All politics is local, but all politics all the time is lolo. The “pilau politics” of our two-party system is not only maddening but also malodorous: It stinks. The lies and insults, the attacks and counterattacks, the war of words and predictions of imminent war — these things repel voters, thus increasing the number of independent voters.
By declaring our independence from the two-party system, by saying we are all former Republicans, we are all former Democrats, we give new meaning to the words and wisdom of Thomas Jefferson. We come together because of our belief in what Jefferson wrote in 1776 and said in 1801: that governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed; that this principle is the creed of our political faith, the text of our civic instruction, the touchstone by which to try the services of those we trust, and the road which alone leads to peace, liberty, and safety.
We vote to secure or maintain rights, in contrast to casting a ballot based on loyalty to a party rather than the logic of a proposition. We vote in opposition to the politics of distraction and personal destruction, where debate is beside the point; where the point is for incumbents to win and challengers to lose; where all other points, including a politician’s point of view, are irrelevant.
We vote to extend debate, not end it, encouraging Republicans and Democrats to lower their voices so they may listen and learn from one another.
We vote to advance civility, not civil war, because we revere statutes over statues. We vote as one nation, indivisible, instead of many nations without liberty and justice for all.
We are independents through a combination of circumstance and design. We stand outside the GOP’s “big tent” of a political circus, just as we stand against the “big ideas” of the most inflexible Democrats. We are independents because we refuse to rise, we refuse to stand, and pledge allegiance to an ideology.
Our numbers rise with every election, because every election, including this one, is a referendum on the diminishing number of registered Republicans and Democrats.
The numbers reveal that morality and mathematics are not the same; that equal opportunity produces unequal outcomes; that Republicans cannot win without Democrats, and Democrats cannot rely on party turnout alone; that victory for either party depends on the votes of those who belong to no party: independents.
We also vote because of the power of our numbers. The strength of our message corresponds to the size of our numbers, which is to say we are too big to ignore.
We represent the largest bloc of voters — not undecided voters, but voters who are decisive at the local, state and federal level. We may not nominate candidates, but our votes determine which nominees get to govern.
Both parties cannot afford to overlook us. We can, however, afford to reject the pilau politics of both parties. We are free to not engage, we are free to not endorse, we are free to not elect those who threaten freedom itself.
Because we respect politics as a profession, we insist on more professionalism among politicians. We insist on believing in the better angels of our nature. We insist on the prose of Abraham Lincoln and the promise of John F. Kennedy, observing not a victory of party but a celebration of freedom.
We insist on independence in politics, and independents who reject pilau politics.
We persist in our pursuit to improve politics, because we refuse to let bad politicians destroy our best hopes for and about America.
Elizabeth Rice Grossman, of Kailua, is a local philanthropist and former Wall Street financial manager.
