The Radical Independent

04/28/2025

Demonizing groups (even extreme partisans) is not our style... but nothing wrong with poking a little fun here and there 😉

04/28/2025

It's one thing to have strong principles, it's another to not be irrational, polarizing, and evangelical about it.

04/27/2025

In our veneration of voting as a way of creating change, we also forget just how well-controlled elections are, by political parties, their donors, and partisan institutions. Boards of Election, legislators, and Secretaries of State write the rules that keep them in power. Gerrymandering – the practice of allowing elected legislatures to draw voting district boundaries – allows politicians to select their voters, rather than voters selecting them. Ballot access laws keep third party candidates and independents from even appearing on ballots. And in case you fancied a non-traditional campaign, in most states, write-in votes aren’t counted.

"Voting, like most political speech, is a placebo button. Press it if you want to, if you like the way it feels, but don’t expect it to create genuine ...

04/27/2025

The corrupt, rigged Duopoly's boot is on the people's neck. We don't need them... it can be so much better.

04/27/2025

💯🎯

04/26/2025

“Are you among the silent majority?” Simon Davidson asks. “I once was. With polarization plaguing public discourse, I saw no point in engaging. But then I began to wonder if my silence was part of the problem,” Davidson wrote. “Though a loud minority spreads polarization with false stereotypes, we are complicit by failing to correct them. We can slow polarization’s spread not with silence, but by reclaiming the public square as a place to seek truth and understanding. When others want a fight, we don’t have to give it to them. We can engage not with fear and loathing, but with respect and empathy. Not with animosity, but with curiosity. Not to prove we are right but to discover we are wrong, as it is only then that we learn.”

The silent majority is contributing to polarization by avoiding expressing views due to fear of public response, allowing the loud minority to dominate public discourse and create a perception gap …

04/26/2025

Interesting observation 🧐

04/26/2025

Out of control partisanship has wrecked any chance of decency.

04/25/2025

Besides the fact that the two major parties poison everything they touch, having them in charge of local elections is like the fox guarding the henhouse.

Editor's Note: This piece by Larry Diamond, Kevin Johnson, and Miles Rapoport originally published on The Hill, and has been republished with permission from the authors.

04/25/2025

Sounds radical.

04/25/2025

Presented without comment...

04/24/2025

Looking at the rising rates of friendlessness the article came to this conclusion: Friendlessness is a partial but potent sociological explanation for why our politics have become much more polarized in recent decades, with increasing numbers of people attracted to more extreme forms of political dissent on both the right and the left. As the loneliness and isolation become worse, so will our political pathologies.
If the US is the most powerful and most prosperous nation in the history of the world (and it is), then why are so many of us so miserable and angry? Pre-Covid, we were experiencing rising incomes, low crime rates, increased employment, relative global peace… and furious partisan hatred and rage splintering society. It sure is hard to have community and fellowship when half the country is your sworn enemy. This extremism leads to totalitarian inclinations. Just another sad effect of partisan polarization from the corrupt duopoly.

What Hannah Arendt would say about all the lonely people

04/24/2025

This is another random 'personal' meme that applies well to the public issues this page addresses. The essence of the independent mind is intellectual sincerity and integrity, with a strong mental self-reliance based on objective reasoning. This takes a lot of practice and time to develop, but "making it yourself" brings more honesty and self-esteem into your life and the political sphere. This is the opposite of the rampant tribalism, groupthink, echo chambers, emotionalism, and toxic partisanship that dominates today. People seek answers externally through demagogues and dysfunctional clans, and that is why we have the poisoned, polarized society that's leading us to the brink. Step back, detach, look inward, cultivate true independence, and make it yourself.

04/24/2025

Shocking!

04/23/2025

In our two-party system, candidates usually seek to demonize their opponents in a silly good versus evil theme that polarizes voters and drags down reasonable discourse. Ranked-choice elections greatly reduce that toxic vitriol and also make it easier for 3rd parties and independents to have an impact. This would go a long way towards unrigging the duopoly and wrestling political control out of the hands of extreme partisans on both sides.

"Ranked-choice voting, sometimes referred to as 'single transferable vote,' and sometimes as 'instant run-off,' is vulnerable to ca ...

04/23/2025

Sorry 🤣😉

04/23/2025

Thomas was not pleased... 😲

04/22/2025

This video does a great job of explaining why we only have two major parties with our current voting method and how we can fix it.

The One Simple Social Hack that Could Unite America is my effort to understand how and why we Americans have divided ourselves. I have come to the conclusion...