IINO

I have heard a lot of hardcore Republicans criticize members of the party of being RINOs, Republicans in name only. I don't want to go into details about why I disagree with criticizing people for not letting a political party dictate their beliefs, which is the only way to avoid this label. What I want to talk about is the significant portion of the population that could be considered independent in name only.


A lot of people have been discussing the historically high percentage of voters who consider themselves to be independent. What do they consider independent? Voters who are not officially affiliated with a political party. What does it really mean to be independent? Forming your views in a way that minimizes influence from others, such as political parties.

There are two categories of independent voters that I want to address. I want to discuss unofficial loyalists and true centrists. I will save the centrists for later since their lack of independence isn't quite as straightforward. Of course, unofficial loyalists also need some explaining since they come in multiple forms.

There are a lot of people in this country who will blindly follow a party line. Many of them join their preferred party, but this isn't always the case. Some don't want to bother with the affiliation for a number of reasons. Some might feel that it's easier to remain independent. Others don't want to worry about being harassed by a party if they are registered.

There is another reason that some loyalists remain unaffiliated. To find this reason, all you have to do is go online. People love to use the fact that they are independent in order to push their preferred party's ideology. Many of these people are technically independent, but they blindly support one of the party's platforms.

Now, it's time for me to address the true centrists. The general view of centrists is that when you have two sides of an issue, the best answer can be found in the middle. In terms of politics, this means that centrists base their decisions off of the beliefs of both Democrats and Republicans. Although they do not let a party dictate their specific positions, they are effectively turning to both parties to form their opinions for them.

There can be quite a bit of variability within the centrist community. Some find the middle a little closer to the Democrats. Others find the middle closer to the Republicans. Hard-line centrist will try to be as close to the exact middle as they can. You can even have some people varying between issues.

The truth is, the answers are not always in the middle. Sometimes, seemingly extreme views are better than centrist views. Although numerous people will disagree with my on schooling, I truly believe that the process is destructive and needs to be eliminated. There is no question that my views could be considered extreme.

Perhaps I should try to find an example that more people can relate to. When is murder acceptable? You could easily create a scale saying such things as when you feel like it, when you are angry, and when you are scared. If you embrace a more liberal (not the political term) definition of murder, you could throw in self-defense. If you looked at all possibilities for when someone could view murder as acceptable, no honorable and ethical individual would embrace a truly centrist position. To make matters worse, centrists let the parties set the extremes. If the Democrats said murder becomes acceptable when you feel like it and Republicans said murder becomes acceptable when you are angry, I would hope that you would embrace an extremist position and say neither of those scenrios would be acceptable for murder.

I know that this is kind of a convoluted argument, but I hope it helps you understand the point that I'm trying to make. If you are truly an independent voter, you have to be willing to embrace positions that could be viewed as extremist.

To put another wrinkle in this discussion, I wanted to throw individualism into the mix. Even though most voters base their ideals off of the political parties, the exact influence is highly variable. For starters, there are more than two parties. There are probably officially independent voters who are loyal to libertarians, constitutionalists, and greens. These third parties can also have an influence on some centrists. The degree of political loyalty can be variable. Some loyalists will force themselves to vote against their party to keep their party on their toes. Others will vote against their party purely for the sake of convincing others or even themselves that they are independent. You will also see some people who are generally loyal but are willing to fight their party on a small handful of issues.

There is one final thing that I wanted to say. Go back to my second paragraph. Independent voters are voters who minimize outside influence. They still have influences. Some will be unavoidable subconscious influences. More importantly, informed voters have to subject themselves to influences. Facts can influence your beliefs and opinions. Of all of the influences you can find, these are the best. Unfortunately, even facts require some scrutiny since biased an unreliable sources (schooling, the American media, political ads, etc.) can be deceiving thanks to such things as cherry-picking data, quotes taken out of context, and embedding opinion as fact.