This Independence Day, 49 percent of Americans, according to Gallup, say they are political independents — not Democrats, not Republicans. If you believe those voters, independents are now America’s biggest political party.
It also means I have a bridge to sell you, because this outbreak of political independence is the biggest joke in politics.
Those voters like to tell their friends and pollsters they are sick of Republicans and Democrats, but come Election Day, almost all of them are predictably Republicans or Democrats.
Come nighttime, their favorite political television shows affirm their real opinions on the right or the left. If you have any doubt, just look at the highest-rated cable television political talk shows. Those shouting hosts are not down the middle in their politics because there is no audience of independents.
Political insiders know this fairy tale disdain for both major parties, and they know how to use it for political troublemaking. It is a great formula for attracting donations and generating money-grabbing candidates. That is why 11 candidates are running for the GOP nomination, even though President Trump leads the field by 30 percentage points. That is why fringe candidates like Robert Kennedy and Marianne Williamson are running in the Democratic primaries, even though President Biden leads in polls by 40 percentage points.
Here is a prime example of the troublemaking caused by the rush of voters claiming to be independents. Last week, Trump went out of his way to praise Kennedy as “a commonsense guy … whether you are conservative or liberal common sense is common sense.”
Gee, I wonder why.
Kennedy returned the praise by saying, “I’m proud that President Trump likes me.”
Again, I wonder why.
The reason is that Trump and Kennedy have a common enemy in Biden.
“Trump understands how to get folks to chase the rabbit around the track,” Brian Seitchik, a Republican who once worked on Trump’s campaign, told The Hill. “Any attention for Kennedy is good for Republicans.”
That is why Rolling Stone reported last week that Kennedy’s campaign is “awash in support from Donald Trump’s allies in MAGA World, conservative media and some of the Republican-donor elite.” That is why right-wing billionaire Harlan Crow, the patron of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, gave more than $100,000 to the biggest “third party” group, No Labels.
Third-party presidential candidates who appeal to independent voters have a record of losing, but they can affect the outcome of a national election by siphoning off enough votes in swing states to tip the balance.
We’ve seen that movie before. In 2016, Green Party nominee Jill Stein and Libertarian Party nominee Gary Johnson combined for a vote total significantly greater than Trump’s margins of victory in Florida, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan.
Two decades earlier, the same story had played out as a result of Ralph Nader’s Green Party run in 2000. Republican President George W. Bush won Florida by just .05 percent, according to the final count. Nader’s share of the vote there was 1.63 percent.
No third-party candidate has won a single electoral college vote since segregationist George Wallace ran in 1968 on the American Independent Party line, carrying five states and 46 electoral votes. That limited success was a sad, distant echo from the Southern states that had tried to secede from the union.
There is another big, revealing truth about voters pretending to be independent. If they really believe the two big parties are failing by indulging extremists and need to get busy solving problems for the country, then why does President Biden have such low approval numbers?
“That’s what’s so frustrating,” Democratic pollster Celinda Lake recently and frankly told NBC News. “We’re three years into this presidency and people haven’t seen the results. Half the people can’t name anything” Biden has achieved in office.
But let the record show that these voters have to knowingly close their eyes to avoid seeing Biden’s record of successful, bipartisan deal-making.
Biden signed a massive bipartisan law to rebuild the nation’s crumbling infrastructure. He also worked with the GOP on a debt ceiling deal that avoided an economic crash.
He passed the CHIPS Act, retaking the lead from China in the global technology market for semiconductors.
He passed the Inflation Reduction Act, which lowered prescription drug prices through Canadian imports. In May, the U.S. economy created 339,000 jobs despite frequent warnings about recession. Since Biden took office the nation has added 13 million jobs as it recovers from the COVID-19 pandemic.
The unemployment rate for May was 3.7 percent — economists have long agreed that a rate below 5 percent is full employment.
Biden is also succeeding in leading an international coalition backing Ukraine against Russia’s invasion. No American servicemembers have died in that critical fight.
And finally, despite dire predictions about immigration spiraling out of control as a result, Biden showed the wisdom and consistency to let Title 42 expire. It turned out that the COVID-era measure, which barred many migrants from entering the U.S., was not preventing a massive surge of illegal immigration after all. In fact, the number of illegal border crossings fell.
This is a record of bipartisan success that precisely fits the bottom line set by independent voters.
It is all the more impressive because the blame for political extremism is not equally shared by both parties.
To my mind, there already is an independent-minded candidate in the race who eschews extremism and has a proven track of working with all sides to get things done and delivered for independent voters.
His name is Joe Biden.
Juan Williams is an author and a political analyst for Fox News Channel.