independents are traditional center-left to center-right voters who favor moderation and bipartisan cooperation along with sound economics, deficit reduction, and prudent spending. Some independents are more populist and anti-status quo oriented and desire serious political reforms to shake up the system along with policy interventions to check the power of the wealthy and help the working class. Some independents hold a mix of views that are not represented fully by binary parties or ideologies—think of Americans who may be economically progressive but culturally conservative. And some independents are just checked out and uninterested in any one perspective or the promises of the two parties and their candidates.

Independents and upcoming elections

Independents are forced every election cycle to make choices about one party or the other, or not to vote at all, because the system is designed to exclude or hold down outside voices and third parties and protect the interests of Democrats and Republicans.

Therefore, in practice, and despite their divergent viewpoints, independents often gravitate towards one party or a particular candidate in an election cycle given the specific conditions of the country and the fixed legal rules of two-party politics. The movement (or non-movement) of the independent bloc has profound consequences in narrowly decided national elections. As seen in the Pew data below, a majority of independents (including those who lean toward one party or the other) backed Joe Biden in 2020, helping to secure his election as president. In contrast, independents were basically split in both the 2016 and 2024 elections, helping to give Donald Trump two victories.

With the 2026 midterms fast approaching, it appears likely that independents will break heavily against the incumbent Republicans given the party’s inability to address their signature concerns about inflation and high living expenses. President Trump’s net job approval rating has declined nearly 50 points among independents since the start of his second term, an inauspicious position for holding his party’s congressional majorities.

Even if independents help Democrats achieve divided government in the November elections, they are far from certain to favor the party heading into the first post-Trump election in 2028.

Independents aren’t on anyone’s team.

Free Agent Politics plans to follow all of these developments with independents over the next two years. Thanks again for checking out the new publication, and please let me know your thoughts in the comments or on Notes.

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Welcome to Free Agent Politics!

Free Agent Politics is a newsletter focused on the values, attitudes, policy positions, and electoral behavior of America’s rising number of political independents.

Who are these independent voters? What do they believe? How do they view the two major parties and their candidates? Are they open to third parties? Where do they diverge from one another? On what do they agree? How do independents process complex public policy issues and make decisions in a two-party system?

Free Agent Politics is a newsletter for those who follow no party line or those who may be interested in other Americans who do not identify with either of the two major political parties. A newsletter of, by, and for political independents and those thinking about becoming independent or understanding them better.

What to expect at Free Agent Politics

As a brand new political newsletter, I plan to spend the first few months examining the contours of what we know and don’t know about independent voters—political “free agents” who do not identify with either major party and make choices in elections and on public policy matters based on their individual values rather than the party consensus of Democrats or Republicans.

Independents are not a uniform bloc of people. As I’ve written about in the past, I see three major types of independents based on available research and knowledge of this diverse group: about half of independents are common-sense moderates who don’t like the extremism and partisan blindness of the two major parties; another quarter are anti-status quo left- and right-populists holding a mix of more radical, ideologically diffuse, or other anti-establishment opinions; and the final quarter are disaffected and disengaged Americans who mainly do not pay attention to or participate much in politics.

Free Agent Politics will dive into each of these various independent groups and explore their attitudes and voting behavior over time.

I also plan to cover the world of actual independent political leaders and organizations dedicated to representing independent Americans and the structural political reforms that would support their efforts. Who are these leaders and organizations? Who do they claim to represent? What are the values and core beliefs of independent leaders and groups? What is their policy agenda? What is their strategy for building support and moving political reforms?

A bit more about my political background

I’ve been analyzing U.S. and international politics for nearly 30 years through my own work on political campaigns, public opinion research, public policy development, and political journalism. I was the co-founder of The Liberal Patriot newsletter with my old pal Ruy Teixeira and served as TLP’s executive editor from 2020 to 2026.

I got into politics in high school in Lynchburg, VA, where I grew up, and knocked on doors for George H. W. Bush during the 1988 election. In college and grad school, I volunteered for both of Bill Clinton’s presidential campaigns; started my professional career doing polling and voter research for Al Gore, Tony Blair, Ehud Barak, and other center-left leaders; later worked on public policy and supported Barack Obama; and then was a big Bernie Sanders supporter in 2016 but not in 2020 when I backed Joe Biden.

At TLP, we tried to help Biden and the Democrats get back on track with America’s working-class majority through a “pro-worker, pro-family, pro-America” agenda, but alas, there was not much interest, and the party is going in a different direction.

I’ve lived in Baltimore City for more than two decades, and today I am one of the more than one million unaffiliated voters in the state of Maryland.

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Free Agent Politics will start out with two regular free posts per week on Tuesday and Friday (beginning August 18) and build from there depending on interest and engagement. The newsletter itself is independent and has no outside funding or institutional affiliation. It’s just my research, analysis, and opinions offered directly to readers.

Thanks for checking out Free Agent Politics, and I hope you like it!

Take care - John Halpin

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