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Related: New High of 45% in U.S. Identify as Political Independents (January 12, 2026) https://news.gallup.com/poll/700499/new-high-identify-political-indepen

• trentor 27d ago
  Right on track to be the next Russia. Ironic but also incredibly funny.
  • FpUser 27d ago
    He who kills the dragon becomes one.
• jeffbee 27d ago
  An "independent" in America is a person who greatly desires everything Trump is doing but realizes that makes them a bad person and therefore refuses to admit it.
  • the_gastropod 27d ago
    I know you’re going to get downvoted to hell, but you’re pretty much spot on. There’s something strangely desirable about being seen as the edgy contrarian “not left, not right” person. But 9 times out of 10, that person has approximately the same incoherent worldview most Trumpists have.
    • bigstrat2003 27d ago
      He's not spot on at all, and that's why he's being downvoted. He's examining the world through a false dichotomy of "if you aren't on my side, you support my enemies". But the reality is that most people who consider themselves independent are actually independent and vote for whomever they consider to be the best candidate.
      • the_gastropod 27d ago
        [flagged]
      • Arodex 27d ago
        Yeah, and the best candidate they voted for was Trump. Which is the point the person you reply to was making: those independents are incompetent, incoherent and uninformed.
      • FireBeyond 26d ago
        "the reality is" as you offer up as much evidence as you claim the OP is lacking. Meanwhile in my FB circle of friends and acquaintances I have 3 people who call themselves Independent, and 4 who call themselves Libertarian. All of them have voted for Trump, twice, and as far as I know, at least 2 voted multiple times for the Bush dynasty.
  • georgemcbay 27d ago
    > An "independent" in America is a person who greatly desires everything Trump is doing but realizes that makes them a bad person and therefore refuses to admit it. There's some truth to what you're saying, particularly a few years ago... but a rapidly increasing number of "independents" in America are strongly left leaning but feel that the Democratic party has abandoned them. And they'll continue to vote Democrat, if they vote at all, for the purposes of harm reduction, but have renounced their official party affiliation.
    • Arodex 27d ago
      >but a rapidly increasing number of "independents" in America are strongly left leaning but feel that the Democratic party has abandoned them. Then they are listening to the Right. Biden did what he could to help unions and eliminate student debt. The truth is those "left" leaning want socialism, but only for them, and not brown people. Socialism but only for their in-group. (That's also what you see with recent immigrants voting for Trump against even more recent immigrants. "Leopards eating faces party won't eat my face, etc.)
      • swed420 27d ago
        > Biden did what he could to help unions and eliminate student debt. LMAO, etc
        • the_gastropod 26d ago
          Behold! A both-sides guy who’s completely unaware of actual real world events! Student loan forgiveness: blocked by the Supreme Court along partisan lines: Biden v. Nebraska (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biden_v._Nebraska https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biden_v._Nebraska) Union support is so absurdly widespread, I don’t even know what to reference. E.g., on his 3rd day in office, Biden signed an executive order to empower government employees to join unions. This resulted in about a 20% increase in unionized federal employees. He was also the first sitting president to ever attend a picket line on the side of the workers. His Department of Labor and NLRB appointees were longtime unionized labor advocates, who through regulations lowered barriers to joining unions and hammered anti-union behaviors by companies like Starbucks.
• darth_avocado 27d ago
  Identifying as independents means nothing. 67% of independents in 2018 viewed one party more favorable and were unfavorable to other. In other words, the independents have a partisan lean towards one party and are more likely to vote that way. https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2019/03/14/political-independents-who-they-are-what-they-think/ https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2019/03/14/political-in...
  • groby_b 27d ago
    "indepdendent" does not mean "i see all parties as absolutely the same". It means "I am not firmly affiliated". You still have the ability to make choices on who is a better likely outcome
    • XorNot 27d ago
      That only matters of you actually do make different choices. But of course in turn even trying to control for that depends on their being meaningful changes in party platforms between elections. So I'm pretty content calling it a meaningless measure.
      • swed420 27d ago
        Identifying as independent is the first step toward not voting at all (which itself is a type of vote, especially in a rigged system). So definitely not meaningless. It demonstrates increasing amounts of people are tired of pretending our democracy isn't mostly illusory. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uniparty https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uniparty
        • XorNot 27d ago
          [flagged]
          • swed420 27d ago
            > What a childish, stupid opinion. Democrats lost to a gameshow host. Twice. They just had to be better than that, and they couldn't manage. Pathetic. They also created the conditions for his rise. Twice. The bar is so amazingly low, and yet you can't comprehend how they keep fumbling this. Maybe, just maybe, it's a good cop / bad cop arrangement where only capital interests win, and it's a race to the bottom for everybody else. Or maybe that's just a childish, stupid opinion. Who knows!
• vkou 27d ago
  Two thirds of those independents will vote MAGA down the ballot to give him a third and fourth term.