HN Reader

I often wonder: if there were more parties in America, how many of these independents would register with one of them?

In other words, if there's a record-high number of independents, how much of it is "market failure" where people want more options than the usual 2 parties?

Magas pushed out neocons and anyone who isn't a single-issue voter. DNC has tried its hardest to lose as much political power as possible.

I wonder if this is the first step toward the end of the two party system but I fear it is a move toward a Russialike "I'm not political" status quo.

The chart I found most interesting was "U.S. Political Ideology Identification, 1992-2025".

Conservative has remained more or less static the whole time, 36% in 1992, 35% in 2025, which I guess makes a kind of sense, while moderate has dropped 10%, with a corresponding increase in liberal.

I would personally call this social progress, though of course conservatives would disagree. On the other hand, the specific political policies supported by self-described conservatives and liberals has sometimes changed radically over those years, which can make my eyes roll and my head spin—for example, I remember a time when conservatives were free-trade internationalists—so I think it's a separate question whether US political policy itself has become too conservative or too liberal. In any case, the leaders of both parties tend to advance the interests of themselves and their donors over the interests of their voters or the public at large.

I've come to see political parties, political ideologies, and even religions more as social groups than as repositories for specific beliefs, where the identity and attitude of the members is more important than consistency, logic, or truth.

I always have a skepticism with this... in my extended Facebook network (so acquaintances from work, the fire departments I used to be with)... there's a lot of people who identify as "libertarian" or "independent". You'd think that averaged out, their beliefs should align reasonably equally between conservative and liberal and those parties (either issue to issue or overarching).

No. They are almost always fairly tightly and heavily lockstep aligned with the Republican party.

My fiance has a few friends in the dating scene. Their comments mirror this: "If someone has "apolitical/I'm not into politics/centerist" on their profile you can generally assume they are quite conservative.

lmao, That's like being an independent during Nazism. Like, seriously? You can't figure out the right side here? You just can't count on some people to be on the right side of history quite frankly.