Disenchanted voters are fleeing the Democratic and Republican parties in droves. Their exodus is perpetuating the skyrocketing partisanship they seek to escape.

Gallup published polling in January showing that as of last year, 45% of U.S. adults identified as political independents, a record high. The migration began around 2008, with the election of President Barack Obama, and has spiked since. It’s most pronounced among Generation X (Americans born 1965–1980); Millennials (1981–1996) and Generation Z (1997–2007).

Despite what independents might see as the Democratic and Republican parties’ dispiriting stranglehold on American politics, the parties as institutions have never been weaker. They’ve lost considerable control over fundraising and resource distribution; are virtually powerless to block ideologically extreme (or worse) candidates from winning primaries; and have shrinking influence over their own policy platforms.

These developments have coincided directly with the rise of partisanship in American politics. Indeed, the two phenomena are intertwined.

“They’re definitely related,” said Johanna Dunaway, a political scientist at Syracuse University and research director for the school’s Washington-based Institute for Democracy, Journalism & Citizenship. “Probably the biggest reason — I think it’s the loss of strong control over who runs in the primary.” She added: “Because the parties are weaker, when candidates run, they don’t anymore try to please the party and to stay in good graces with the party, because the party can’t give them as much as they used to in terms of helping of helping forward their political careers.”

It might seem like ancient history — I suppose because it is — but parties used to run their own shops.

Nominating conventions didn’t exist to fete the biggest vote-getter in presidential caucuses and primaries held in the states. Rather, until the post-World War II era, conventions were the primary, with party delegates voting amongst themselves to choose a White House standard bearer. And as it happened, these smoke-filled rooms picked some pretty good presidents. Even after Democrats and Republicans moved to popular primary elections, parties still exerted substantial control over campaign resources, a lever they used to effectively stiff-arm radical would-be candidates and root out politically problematic and narrow agendas before they could take hold.

In doing so, the two major parties nominated more candidates with broad appeal. These candidates, in turn, were more prone to offer policy platforms that, while paying some homage to the left-wing or right-wing base of their party — for instance, on the issue of abortion rights — generally existed somewhere within the 40-yard lines of American politics.

Surprise, surprise: Governing in Washington, while always cutthroat, was less partisan and more functional.

Several factors beyond the democratization of the presidential nominating process have driven the devolution of the Democratic and Republican parties. Some are the unintended consequences of well-intentioned political reforms designed to make elected officials more accountable to the voters; some are the result of societal changes and technological innovation well beyond the parties’ control.

To name a few: Campaign finance reform, enacted on a bipartisan basis in 2002, severely limited the parties’ control over resource allotment. Gerrymandering, around since the founding of the republic, is now aided by computerized mapping and produces intricately drawn congressional districts far more partisan than their predecessors. Social media and the Internet, technologies that reward anger and outrage, enable fringe politicians to reach wide audiences and raise money directly from voters, rather than through the party apparatus.

Steve Kornacki, author of "The Red and The Blue; The 1990s and the Birth of Political Tribalism," told me the advent of social media has chipped away at the power bases of the Democratic National Committee and the Republican National Committee while simultaneously fueling partisanship. “Over the last generation, turnout in elections is way up and split-ticket voting is way down,” said Kornacki, chief data analyst for NBC News.

“This has a lot to do with media and technology and how it has synced up with our very human tendency to think and behave tribally. We pick sides, silo ourselves off from each other, and receive constant reinforcement that we’re right and they’re wrong,” he added. “The DNC and the RNC benefit from this in some ways; it creates many new partisan Democrats and Republicans. But it’s also a phenomenon that’s much bigger than any party organization and they are powerless to shape it.”

I often remark that the Democratic and Republican parties have transformed into glorified ballot access organizations. Their vast infrastructures mean they have secured, and continue to maintain, ballot lines for their candidates in every state, municipality and U.S. territory in the country where contested elections — for the highest and lowliest offices in the land — are held. That’s not nothing. Being able to do that is a major barrier to entry for third parties.

But what else do our two major political parties exist to do? Answering that question is becoming increasingly difficult. Losing card-carrying members isn’t helping matters either, especially regarding dissatisfaction over partisanship. If party membership continues to dwindle, the partisans are going to be the only ones left.

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This column reflects the personal views of the author and does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.

David M. Drucker is a columnist covering politics and policy. He is also a senior writer for The Dispatch and the author of "In Trump's Shadow: The Battle for 2024 and the Future of the GOP."

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