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Power, Poverty and Democracy

Remarks by Dr. Lenora Fulani at the Ninth Biennial National Conference of Independents. 

Good afternoon everybody. Maybe today I’ll work on what you have to do to become a “sung hero.”  I’m really thrilled to be here and you all look just  wonderful.

What I wanted to do was to speak to the issue of democracy, the poor, and power and I want to dedicate the time that I have to share with you to the contributions of poor women (primarily black and Latino) who stepped forward to help shape, give direction to, and create our connections to poor communities of color who have and do serve as the base of our successes. They are: Nita Brooks, Lorraine Stevens, Vera Hill, and Mary Rivera. They are not here today, but they live in our history. I come from them, was surrounded by them growing up.  It was these women throughout my childhood – which included my sisters, cousins and Mom – primarily also because of their suffering and guts, from whom I developed my posture and a sense that I had not only a right, but a well-appreciated obligation to stand up and speak out.  

I remember at 16 in my Baptist Church in Chester, PA in response to my minister’s decision to fire our beloved gay youth pianist, I organized the other young people in church to stand and turn their backs on him in the midst of his sermon and to walk out. (Applause). That wasn’t my mother’s response!  Later that day my mom said to me:  Can’t you just go to church and pray like everyone else!?  And she then gave me a hug!  And we won that fight.

In writing this I was also reminded of a conversation that I had with Dr. Fred Newman, who has played such a huge role in everything we’ve done over the last 30, 40 years. I had a conversation with him after I stood on a chair in a meeting in Harlem in 1992 where Bill Clinton was speaking. I wanted to get his attention. Both Clinton and I were running for President and he had refused to support my inclusion in a Presidential debate earlier and at that point — when they wouldn’t let me in the debate — I had raised the most money of any candidate, at least for the moment.  And I told Clinton in New Hampshire, which is where we were, that when he came to Harlem, I was going to tell the black community what he did.  And I did!  So, Fred just looked at me because this picture was on the front page of newspapers around the country with me standing on this chair…but he never, ever, ever told me not to stand up.

Today in this room are people from around the country who are standing up – men and women standing up for activism and standing up for democracy.  And I am deeply proud to be here with all of you.  The fight comes in many forms including helping to develop the voice of the poor who have been abandoned and abused by the traditional parties.  And when the country is not doing great, they suffer the most.  Amongst us is an activist group who are a part of the All Stars Project — the Committee for Independent Community Action.  They are currently involved in a fight to prevent the City of New York from privatizing New York City’s public housing which would lead to the displacement of 600,000 people to shelters and to the streets.  This process has already begun.  Our Mayor says there are 60,000 people on the streets. But any number is too many. So, talk about disenfranchisement!  

This destruction of housing developments has happened already to the poor in the cities of Chicago, Atlanta, Philadelphia, creating desperation and chaos.  And when the newspapers report on the increasing gun violence in Chicago, they never tie it to the poverty and desperation of these communities, abandoned by our so-called democracy, left to lead lives of hell.  The CICA, like Dr. King’s activists, come from some of the poorest communities in the City, serving as leaders and foot soldiers for this fight for the rights of the poor.  They have collected over 14,000 signatures in our effort to organize others to support this fight.

Several months ago, one of our elected officials described the attack on New York City housing projects as a “tragic necessity.”  There are many circumstances in our nation’s history which could have been described as a “tragic necessity.”  If the nation had decided slavery was a “tragic necessity” and treated it as such, we would still be enslaved as black folks.  What “tragic necessity” simply means is that things are what they are and we won’t take a step to change them.  And in this case it exposes how much of our political leadership is in the pockets of the developers and they will speak neither for the poor, nor middle class, who is threatened by these extreme changes that are happening in America, on the ground, day in and day out. So not only must the poor stand up and grow and be activists, they must – as they did in the battles with Dr. King and others – they have to stand up and lead the way.  

What’s actually tragic is what passes for political leadership in the nation.  And I am not speaking here of Donald Trump.  In fact, it might be more useful for his detractors to do the work of assessing how he came to be.  And instead of simply protesting his presence, do the hard, challenging and difficult work of figuring out what needs to be done in order to create a political process that works on behalf of, and supports, we the people!

The message that I want to underscore today is the role that poor people — be they white or of color — have to play and have played in the fight for democracy and democratic rights in our nation.  Democracy is not only about voting rights: what it’s supposed to represent is visibility and power.  One of the ways that America’s poor is disenfranchised is that they’re kept hidden, discussed only in newspaper stories about being on welfare, having too many children, and violence.

In 1968, at the age of 18, I traveled with one of my sisters to Washington D.C. to Dr. King’s Resurrection City. Dr. King’s plan was to make visible America’s poor to the nation and to the world. I was poor and I was deeply impacted upon and organized by the potential of the poor in exposing its poverty and exercising its power.  There were thousands of people there, black, Latino and white.  The scene was both heartbreaking and somewhat hopeful.  Dr. King knew the importance of putting America’s poor on stage – not just before the country, but before the world.  Unfortunately, he was murdered in the midst of this and others failed to build off of it. He died before he was able to invest what he had organized into the ongoing struggle for democracy and the rights for the American people.

I want to end my presentation by bringing into this dialogue the voice of one of the most powerful figures, leaders and spokespersons for the democratic rights of the poor and the disenfranchised.  Fannie Lou Hamer knew that the poor had to stand up and fight for its rights while organizing others to stand with them.  She also knew about the role and the importance of taking on our democratic rights and taking on the parties that stood in our way. I believe, if Fannie was here with us today, she would be at the forefront of these fights for democracy, and for housing, and always, always, always, against the disenfranchisement of poor people in this country. Fannie was a voting rights activist. She was a civil rights leader and a philanthropist. She was instrumental in organizing the Mississippi’s Freedom Summer for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. Later she became the Vice Chair of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party which she represented at the 1964 Democratic National Convention in Atlantic City, NJ.  Let’s take a look at this powerful woman.

[VIDEO – includes introduction of Dr. Fulani by Tom Williams and Catana Barnes and clip of Fannie Lou Hamer]

So in ending, I guess it’s not too difficult to figure out which of the two I follow! And that the movements that we’ve been creating for democracy follow. There has to be in a plan for democratizing America, a plan for growing the poor, and part of the leadership is going to come from the poor, not because they’re going to get elected, but because the poor people in this country have been at the forefront of almost every battle that we’ve ever waged. So its an honor to be here with you. Let’s fight for democracy and let’s strengthen our fight against poverty. Thank you.

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Bernie Offers Perfect Advice to Democrats, But Will They Listen?

Published by the Independent Voter Network (IVN) – April 5, 2017

Five years ago, outside of the public eye, a conflict flared inside the inner circle of Democratic Party power.

Simply put, it was this: should the Obama re-election campaign find a way to make an explicit appeal to independent voters? Five years ago, the answer was no. I know this because I was part of the discussion, though an outsider to it, whose counsel was firmly rejected. And though Obama won reelection in 2012 while losing independents to the GOP, the strategic decision to double down with the Democratic base and turn away from independents, the emergent engine for reform of the political system, laid the groundwork for Democratic defeat in 2016.

Last week, Bernie Sanders, the curmudgeonly crusader of the American left, called out his party’s failure to make those links: “Let me just say this, the Democrats will not succeed unless it attracts many, many millions of independents. The number of people who are now moving in the independent direction, as opposed to Republican and Democrat — it is growing. So if the Democrats are going to be successful, in fact that party is going to have to appeal to a whole lot of independents.”

Yes! But what does that mean, circa 2017, with the Democrats in opposition party mode trying to find a voice in a chaotic and uncertain Washington with a volatile and unpredictable Trump in the White House?

When I saw Bernie on MSNBC’s Morning Joe issuing this challenge, I called Charlotte Scot, an avid Bernie supporter in Connecticut and formerly the director of communications for the Democratic National Committee when Jimmy Carter was president. Charlotte had just appeared on stage with me at the National Conference of Independents, sharing her experience of how the power and energy of the Bernie movement had been dissipated by the party regulars. Charlotte became an independent and the audience cheered her decision.

She had seen Bernie on Morning Joe too and had already been tweeting about it. I asked her how she thought this fit in to the DNC’s latest efforts to restyle itself under Tom Perez’s leadership. “I don’t buy it”, she said. “The DNC does not want to change. It is already soliciting contributions from lobbyists, it may have asked all staff to resign but, it also just hired many former members of Clinton’s staff.  They are putting on a public show. Keith Ellison is now a deputy Director, but the party regulars appear to be running the show. These are the same people who let Donald Trump become president by favoring fundraising over hog raising farmers. By shunning every day Americans in favor of Hollywood elite. Bernie understood the people who were hurting but, how could the DNC ever support a candidate who doesn’t even own a tuxedo? Bernie is an outsider. He needs to run for president as an independent!”

We talked for a while and I told her the sad story of the Obama campaign in 2012, how I’d met with David Axelrod and David Simas to offer them the opportunity to rebuild Obama’s 2008 independent coalition, the one that had been squandered once he was elected, and the Pelosi Democrats started to set the agenda. This would require, I told them at the time, giving legitimacy to the fact that 42% of the country were not aligned with a party and demonstrating that the president understood why and respected our choice.

For a time, Axelrod and Simas engaged, asking for help on how to link reforms like including independent appointees on the FEC to social issues, like housing and jobs. But ultimately, they explained, the party stakeholders would not agree to terms, and so this course was abandoned.

Charlotte Scot speaks at “Crossroads for an Independent America.”

Charlotte, a veteran of the Carter campaign and the Carter White House, remarked “Jimmy was an outsider and the party didn’t like that. One DNC member quipped, ‘The Beverly Hillbillies come to Washington.” Had the Democratic Party supported President Carter we would have had clean green energy 40 years ago. After the 2016 Democratic fiasco the independent movement is even more vital.”

True that, I told Charlotte. We are the coalition of outsiders. And maybe, just maybe, Bernie is coming to see that he needs to support the outsiders in order to pursue his own goal of remaking the Democratic Party. Whether he can get the Democratic leadership to go along is another question.

Looking toward the 2020 presidential election, independent voters – now 44% of the country- have three main concerns. Can the players in independent politics find a way to come together to create a unified strategy, including a unified independent presidential candidacy?  Can the independent movement force the Democratic and Republican Parties to guarantee voting rights to the nonaligned in the 2020 primaries and caucuses?

Obama won the nomination in 2008 because enough state primaries allowed independents to vote to power his win over Hillary Clinton. Bernie, likewise, had huge appeal to independents and was forced late in the primary season to speak out for open primaries, though by then it was too late for a path to the nomination.

Third, can the movement propel reforms of the political process sufficient to transfer political power from the parties to the people?

Bernie, great to see you speaking out for a coalition of outsiders! Let’s sit down together and talk about how to bring our movements together. The tide is turning toward political independence. We felt the Bern. Now, let’s make the turn.

Things Fall Apart: Building a Unifying Independent Movement

Below are remarks delivered by Jacqueline Salit, convener of “Crossroads for An Independent America,” at the Ninth Biennial National Conference of Independents. A downloadable version is available here.

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Our country is in tremendous turmoil now. There’s constant conflict going on everywhere you turn, everywhere you look. We have a new President. He’s a very mercurial person. Some think that he’s a genius at political disruption of the system. Some think he’s unstable. We’ll find all of that out, I’m sure.

Most of the people who voted for him are still in his corner and they’re waiting to see if he can deliver on the economic revitalization that he offered to and promised the American people.   Most of the people who voted against him are still against him. There are lots of protests going on. People are giving expression to their thoughts and feelings, fears and concerns about a whole host of issues. The mood in the country, no matter where you stand, is anxious. Very anxious.

And, even though these are very unusual circumstances now, it’s also the case that, believe it or not, politics-as-usual is continuing to go on. The Republican Party—with Trump at the helm—is making the transition from being the opposition party to being a governing party. The Democratic Party is making the transition from being a governing party to being an opposition party because it is out of power, at least for the moment. These two transitions are very, very rocky. And the American people, with good reason, are deeply concerned about their capacity to govern.

There’s a great deal of uncertainty in the country today. Maybe it’s even fair to call it chaos. And one of the things that’s going on, as you would expect, is that the political analysts, the media, the major parties, and the power brokers are all trying to make some kind of order out of the chaos.

For the Democrats, restoring order means finding a way to unify its populist—let’s call it the Bernie Sanders wing of the Democratic Party—with its centrist more globalist wing. They need that kind of unity to put maximum pressure on the Republicans, who the Democrats hope will fail. For the White House and the Republican majority, restoring order means finding some kind of an accommodation among the different wings of the Republican Party on healthcare, on the budget, on foreign policy—at least enough of an accommodation to be able to govern—and then enough successful governing to hold their base and to keep the Democrats from gaining seats in Congress next year and, of course, the White House in 2020.

This is a room full of independents. And I’m assuming that most of you look at all of that and you say, well, that’s the two party game. It’s more extreme, it’s more polarized than it’s been in the past. But it’s still that same dynamic, that same old bipartisan power struggle that’s gone on virtually since the founding of this country. It’s rough, it’s nasty, there are tweets, there are Executive Orders and bans and court decisions overturning Executive Orders and bans, and then there are new Executive Orders and bans. But there is a giant tug of war that is taking place between the parties and, to some degree, between different branches of government. The implications of that tug of war are important. They’re complicated, and, in some cases, perhaps even dangerous. But, if you take a step outside this state-of-play, just for a moment—and, by the way, that’s who independents are, we’re the people who step out, we choose to be outsiders—I think you can see that something else is happening at the same time.

The Center Cannot Hold

Today I want to share with you what I see, what I think that “something else” is, because we’re not simply living through a transition in government, as perhaps frightening or destabilizing as that is. I think we’re living through a much deeper transition in which the tools and the categories of politics—the way we conduct our democracy, the methods of self-governance that we use—are becoming obsolete. The old methods and the old categories, the old standard practices are losing ground. Even while they govern the state of affairs, they are becoming obsolete. They are losing the trust of the American people. To quote the poet William Butler Yeats and the novelist Chinua Achebe, “Things fall apart. The center cannot hold.” That is the moment we are living through.

The 2016 presidential election season was horrible. I think we’d agree on that, independent of the outcome. But, make no mistake. All of the things that happened in the presidential season were signs that the system of politics that we use—a party-based system, a system based on ideology, a primary system that selects certain voters and locks out others, a debate system that keeps independent voices from being heard, media coverage that is hugely partisan, and then the “bipartisan,” if you want to call it that, policymaking process that follows—that whole package is not working for the American people. The independent movement, which is another name for America’s democracy movement, came into existence to respond to that breakdown. That’s important to see. The independent movement was born not simply to offer other choices within the existing partisan system. It emerged because the existing system is losing its capacity to work for and on behalf of the American people. Our democracy is corrupted. The system is unraveling.Is Unraveling Good or Bad?

In my experience I find that when you start to talk about how the system is unraveling, right away people want to know, is that good or is that bad? Is that a good thing that the system is unraveling or is it a bad thing that it’s unraveling? An interesting question. I don’t think there is an easy answer to that question because I believe the answer relies largely on what the American people do, and let me be a little more particular here—on what the independent movement does in response to that unraveling. That’s our question.

When there is turmoil and change and transition, when things are in chaos, it can be confusing. We watch the news and read the newspapers and it’s confusing. But the funny thing about transitional times like these is that, even though they’re confusing, it’s sometimes the case that you can actually see things that are harder to see when the situation is more stable.

One of the things that more and more Americans are now able to see is that the inability of our political process as currently constituted, the inability to deliver a prosperous and creative and happy and safe life to the American people means that we now, as a movement, and as a country, have to turn our attention to the process itself. This is no longer a side issue, it’s no longer an auxiliary concern, it’s no longer the thing that you say, “Oh, that would be nice, but we really have to focus on” whatever. I think that the unraveling and the chaos in American politics is creating a space in which it’s possible, in some ways perhaps for the first time, to introduce, to stimulate, and to develop a new kind of democracy for our country.

That is hard to do, for a lot of reasons. There’s a lot of resistance, of course. The barriers to that are substantially entrenched. But there’s another reason, too, which is that even the protests against the system—as we saw in the last presidential election—are, to a great degree, reabsorbed into the very institutions that people are rising up against. That’s a complicated and difficult situation for the American people to be in. It’s something that, as independents, we have to give a tremendous amount of energy to, how to lead and how to teach people, what to show people, in the face of that situation.

Trump and Sanders

There were two very explosive campaigns in last year’s presidential election—the candidacy of Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump. One of them, as we know, won the White House. The other, Bernie Sanders, nearly toppled the most powerful political dynasty in the Democratic Party—the Clinton dynasty. Both of those campaigns reached out to the American people with an appeal about how the system itself is rigged. The story that those campaigns told was that America operates under a political, economic and social arrangement in which there are insiders and outsiders, there are elites and there’s everyone else. And judging by the response to both of these campaigns, I think it’s fair to say that the American people are feeling very deeply that this is the case. The system is rigged, and it ain’t just a slogan. It’s the painful, hurtful, devastating reality of daily life for so many people in this country. The coal miner in West Virginia and the mother of three in Detroit and the student starting out in Arizona—along with millions and millions and millions of fellow Americans—live life with the growing recognition that the system is rigged.

The numbers in the election ended up delivering the Electoral College to Donald Trump. Bernie Sanders, many believe, was blocked by the closed primary rules and superdelegate rules of his own party. The young people who wanted to vote for Bernie Sanders in the Democratic Party primary for president but who were registered to vote as independents found themselves turned away from the ballot box in state after state after state—and, by the way, 48% of millennials in the United States of America are independents. Many of them went to the polls in closed primary states and said “I’d like to vote today in the presidential primary.” Many were there to vote for Bernie Sanders, and they were told “You can’t vote today.” They said, “Oh, well, why? It’s Election Day, isn’t it?”   They were told by election officials appointed by local Democratic and Republican Party county leaders, “Oh, you can’t vote because you’re an independent.” “Oh,” they said, “I thought I was an American.” “Oh, yes, but you have to be registered in the Democratic Party in order to be able to vote today.” “OK. Give me a pen and a form and I’ll register into your party today because I’d like to be able to vote for Senator Sanders.” “Oh, no, sorry,” they were told. In New York, they were told, “You had to have done that five months ago.” “Oh,” said the voters, “Bernie Sanders wasn’t even a candidate five months ago!” “Sorry, sorry,” they said. “That’s the way the system works.”

It’s now four months since the election. And, much of the raw outcry that the system is rigged has been eclipsed or channeled into Republican Party and Democratic Party warfare. Whatever you think of Trump—I’m not a fan, by the way, but I’m also not a hater. I believe in the signs you see at anti-Trump rallies that say, “Love Trumps Hate,” I believe in love. But, whatever you think of Trump and whatever you think of Sanders, I ask you please, please, please don’t forget that it was the American people who rose up to push them forward. Whether Trump voters will be happy with what Trump delivers remains to be seen. Will the budget cuts proposed by the President cause greater pain to those who voted for him in an effort to ease the pain? Will that massive jobs and infrastructure program advocated by both Trump and Sanders actually happen? We don’t know.

And, will Sanders voters be happy with the new leadership of the Democratic National Committee and its strategies? After all, it was the DNC that conspired to block Sanders’ candidacy. And, after that whole uproar about independents being locked out of the presidential primaries, the DNC—in spite of massive lobbying by independents and independent-minded Democrats and Republicans from all across the country—decided to abstain on the question of determining whether future presidential primaries should be open. They decided to “leave the matter to the states.” Here’s the thing. If you look at the experience of 2016, you see that Americans from many different walks of life delivered a resounding message. The system is rigged. The political parties do not want to respond to that message. But the independent movement does.

The Fulani Factor

Later today you’ll be hearing from my very dear friend and longtime colleague, Dr. Lenora Fulani, who ran for President in these United States in 1988 and 1992 and became the first woman and first African American to achieve ballot status in all 50 states. I had the privilege and honor of being her deputy campaign manager, and I handled communications for her. In that campaign, almost 30 years ago, Dr. Fulani’s message was very simple. Her message was “The system is rigged.” It’s rigged economically. It’s rigged politically. It’s rigged against African Americans. Black America is taken for granted. Independents are locked out. The system is rigged.

At that time, very few people heard her message. For one thing, she was locked out of the presidential debates. And we began litigation on this issue in 1987, and which continues to this day (and we’re going to be hearing about that in some detail later). But when Dr. Fulani joined forces with the Perot movement five years later, a lot of people started to notice. They said, “Wow, here’s a new coalition—a Black and Independent Alliance, that’s saying, this system is rigged, and we’re going to join forces to do something about that.”

The fear of this alliance runs very, very deep within the power structure in the United States of America, and within the Democratic Party in particular, now that President Obama has left office. People are saying, “What binds Black America to the Democratic Party now?” Many say it’s the fear of Republicans. But even with that fear, in this last election, when the Clintons were so certain they had every African American voter in their pocket, over a million black voters didn’t come out to vote in some of those key swing states. People are tired of settling. And we know this from the history of the Civil Rights and Voting Rights movements—if you’re tired of settling, you start to look to the systemic changes needed to give the American people the power to chart our own course.

Political Divisions

I want to say a few words about the political divisions in the country today. We all know that poll after poll shows how the country is divided over the issues. People have different opinions. On trade. On the environment. On guns. On abortion. On criminal justice. On immigration. On education. Those differences are real. But, the tragic thing—actually, more than tragic, it’s criminal—is that the parties make it their business to exploit the differences that the American people have. They do it to gain political advantage, no matter the cost to the social fabric of this country.

But there’s even another feature of this manipulation of the political differences in our country that I find very, very disturbing. And that is that if you keep people tangled up in partisan crossfire, it covers over the deeper fact that the whole institutional framework is falling apart. It covers over the fact that the center cannot hold. And it covers over the fact that we are all living through a moment in history where the very tools of self-governance are beginning to fail.

Things are falling apart, even if we have different experiences of that, depending on who we are. The problem is that as things fall apart, as we continue to lose our country, which is what is happening today, in my opinion, the American people are being denied the power that is rightfully ours to put our society back together again on a humanistic and developmental course. We have to have a healthy and vigorous and challenging democratic society to be able to do that. If we’re all caught up in the divide—and the parties now thrive on that—we can’t see that this transition is happening to everyone in our country. And I am saying this, not as a moral appeal, or an idealistic appeal, that says: oh, it’s better if we’re all together. That’s not what I’m talking about, although I do happen to believe that is better. No, I’m making a very, very, very practical point here. We have to find a way to go through this transition together and to come out of it expanding and enriching our democracy or we will not come out of it at all. This, I believe, is a basic truth, a truth about what is happening in our country today.

The Independent Movement

So, let me wrap up here by saying some things about independent voters, the independent movement and the fight for nonpartisan structural reform, which are completely, entirely interconnected and intertwined. The commentator David Brooks—I’m sure some of you read him, he writes for the New York Times and he’s on the PBS NewsHour and other media sources, and I like some of the stuff he says, some of it I don’t. He recently has written, and he’s been saying on TV, “The parties are in chaos!” And it’s true. It’s true.   And he gives various accountings of this, about what’s happening in the different camps in the Republican Party and how difficult it is to sell globalism to the Sanders populists, how the Democrats don’t really have a clear position on globalism, and on and on and on. And it’s all true, but, it surprises me a little bit that it doesn’t occur to him, nor to the hundreds of other commentators who are out there, who are proffering very similar analyses, it doesn’t occur to him that the chaos in the parties might have something to do with the fact that 44% of the American electorate are now independents. It doesn’t occur to them that this has anything to do with the chaos. There was a pre-election poll that was done that asked respondents what they think the great divide is in the American public. 67% of the respondents said that they did not believe that the great divide in our country was between Democrats and Republicans but rather it was a divide between those at the bottom and those at the top, those who were trying to lead a regular and happy and decent life in this country and those who control the levers of power in the United States of America. That is the great divide.

Which brings us to the independent movement. The independent movement is growing. The political reform movement is growing. That’s what brings many of you into the room today. We seek to link independents together, without a party, to provide an identity, a voice, a platform, to give that 44% the capacity to be a force, a new kind of force in American political life. We seek to end all forms of voter suppression. No one should be required to join a political organization as a condition for casting a meaningful vote in an American election. That just shouldn’t be. We want open primaries. We want redistricting reform. We want ballot access reform. Ranked choice voting. Initiative and Referendum. Campaign finance reform. Electoral College reform. We gotta reform that goddamn Federal Election Commission. But these are not—in and of themselves—the solutions to America’s crisis. They are the building blocks for expanding and retooling our democracy. They actually set a new stage where voters and activists and communities and interest groups can come together to do different things to make us whole as a nation. We need that growth and expansion because it’s actually in that activity that people become more sophisticated, they become more engaged, they become more aware, they become more empowered. We need to make room in our political process for interconnections that can’t happen under the partisan system. We need to make room for connections between the overtaxed and the underserved. We need to open a pathway between those focused on income inequality and those who day by day by day live life and fight the hardships of poverty. We need to make room for the Trump voter and the Sanders voter to join forces. That cannot happen in the partisan system. We need a space for the Committee for Independent Community Action and New Yorkers for Political Reform to join forces to make the necessary changes in our city so that through a democratic process everyone can have a decent home, and everyone can live a decent life. We need a revitalized democracy to make those kinds of connections. The activity of working together to rebuild our democracy, that’s the activity that breaks down the walls that divide us.

Party Control

The parties want less democracy. They are demanding greater control over the political process. That’s their reaction to the 2016 presidential election. They want to control everything. There are probably ten state legislatures right now that are contemplating bills to restrict the rights of independent voters, to make voting more difficult for all kinds of communities. There are four or five court cases that are underway or were just wrapped up that, again, have to do with the rights of independents to fully participate in the political process. The parties are invested in control. They are invested in controlling nominations, controlling outcomes, controlling districts. Controlling the way the districts they want to control are designed. They control the debates, but most of all—and I know you know this—the cardinal rule for them is they want to control the voters. They want to keep voters in line, and keep them angry at each other and fearful of the other side. And, for goodness sakes, keep those independents on the sidelines!

It’s so interesting to me where the resistance to this comes from. Most recently, I read an article that ran in The Atlantic Monthly, which is a progressive magazine. It argues that all of you who are involved in political reform and in trying to open up the process should stop. You should stop. Because the situation has become so chaotic that we need to hold onto those institutions which have the capacity to control our society—namely the parties. So whoever is out there doing things to try to reform the political process, and transfer power from the parties to the voter, “Stand down! Stand down! Because now we need those parties more than ever.” It’s just amazing to me that this kind of authoritarianism is coming from a progressive news source. By the way, this is not Breitbart News, the mouthpiece of the Alt Right, so-called. This is the Atlantic Monthly, a mouthpiece of liberal and progressive thinking in the United States of America. Let me just inform them today. We will not stand down.

Beyond Issues

I was speaking with a friend last week who is a founder of a major grassroots organization with millions of members that is allied around progressive causes and allied, to some degree, with the Democratic Party. She and I have been friends and colleagues for about five or six years. And, like many people, she’s been very active on a host of issues, from women’s rights to immigration issues to daycare to job creation to healthcare, and so forth. She’s somebody who has tried to create environments where people who have different positions on these issues can have productive conversations. And she and I have been having talks along these lines for a number of years. But in this conversation we had last week, she said to me, “Jackie, you know, I think we’re in a different time now.” She said, “We can’t just keep debating the issues and having those arguments. We all know the arguments. We know our side’s arguments and we know the other side’s arguments. We could recite them chapter, book and verse.” She said, “We can’t keep having that conversation, we have to do something other than that. We have to find a way to do something different, to move to a different place and have different kinds of conversations about different things.” And then she said to me, “You know, this stuff you’ve been working on for all these years, political reform and organizing independent voters?” She said, “This is your time. This is your time.” I was very moved by this, but I have to tell you, it was very sobering, really. I took it very, very seriously because I think with the fact that it is our time comes a great deal of responsibility. We have to really face up to that and deal with that, perhaps in some new ways.

Part of what that means is that we have to deploy some of the capabilities that we independents uniquely have. Thom Reilly from Arizona State University’s Morrison Institute was talking about this in the focus group he and Cathy Stewart just led. He talked about the ways that independents interact with all kinds of people that is very particular to independents and is a way of breaking down some of these cultural barriers. I do think that independents have some very, very unique and important capacities that we need to bring to bear now. We are more accepting of “otherness.” We don’t demand that people be like us to talk to them. I think we’re also more accepting of uncertainty, and of chaos, and of the breakdown of the old order. That doesn’t mean that “anything goes.” But I think that it does mean that we understand that the old order has to break down to make room for the new. And we can’t be afraid of that.

A Unified Movement

The times that we’re living in are an environment for growth. But for the independent movement to grow, to become more powerful, including perhaps powerful enough to assemble a competitive independent presidential bid in 2020, we have to help each other to grow. We have to help each other to gain influence. We have to change the rules of the game together. There are many, many different and disparate forces in this room today. And I’m very, very happy about that. But I want to push the envelope on it a little bit. It’s not enough just to be here together for this day at this conference. We have to create ways to work together, to impact together. We need a unified independent movement, and I think the way that we get there, the way we unify our movement, is to work together to create the tools that the American people need to unify our country.

The authoritarian power of the parties is dead set against that. They are determined to prevent that from happening. We have to take responsibility for helping the American people go through this time of change and transition, to resist the pull to fall back on the old ways and the old institutions, the old divides. I think we are doing that. I think that is so beautiful. Something that is so touching to me is that at a time of tremendous ugliness and discord, there are beautiful things that are being created and that are growing in our country. And when I look out at all of you, I feel that so very deeply. So, let me close here and just say that I so deeply appreciate all of what you do. I look forward to all of what we’re going to do. Hey, let’s build a better world together. Thank you.

* * *

Video: Crossroads for an Independent America

On Saturday, March 18, 2017, Independent Voting held its Ninth Biennial National Conference of Independents. “Crossroads for an Independent America” brought together over 350 independent activists from 36 states to engage the issue of empowerment for independent voters and the creation of a new political culture. Video from past conferences is available here.

 

VIDEO SEGMENTS OF 2017 CONFERENCE

Segment 1 – Welcoming remarks and Live Focus Group “Who are America’s Independent Voters?”  moderated by:  Thom Reilly, Director, ASU Morrison Institute for Public Policy and Cathy Stewart, VP for National Development, Independent Voting. Also, commentary on the focus group offered by Doug Schoen, Pollster, political strategist and advisor, author. (Running time 54 mins.)

​Segment 2 – President’s Address by Jacqueline Salit, President of Independent Voting. Follow up dialogue moderated by Harry Kresky, Esq and Jackie Salit with: Tiani Coleman, Founder, New Hampshire Independent Voters,  Michael Hardy, Executive Vice President and General Counsel to the National Action Network, Daniel Ortega, Jr., Board Member, Cesar Chavez Foundation and Rick Robol, Chair of Independent Ohio. Audience Q & A closes out this segment. (Running time 1:37 mins.)

Segment 3 – Keynote address by Lenora B. Fulani, 1988/1992 Independent presidential candidate and co-founder, Independent Voting, on the topic of Power, Poverty and Democracy.  (Running time: 20 mins.)

Segment 4 –  Conversations moderated by Jacqueline Salit on the topic of opening up the Presidential Debates, lessons learned from the Sanders campaign and the untold story of South Dakota’s attempt to pass top two open primaries. Participants include Chad Peace, President of IVC Media LLC, Charlotte Scot, Independents United for Progress, Malcolm Burn, Political activist, award winning music producer and John Opdycke, President of Open Primaries. Participants in the Unsung Heroes: The Story of South Dakota’s Amendment V segment include: Nancy Hallenbeck, President of the League of Women Voters of Sioux Falls, SD; Adam Morfeld, State Senator (D-Lincoln), Executive Director and Founder of Nebraskans for Civic Reform; Jason Olson, Director of National Outreach, Open Primaries; Justin Otoski, US Army Veteran, Voter Outreach Coordinator, Yes on V Campaign; Chuck Parkinson, Former Reagan and Bush Appointee, Longtime Senior Staff; Tamara Pier, Former City Attorney of Rapid City, SD.  (Running time: 1:22 mins.)

 

Crossroads for an Independent America

Sponsored by

Independent Voting

#riseindependent / @indie_voting / independentvoting

——————————— 10:30 AM ———————————

Registration

——————————— 11:30 AM ———————————

Welcoming Remarks

Gwen Mandell, Director of National Outreach, Independent Voting

Omar H. Ali, Dean and Professor, Honors College, UNC-Greensboro,

Gwen Ballard, Coalition of Independent Voters in Colorado

Who are America’s Independent Voters? Live Focus Group

Moderators: Thom Reilly, Director, ASU Morrison Institute for Public Policy

Cathy Stewart, VP for National Development, Independent Voting

Participants: Dee Curlee (SC), Juli Dominguez (IN), Domonique Edwards (NC), Dave Ellis (OR),
Juliana Francisco (NY), Steve Hough (FL), Jeff Leader (KS), Larry Reinsch (IA), Gwen Samuel (CT) , PJ Steiner (UT)

 

Commentator: Dr. Doug Schoen, Pollster, political strategist and advisor, author

President’s Address

Jacqueline Salit, President of Independent Voting

Conversations at the Crossroads #1

Moderators: Harry Kresky, General Counsel at Independent Voting

Jacqueline Salit, President, Independent Voting

Participants: Tiani Coleman, Founder, New Hampshire Independent Voters

Michael Hardy, Executive Vice President and General Counsel to the National Action Network

Daniel Ortega, Jr., Board Member, Cesar Chavez Foundation

Rick Robol, Chair of Independent Ohio

Audience Discussion

——————————— LUNCH———————————

2:00 – 2:45  PM
(compliments of NYC Independence Clubs)

Power, Poverty and Democracy

Lenora B. Fulani, 1988/1992 Independent presidential candidate and co-founder, Independent Voting

Independents at the Social Media Crossroads

Jarell Corley, Member, Independent Voting

Kerry Malloy, Assistant to the Vice President, Independent Voting

Gwen Mandell, Director of National Outreach, Independent Voting

Conversations at the Crossroads #2

Moderator: Jacqueline Salit

Participants:  Chad Peace, President of IVC Media LLC

Charlotte Scot, Independents United for Progress

Malcolm Burn, Political activist, award winning music producer

John Opdycke, President, Open Primaries

Unsung Heroes: The Story of South Dakota’s Amendment V

Moderator: John Opdycke

Participants:  Nancy Hallenbeck, President of the League of Women Voters of Sioux Falls, SD

Adam Morfeld, State Senator (D-Lincoln), Executive Director and Founder of Nebraskans for Civic Reform

Jason Olson, Director of National Outreach, Open Primaries

Justin Otoski, US Army Veteran, Voter Outreach Coordinator, Yes on V Campaign

Chuck Parkinson, Former Reagan and Bush Appointee, Longtime Senior Staff

Tamara Pier, Former City Attorney of Rapid City, SD

Audience Discussion

Wrap-Up

——————————— 5:00 PM ———————————

Adjourn

Exploring New Frontiers of America’s Changing Electorate


State of Our State Conference 2016, Morrison Institute for Public Policy

Independent Voting is forging partnerships with major universities and policy institutes at the forefront of engaging independent voters and understanding their role in America’s changing electorate.

Traditionally approached from an ideological perspective, independents (now 44% of the electorate) have so altered the political landscape through their presence and activity, that new methods of inquiry are required to understand their impact.

The University of North Carolina Greensboro, Arizona State University’s Morrison Institute for Public Policy and The Schwarzenegger Institute for State and Global Policy, part of the University Southern California’s Price School of Public Policy, have each undertaken the task of exploring and developing those methods.

College Independent Poll

The College Independent poll was the first university sponsored poll in the nation focusing on independents. It examined political tendencies among college students and was released by researchers from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro in August of 2013.  The team conducted face-to-face polling of 1,246 students at 16 university campuses across North Carolina.  A total of 21 questions were asked including why students identified as independents, what they thought of the Republican and Democratic parties, and their knowledge of the electoral process. It was the first university-sponsored survey to specifically examine independent voters in North Carolina and was coordinated by Omar H. Ali, Ph.D., Professor of History and Dean of Lloyd International Honors College at The University of North Carolina, Greensboro.

“The poll revealed several key findings,” said Ali. “First, a plurality of college students self-identify as independent regardless of how they are registered to vote. Second, nearly two-thirds expressed being anti-party, with an overwhelming number saying that they do not want to be politically labeled as partisan. Finally, college independents say they strongly favor structural political reforms that would reduce partisanship in the political process. The overall results suggest the emergence of a non-partisan politics among younger voters.”

Click here to see the poll

Media coverage of The College Independent poll included NPR in NC and local papers. (WUNC 91.5 FM, Raleigh News & Observer – reposted on FreeTheVote.org)

Morrison Institute for Public Policy

In November of 2015, Morrison unveiled the results of a groundbreaking study entitled “Who is the Arizona Independent Voter?”  The study began with the observation that:

“Independents are the No. 1 party in Arizona, although they are not really a party. On official voter rolls of the Arizona Secretary of State’s Office, independents are identified as ‘other,’ tossed in a catch-all drawer to be categorized alongside the two major parties – Republican and Democratic – and the third parties (Libertarian, Green and Americans Elect). On the ballot, they’re listed as IND but there is no official Independent Party in Arizona. They’re simply independents, an unlikely group of like-minded and unlike-minded individuals who seem to take pride in their independence from organized and recognized political parties.”

It went on to say:

“With no real shape other than growing percentages that cannot be ignored…independent voters represent a potential changing wind across Arizona’s political landscape. But that formidable force has yet to materialize with any measurable or sustained impact, with independent voters remaining as unharnessed as they are unpredictable in terms of actual votes. Are independent voters truly an untapped resource that could determine elections, aiding in the transformation of Arizona from a conservative “red state” into a “purple” moderate state or even more progressive “blue state”? Or, with no organization and a track record of poor turnout in both primary and general elections, are independents a much-ado-about-nothing “party” of non-participants?”

At Morrison’s invitation, Independent Voting’s Vice President of National Development Cathy Stewart offered a report from the field at the unveiling of the study’s results, remarking:  

“In our experience organizing independents from Maine to Alabama; from New York to North Carolina, from Florida to Utah—independents cannot be adequately understood by applying the dominant paradigm of partisan politics. After all, they are making a determined move away from that very paradigm.  A move away from the political parties and a move away from the traditional pillars—partisanship and ideology.  Independents are looking for new ways to get out of the partisan stalemates and to create new coalitions and new ways to come together to deal with our most pressing issues.

Click here to see full results of Who is Arizona’s Independent Voter?

Click here to see Cathy Stewart’s full remarks.

Following up on their ground breaking study of Arizona independents, the ASU Morrison Institute for Public Policy dedicated its 2016 State of our State conference to a focus on the changing electorate, including the impact of independent voters.

Morrison used the occasion to unveil findings of a new study entitled “Voter Social Networks and New Sources: Silos and Bridges,” a survey on social media use, which tracked how information is gathered by voters and how it differs among Republicans, Democrats and independents.  The study also explored voters’ interactions within their social networks, and the impact of independents in those social networks.

In the run up to the State of our State, Jackie Salit – who keynoted at the ASU event – appeared with Thom Reilly, Director of Morrison, on KJZZ radio and PBS TV in Phoenix to discuss the study.  “Give me a headline on this report. What do we take from this?” asked Arizona Horizon host Ted Simons. “Independents are going to lead us to a new American political culture,” said Salit.

Click here to see Thom Reilly and Jackie Salit on the PBS show Arizona Horizon.

Independent Voting co-sponsored Morrison’s State of our State. President Jackie Salit also appeared on a conference panel that addressed the question “How Are Independents and Others Driving Political Change?”

Schwarzenegger Institute for State and Global Policy

The Schwarzenegger Institute for State and Global Policy at the University of Southern California is part of the prestigious Price School of Public Policy.  It was founded by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger at the end of his second term as Governor of California and is led by one of his top advisors, Bonnie Reiss who serves as Global Director. The Institute is “committed to advancing post-partisanship, where leaders put people over political parties and work together to find the best ideas and solutions to benefit the people they serve.”

Independent Voting’s connection to the Governor and his political reform agenda began in 2010 and centered on support for his effort to bring nonpartisan, top two elections to the state. That effort, along with redistricting reform which took the power of drawing district lines away from the state legislature, passed in 2010 and quickly began to transform the moribund California legislature back into a functioning body.

Jackie Salit has appeared at several of the Institute’s public forums and spoke recently at an event entitled “The Politics of the Top Two Primary: The California Senate Race 2016” sponsored by Institute.

“Independent voters are moving around the political spectrum looking for platforms to give expression to a new kind of politic and a new kind of political paradigm,” said Salit. “I happen to believe we’re in a transition right now from a horizontal, ideological driven paradigm, to something else.”

Salit pointed out that in the Senate race, over three million Californians who voted for Donald Trump then continued down ballot and voted for one of the two politically progressive women of color – both Democrats – running for U.S. Senate.  This, she said, demonstrates how, as a practical matter, independent voting is not just something unaffiliated voters do, it’s something all Americans would be able to do in a top two, nonpartisan election system.

See the video here.

 

Revolts, Reforms and Divides: An Independent Look at the 2016 Presidential Election

One of the (very!) few pollsters who got the presidential election right, Patick Caddell, had this to say the day before the election: “The political battleground is no longer over ideology but instead is all about insurgency.”

Caddell points to his polling in early October, which asked for reaction to the following statement: “The real struggle for America is not between Democrats and Republicans but between mainstream America and the ruling political elites.” 67 percent agreed, 24 percent disagreed.

On Election Day, the next wave of America’s anti-elite political revolt rose up. It repudiated the liberal status quo coalition of Hillary Clinton, dispatched the politically incorrect outsider Donald Trump to the White House, and confirmed that the new divide in U.S. politics is vertical, not horizontal. President-elect Trump and the Republican Party have a narrow mandate but a broad set of challenges, not least of which are reconciling the economic “deliverables” of his campaign, i.e., his promises of shared prosperity and growth, with a globalized economy that creates and distributes wealth in dramatically uneven ways.

This revolt, merely the latest world event shattering the worldview of so many, had many moving parts. Here are several that I see.

The Formula

Since 2008 and the election of Barack Obama, a new formula for winning national elections has been in play. The formula is Movement + Party Infrastructure = Victory. The Democratic Party, its “demographics are destiny” arrogance notwithstanding, did not win the 2008 presidential. It was forced by a black-led progressive insurgency, powered by independent voters and African Americans, to mobilize its vast infrastructure on behalf of Obama. That combustible combination won the election. While his re-election campaign in 2012 was a far cry from his 2008 movement/campaign, there was enough of an “echo” to power him to a second term. America did not want to expel our first black President from the White House.

Coming into the 2016 presidential cycle, the Democratic Party was shockingly blind to the historical reasons for its prior success. Instead it believed that the winning formula was Party Infrastructure + Identity Politics. But that coalition failed to hit its marks, and a depressed turnout among African Americans, a disappointing level of participation from Latinos, and the continued flight of independents away from the elitist Democrats to the anti-establishment Trump sealed their fate.

In contrast, Donald Trump and the Republican National Committee had their eyes wide open. Armed with their own insights into the winning playbook, their formula rested on the Movement + Party Infrastructure = Victory equation. The populist outcry against the elites and the collateral damage they inflicted on working class Americans, made visible by Trump and Bernie Sanders, was harnessed by Trump in the general election. Combining that with an upgraded RNC infrastructure with the power to mobilize traditional GOP voters, they redrew the electoral map. Crucial to that redrawing were independent voters.

What Did Independent Voters Do on Election Day?

Independent voters made up 31 percent of Tuesday’s electorate, the highest proportion since the advent of polling, or roughly 39.4 million voters. 48 percent of them supported Trump, 42 percent backed Clinton and 10 percent supported a third party or independent candidate or did not answer the exit poll question. The independent vote, only eight years earlier a vital component of the Obama coalition, was allowed by Democrats to drift away. More to the point, the partisanship of the Democrats drove them away, to great consequence. In the swing states of Florida, Pennsylvania, Michigan, North Carolina and Wisconsin, independents provided Trump with his margin of victory over Clinton.

Independents—now 43 percent of the country— have been, and continue to be, a restless engine for political and economic renewal. In the Perot era, they were written off by the Liberal/Left as fascists, though the progressive wing of the independent movement—including yours truly—fought hard to build an independent left/right coalition with the Perot movement that lasted until 2000. In the Obama era, independents powered his overthrow of Clinton in the Democratic primaries and sought a place at the Democrats’ table but were turned away. Years of partisanship over country, privilege over sharing the wealth, and bureaucracy over democracy sent them looking elsewhere.

Bernie Sanders Could Have Been Elected President

Donald Trump, riding the wave of the populist revolt during the primary season, and benefiting from a fragmented field, captured the Republican nomination. Though his incendiary campaign rhetoric forced his fellow Republicans through a revolving door of denunciation and embrace, that populist appeal anchored and, ultimately, grew his campaign. In contrast, Sanders’ political revolution—made all the more difficult by having to go head-to-head with Clinton from the start—was halted by an anti-populist manipulation by the DNC, a super-delegate system that stacked the deck against him, and closed primaries in key states like New York, Pennsylvania and Arizona that locked out independents, including the so-called millennials, sympathetic to his cause. Nonetheless, Sanders came perilously close to a win. His “revolution” in the primaries was propelled by huge margins among independents in Wisconsin (72 percent) and Michigan (71 percent), two states where independents later broke for Trump. Though Sanders lost Ohio and Pennsylvania to Clinton, his margins there among independents were also huge—66 percent in Ohio and 72 percent in Pennsylvania. It is not unreasonable to conclude that if Sanders and Trump had faced each other in the general election, Sanders’ deep support among independents would have carried over and could have put the volatile Rust Belt—Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan—in the Democrat camp.

Political Revolts and Political Reform

A clarion call of the Trump and Sanders political revolts was “the system is rigged.” Of course, it is. In fact, it’s so rigged that it has even distorted how the political class—which does the rigging—sees reality! “De-rigging” the system is a long and hard road, mainly because the rules have been written to benefit those who make the rules. Perhaps the results of this election will finally propel a serious move to abolish the electoral college, a reform independents have championed for decades.

Still, some significant breakthroughs in the battle for systemic reform took place on Election Day. Here’s a quick review. With 63.7 percent of the vote, Colorado passed Proposition 107 to create an open presidential primary system that allows all voters to participate, including the 36 percent who are registered independent. With 52.5 percent of the vote, Colorado leveled the playing field for independents to cast ballots in state and local primaries.

With 52.1 percent of the vote, Maine became the first state in the nation to enact a Ranked Choice Voting system for all elections, a reform designed to mitigate the spoiler taboo of voting for independent candidates. Campaign finance reform initiatives passed in two states.

But the most cutting-edge breakthrough came in South Dakota where Amendment V, an initiative to adopt a statewide nonpartisan elections system, polled 44.5 percent. Though this initiative campaign—led by a rowdy cross-partisan group of local leaders—did not pass in this round, it broke this issue through to a new threshold and created a new roadmap for winning in the future. Previously, initiative campaigns for nonpartisan elections—from New York City in 2003 to Oregon in 2008 and 2014, to Arizona in 2012—had been stuck in the low 30’s, bombarded by negatives from party poobahs and “good government” types on both sides of the aisle. In South Dakota, with significant “matching grant” and political support from the premiere support organization for this reform—Open Primaries—an unprecedented local coalition travelled the rural and urban byways of this redder than red state. Their message was one of fairness, inclusion and accountability, and they nearly made it over the finish line. Amendment V polled 39,000 more votes than Hillary Clinton.

The Black Vote Shrinks, the Black and Independent Alliance Stalls

Key to a Clinton victory strategy was high turnout among African American voters, a mainstay of the Democratic Party coalition. However, not unlike what white blue collar Americans face in the dislocations caused by globalization, the poverty and unemployment in inner city communities have become more harsh and relentless. Political loyalty to the Democratic Party has become more strained, a third of younger black voters identify as independents, and, in plain English, Hillary Clinton is not Barack Obama. Exit polls appear to indicate that 1.3 million fewer black voters cast ballots this year, as compared to 2012 and 2008. While Clinton polled 88 percent of those voters (Obama polled 93 percent in 2012 and 95 percent in 2008), that over a million fewer African Americans came out to the polls was part of the death blow to the Clinton coalition. It’s worth noting that the volatile coalition of blacks and independents (we sometimes call it the Black and Independent Alliance) which raised up Obama in 2008 deserted the Democratic Party in 2016. Whether and how it regroups and re-emerges is a poignant question for both communities and a challenge for their leaders as well.

The Minor Party Vote

While the combined vote for the top three independent candidates—Gary Johnson (Libertarian), Jill Stein (Green), and Evan McMullin (Independent) was showing at 15 percent a month ago, the vote for minor party candidacies collapsed. Johnson is at 3.2 percent (over 4 million votes), Stein at 1 percent (over 1 million votes) and McMullin—only on the ballot in 11 states—had hoped to win Utah outright but managed 21 percent of the vote there. The Johnson vote is the third highest minor party/independent presidential vote since 1992. Ross Perot polled 19.8 million votes that year and 8.1 million in 1996, followed by Ralph Nader’s 2000 run which polled 2.9 million votes.

While this kind of collapse is not atypical for minor party campaigns, it has a different feel and meaning today. Largely, it would seem to signal that while America’s mass populist revolt is searching for a home, moving from platform to platform, the minor parties have not found a way to connect to it. No small part of this disconnect is the fact that the minor parties continue to sell an ideology, at a moment when the populist revolt is largely a rejection of ideology and partisanship. It is less about issues than it is about power. Pat Caddell’s findings at the top of this report underscore that trend.
Still, the venomous antipathy towards voting for independents within the mainstream media continues to amaze. On Election night, Chris Matthews told viewers on MSNBC that voting for a minor party candidate in this election was equivalent to supporting the Vichy government in France during World War II which, nominally neutral, was actually allied with the Nazis. He quickly withdrew the remark, but his co-panelist Joy Reid offered a friendly amendment, saying that her voting age children had a circle of friends who thought it was “chic” to vote for an independent. Fascist or fashionable, take your pick. Both Matthews and Reid believe that political correctness and voting for the establishment are the inviolable building blocks of an enlightened America. No wonder they never saw the revolt coming.

The Latino Vote

The Democrats believed that Clinton could muster a broad and deep majority among Latinos. 65 percent of Latinos nationally supported Clinton, while 29 percent cast their votes for Trump. In 2012, Obama won 71 percent of the Hispanic vote, while Romney secured 27 percent. The hoped for “demographics are destiny” Latino tide did not occur. And, interestingly, in New Mexico, 12 percent of Latinos voted for an independent candidate. In Arizona, where 41 percent of Latinos are registered as independents, 9 percent of the Hispanic vote went to independent candidates. The Latino vote is very much in play in this era of realignment, potentially a force for nonpartisan structural reform that will increase its political power in more fluid coalitions.

Contradictions and the Divide

If the voter revolt was both luminous and conflicted, it also revealed a country filled with contradictions. Donald Trump opposed any mandated increases in the minimum wage, but two of the five states that passed an increase in the minimum wage went for Trump. Even though Trump campaigned against undocumented immigrants and for building a wall at the border with Mexico, exit polling showed that 70 percent of voters want a pathway to legalization for undocumenteds. Consistency and certainty, hallmarks of more stable times, are rapidly disappearing.

In Hillary’s concession speech, the morning after the election, (ironically the best and most intimate speech of her campaign), she said that this election showed us that the country is more divided than we thought. I don’t agree. In this election, dominated as it was by the major parties, the vultures in the major media and the three-ring circus of campaigns, we saw how the parties and their support institutions prevent Americans from crossing the divide and creating new ways of coming together.
Many progressive people are upset and fearful about the results, worried that if the liberal coalition is now on the ropes, the country will turn irrevocably to the right. Best, perhaps, to have a look at the ways that the liberal coalition—with its insistence on identity politics and the blame game that accompanies them—fostered an environment in which a turn to the right was inevitable. Let us now be released from these ideological and authoritarian chains and seek new ways to build a new, independent, multi-racial, anti-establishment American majority.

Read the original article here

Letter to President-Elect Donald J. Trump

Over 400 independents from 42 states signed onto a letter to President Elect Trump co-authored by Rick Robol of Independent Ohio and Jacqueline Salit, urging immediate steps to attend to the problem of partisanship in government.

Dear President-Elect Donald J. Trump:

We represent the interests of Independent voters throughout the United States. Please accept our congratulations on your election. We wish you success in achieving the goal of fixing our nation’s “rigged” political and electoral infrastructure. Throughout the campaign, many Americans—whether they voted for you or not—expressed their urgent wish to see our political system put in the hands of the people, not the special interests, be they financial, partisan or ideological. We believe that reforming our political system and revitalizing our democracy is key to solving our nation’s profound problems.

Independent voters give their allegiance to the American people and to our nation, above any allegiance to a political party or party boss. We played a key role in the 2016 elections, and many of us listened carefully to your pledge to “drain the swamp” in Washington, D.C. of partisan, meretricious, self-serving office holders and lobbyists. We write today to urge that you begin to take steps in this direction. As you can see from the polarized and passionate reactions to your election, America operates with a system that fosters division and misunderstanding. We believe the partisanship of the system manipulates and degrades ordinary Americans in all communities. No amount of “data” or “demographics” can make up for the fact that both parties have failed our country and its people. We must, as a nation, create new tools for political participation and national development.

To begin, we ask that you attend to the problem of partisanship in government. You can re-vitalize the composition of all high-level government departments, offices, agencies and instrumentalities, within your powers under Article II of the U.S. Constitution, by assuring that an appropriate number of appointed managers and office holders are Independents. This would reflect that 43 percent of the country today consider themselves to be unaffiliated with the two major parties. This representation should include, without limitation, your Cabinet; the Federal Elections Commission; the Federal Communications Commission; the Federal Judiciary; and all other federal authorities, agencies and instrumentalities for which you have appointive authority, with or without the advice and consent of other branches of government.

We also ask that you appoint a Special Presidential Commission on Election Reform to study how to reform the electoral and political infrastructure of the United States to put more direct power into the hands of the American people; again, it is essential that the membership of the Commission consist of ample representation from Independents. From the persistence of closed primaries which lock out millions of younger and other non-aligned voters, to systems of partisan redistricting, to the electoral college itself, the barriers to popular self-governance are deeply entrenched.

We believe that taking these actions will go far in fulfilling your pledge to the American people to fix the rigged system. We assure you that Independents will pay close attention to these matters.

Respectfully,

Jacqueline Salit
President, IndependentVoting.org

Richard T. Robol,
President, Independent Ohio