Decoding a Strange Gallup Poll
How do these pieces fit together?
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Independent voters are the mysterious nymphs whose coquettish flitting perpetually baffles political scientists. The mystery was deepened by the latest Gallup survey of political attitudes, which found that more people identify as independent but uncovered little evidence that voters are clamoring for a centrist party.
What’s that about? A reasonable response to that question is: “Who gives a shit — did you see Bills/Broncos last week?” Fair point. But I’m interested in strategy questions right now, because I take the disastrousness of MAGA rule as a given and am curious about how we might find a path out of this hell. Democrats are currently having the soft-handed-dweeb-slap-fight to end all soft-handed-dweeb-slap-fights, and their next move really matters — will they move center or move left? We get more Trump if they make the wrong move. The Gallup poll gives us several bits of information that initially appear contradictory, though I think that they fit together if you look at them the right way.
Here’s what Gallup tells us:
More Americans identify as independent. That’s not me saying that — it’s this chart:
This trend is largely driven by more young people identifying as independent. Again, if you don’t like that, take it up with the chart:
The first thing to note about this data is that people are fucking liars. As pollster Kristen Soltis Anderson explains in this very good New York Times analysis, people often say they’re independent, but if you scratch the surface, they identify far more with one party than the other. To some extent, Gallup’s question doesn’t measure how much people identify with either party, but rather how cool it is to call yourself “independent”. Which would also explain why the trend is so pronounced among young people: Young people tend to be concerned with how they present themselves, because they’re malleable know-nothings who slavishly seek the approval of their dipshit peers.
