Independent voters who live in communities with lots of gun violence are very concerned about gun safety and gun regulations, our research has found. That should not be surprising.
But what is surprising is our companion finding: Democrats and Republicans who live in those same communities have views on gun violence and gun regulations that line up more closely with their party leaders’ views than with the experiences of their daily lives.
The same is true for other significant political questions: Independents’ political views and perspectives on key issues also reflect the economic and social conditions they see and experience every day.
In contrast, Democrats’ and Republicans’ ideas of what problems deserve government attention and how to solve them are much less likely to be based on their own life experiences, and instead simply mirror the information they have gained from leading political figures on social media, on cable news networks or through other partisan information outlets.
Being independent is desirable
The United States’ two-party system means the political party that controls the government is more of an influence on what laws and policies get passed than just about any other factor. Yet, Americans strongly dislike political parties. Being politically independent is a large part of the American political DNA.
Being politically independent, indeed, is seen by most Americans as a desirable social attribute. Broadly, many Americans see eschewing party identification as a way to demonstrate that they are freethinkers, untethered to the restrictive confines of America’s two-party system and above the political fray.
However, when pressed, most people admit to preferring, and largely voting for, one of the two political parties. Only about one-fifth of Americans are so independent that they do not vote consistently for one party or the other.