Coming at you: California politics is experiencing another slow-mo earthquake that could upend the status quo of both political parties and send aftershocks across the country. The last seismic political trend out of California was the Reagan Revolution which began here in the 1960s. The rise of liberal-leaning independent voters could have a similarly dramatic effect on national politics, but this time it will be the leftwing that undergoes reinvention — and repackaging.
Recent voter registration trends in California show that such large numbers of voters are choosing no party affiliation — especially among younger voters — that over the next two decades, “none” could become the largest party in the state:
California voters are shedding their identification with the two major political parties so rapidly that if current trends continue, independent voters could outnumber Democrats and Republicans in the Golden State by 2025…
Since [1990], the electorate has added 2.3 million voters, and nearly 90 percent of that growth was in registration outside the two major parties.
Today, there are 6.7 million Democrats in California and 5.5 million Republicans, and voters who “decline to state” a party identification have doubled since 1990, to 2.9 million — or more than 18 percent of the electorate. Registration among minor parties has also doubled during the period, to about 800,000.
That is a huge number of independents, larger than the total number of registered voters, affiliated or not, in most states. And when you look at the attitudes of these independents, they start to look a lot like … liberals:
Polls show that about 60 percent of California independents favor tougher environmental regulations over economic growth, support a ban on offshore oil drilling and believe that global warming is a serious problem. Independent voters are also among the strongest supporters of such social innovations as medical marijuana use, assisted suicide for the terminally ill, the morning-after pill and hybrid automobiles. They back gay and lesbian marriage by a 20-point margin and a woman’s right to abortion by 3 to 1.
These numbers appear to prove the conventional wisdom about politics in California and much of the nation today: majorities of independents oppose traditional Republican policies but they are disaffected with the Democratic Party.
The puzzling thing is that there doesn’t appear to be that much air between the views of 60 percent of independents and the policies supported by the Democrats.
Could it be that their disaffection with the Dems is more a question of style than substance? I would submit that these independents’ aversion to the Democratic Party to some degree because they have bought into slurring of the term “liberal” by the rightwing. These left-leaning indies just can’t label themselves as liberals, even though they are in agreement with progressive values on 80 percent of the time and more.
As the ascendency of George W. Bush has disentegrated and outrage fatigue has befallen millions of people who do not worship Dear Leader but can’t bring themselves to self-identify as liberals, the buzz about creating a new party has increased.
The problem is, our political system is rigged against third party encroachment, especially from the top. In recent history, third party movements have coalesced around presidential candidates like Pat Buchanan, John Anderson and George Wallace. None of these candidacies stood a realistic chance of succeeding, and if they had, these unaffiliated presidents would have found themselves in a fight to the death with the two parties in Congress, which would lead to gridlock of epic proportions.
On the other hand, the country is too divided — the pressure is too great — and something has to give. One likely outcome is that one of the two major parties will morph into a new version of itself that accommodates the changing trends.
If these California trend lines are an indicator, they favor a reconfiguration of the parties similar to their reinventions in the Civil Rights era when the Dems and Gops flipped their stands on Jim Crow.
