Put this in your ivory pipe and smoke it, Ivy!
https://news.yahoo.com/party-over-recor ... 16343.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;Party’s over? Record voters say they’re Independents, reject 'D' and 'R'
Record numbers of American voters are rejecting both major political parties – Democrat and Republican. Instead, according to new poll findings, they’re registering to vote as Independents in increasing numbers.
Christian Science Monitor By Brad Knickerbocker
Call it a political plague on both your houses, to mangle Shakespeare. But record numbers of American voters are rejecting both major political parties – Democrat and Republican. Instead, according to new poll findings, they’re registering to vote as Independents in increasing numbers.
Specifically, according to new Gallup findings, the number of self-declared Independents has climbed to a record 43 percent, the highest number since the pollster began tallying such figures back in 1988 – leaving Democrats and Republicans trailing far behind at 30 percent and 26 percent respectively.
The low voter turnout last November “likely heralds a new stage in the disintegration of the American political order,” warn political scientists Walter Dean Burnham (University of Texas) and Thomas Ferguson (University of Massachusetts) in a piece at alternet.org. “Increasing numbers of average Americans can no longer stomach voting for parties that only pretend to represent their interests.”
In another recent research piece, professors Martin Gilens (Princeton University) and Benjamin I. Page (Northwestern University) point to why many Americans are turned off by partisan politics based on perceptions about “who really rules.”
"The central point that emerges from our research is that economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on U.S. government policy," they write, "while mass-based interest groups and average citizens have little or no independent influence."
