When the Two Parties Soar to New Depths — 5/25/26

I switched my party registration to Independent just over 15 years ago. Since then, rarely a week has gone by when I was not asked by a resentful Republican or a disappointed Democrat why I was not a member of their party. Almost every week, their respective parties give me ample evidence to support my decision to reject them both. But it is rare when the two parties are able to remind us of their inadequacies so convincingly as they did last week. 

On one side, we have a Republican president who derailed his own party’s immigration funding package due to his insistence on a billion-dollar earmark for a White House ballroom and his commitment to an even more expensive slush fund to compensate his allies for costs incurred by their participation in the January 6 Capitol riots. Across the aisle, there is a Democratic National Committee chair who released and then immediately denounced a belated, piecemeal, and unfinished party-sponsored analysis of the 2024 election that somehow managed to avoid mentioning Israel, Gaza, inflation, border policy, or the outgoing president’s age in any meaningful way.

Both Donald Trump’s obsessiveness and Ken Martin’s obliviousness provide enough raw material for several columns worth of earnest hand-wringing, contemptuous dismissal, or abject fear. But pairing the GOP president and DNC chair for this discussion could provide some insight into why so many Americans have become so distrustful toward their political system and those who run it. The fact that both men have been publicly criticized by many of their own party members in such a highly polarized environment suggests that the blind, knee-jerk party loyalty that characterizes American politics may have its limits.

In the literal middle of this hyper-partisan frenzy, the leaders of the ever-earnest congressional Problem Solvers Caucus have emerged with the beginnings of a plan that could partially tame—or at least restrain—the feral voices that dominate the current landscape and create the opportunity for a more viable and relevant center to re-emerge. Problem Solver co-chairs Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA) and Tom Suozzi (D-NY) have picked through the rubble of the vicious redistricting wars of 2026 (and their likely sequel in 2028) and jointly proposed anti-gerrymandering legislation that would shift the line-drawing authority away from the politicians who run in the districts they created in favor of the type of independent citizens’ commissions currently used in several states around the country.

Fitzpatrick and Suozzi should be commended for their efforts, even given the limited progress they have achieved to date. They have yet to convince their caucus to officially endorse their proposals, and their two parties seem prepared to take this fight to even higher levels of savagery. While helpful court decisions might not be enough to allow Republicans to keep their House majority this November, their aggressive redistricting in Texas, Florida, and elsewhere should protect them against even worse defeats. Democrats have already proclaimed their intent to move just as emphatically in two years when they plan to similarly redraw existing district lines in New York, Illinois, and other indigo states.
 
Redistricting is one of the least interesting but most important words in the English language. So a nationwide anti-gerrymandering festival seems unlikely without a newly elected reformist president to spearhead it. (The battalions of would-be 2028 presidential aspirants in both parties are noticeably lacking such reformers.) The more plausible path for those who are sensibly dissatisfied with the current political system may instead be a move to open primaries, in which the 45 percent of Americans who now identify as independents would be able to vote in the party primary of their choice. 
 
Introducing a broader range of ideological perspectives into a process otherwise only open to registered party members would create opportunities for candidates to get elected without such single-minded reliance on their party’s most ideologically intense members. It would also protect them once elected from partisan retribution if they did occasionally cooperate with the other party. Such a change would not magically eliminate our political and societal divisions, but it could create a more productive incentive system that could reward rather than punish those who seek bipartisan progress.
 
Political reform is an excruciatingly difficult issue with which to motivate voters, who tend to be understandably preoccupied with the cost of groceries and gasoline, the quality of their children’s schools, and the safety of their neighborhoods. But single-minded partisans like Trump and Martin could create an opportunity for angry voters who are ready for a change.