Party Of None

By Stephen Tuttle | Feb. 19, 2022

As voters, we like to claim that party affiliation is less important than the quality of the candidates we select. Only seven states, including Michigan, now allow us to vote for every candidate of a single party by filling in just one circle on our ballots. Even so, according to Pew Research, about 42 percent of 2020 voters cast ballots for only Democrat candidates and 36 percent for only Republicans.

It seems unlikely all those single-party voters examined every candidate in every race and decided every Republican candidate or every Democrat candidate was superior. Party affiliation, it would seem, is more important than we voters admit.

Fewer and fewer of us are choosing either party when it comes to registering to vote, however. Michigan, 18 other states and the District of Columbia require no party affiliation when registering. In the 31 states where registrants choose, 39.6 percent are registered as Democrats, 29.2 percent are registered as Republicans. The fastest growing cohort is independents and otherwise unaffiliated voters, who now make-up 31.2 percent of the electorate.

(Michigan residents are not required to select party preference when registering, but the  Gallup organization says about 45 percent of us consistently vote Democrat and 39 percent consistently vote Republican.)

So what are the policies and platforms that keep connecting us to one party or the other? It isn't because of all they've done for us, because they've done nothing for us. It's possible an elected official with an R or a D after their name somehow directly helped, but not because of party affiliation. As the 2022 midterm elections draw ominously close, we'll learn the parties do only two things: beg for money, and use that money to insult candidates of the other party.

Party ideologies have undergone some rather dramatic transformations. The early Republican conservatism of William Buckley and Barry Goldwater championed smaller government, lower taxes, a balanced budget, and a mind-our-own-business foreign policy but with a strong national defense. The complicating social issues that arrived in the late 1960s and 1970s were not yet part of the equation. 

That coherent ideology is long gone. Republican presidents Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, George W. Bush, and Donald Trump all expanded government, increased the budget deficit and adapted an adventuresome foreign policy both in words and deeds.

Modern Democrats always included social and racial justice, expanded social programs and some version of give-peace-a-chance in their platforms. They are consistently big spenders, though Bill Clinton actually balanced the budget and ran a surplus for four consecutive years.

Neither party has been able to create an ideology anchored in reality for some time.

The most recent Republican party platform – they reused their 2016 platform rather than create a new one for 2020 – includes such delights as claiming coal is a clean fuel and providing overt support for “conversion therapy” for young members of the LGBT+ community, a now proven destructive and dangerous bit of business.

Republicans have no recognizable policies other than support for all things Trump and opposition to all things Biden. It maroons the party in the past and loses sight of what attracted voters in the first place. Instead of focusing on actual Trump accomplishments like tax cuts, the rapid development of a COVID-19 vaccine, and tougher policies on immigration and China, they continue trying to re-litigate the 2020 elections with ever wilder lies. Most recently, the Republican National Committee declared the nightmarish violence that occurred on 1/6 at the Capitol that led to 6 deaths, more than 140 injured police officers and, so far, more than 700 arrests, to be “...legitimate political discourse.” Then they censured Representatives Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger for their participation on the House committee investigating that insurrection. 

It's hard to see how that helps the average citizen.

Democrats, of course, will not be outdone. Their 2020 platform includes a 96-page wish list of every social program you can imagine and likely some you cannot. Their most “progressive” wing is a small minority but generates the most attention because they talk the loudest. Democrats are almost always mad at each other and both Senators Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kirsten Sinema of Arizona have been censured by their respective state parties for failing to support a change to the Senate's arcane filibuster rules.

None of the internecine squabbling of either party helps us at all; they ask us to contribute much but give back little. Too many Republicans care most about an election they did not win and cannot change, and too many Democrats care most about a future they cannot create or afford. Neither party represents those of us who aren't delusional about the past or the future but just wonder if anybody is paying attention to the present.