Is It Time to Break Up With Your Political Party?

Interesting Times with Ross Douthat

New York Times Opinion

New York Times, Journalism, News, Society & Culture, Ross Douthat

4.0 • 7.2K Ratings

🗓️ 14 December 2022

⏱️ 39 minutes

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Summary

In her two years hosting “The Argument,” Jane Coaston has changed her mind about many things — from court packing to police reform (though not on whether we should contact alien life). But this year, she has changed her political party; once a proud card-carrying member of the Libertarian Party, Jane is now a registered independent. And she isn’t alone: Kyrsten Sinema, former Democrat of Arizona, just became an independent, and we heard from many listeners of “The Argument” with their own experiences of why they switched their political party affiliations. Now wading in new political waters, Jane really wants to know: What happens when your party leaves you behind? In the final episode of “The Argument,” Jane calls on former congressman Justin Amash of Michigan to help answer that question. While in office, Amash changed his party affiliation from Republican to independent, and then to Libertarian, which made him the first sitting Libertarian Party member in Congress. The two share strong opinions about what the Libertarian Party stands for today and discuss how political parties — whether big or small — should amass power. Mentioned in this episode: Elizabeth Nolan Brown’s work at Reason.com Jane’s 2016 interview with then-candidate Gary Johnson (A full transcript of the episode will be available midday on the Times website.)

Transcript

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0:00.0	It's the argument. I'm Jane Coaster.
0:07.2	And this is the final episode of the argument, my friends. We did it. We settled every argument.
0:16.9	In my nearly two years hosting a show, I've changed my mind about so many things. From
0:21.7	court backing to police reform, but I still don't think we should talk to aliens. You
0:26.2	will never get me on that.
0:28.8	One of the greatest joys of making a show every week is hearing from you. You've helped
0:33.1	me reframe how I think about the biggest debates of our time. And when I told you I was
0:37.6	struggling with changing my political party, I learned I wasn't alone.
0:41.9	This year actually I changed my political party registration. It broke my heart, but I changed
0:48.3	my filet. I left the Democratic Party earlier this year. I have been a registered Republican
0:55.8	all my life and I've changed recently to an independent, but I felt like my party just left
1:02.6	me 20 years ago.
1:05.2	After 2016, I made the switch. I wanted to fight for the welfare of everyone in the country.
1:11.7	I became the encanted with the party over the Iraq War. I don't like the woke culture.
1:17.1	I started being decisive with all this evidence about things like climate change,
1:21.1	Obamacare, change, representional law. At some point, the parties became openly hostile
1:26.9	to my faith. In reality, I mean, it started to flip off between any party because they
1:32.1	don't represent the real voter.
1:36.3	See, Kirsten Senema, you aren't the only bisexual renegade out here. And then there was Mike,
1:42.0	who called from DC.
1:43.5	So I eventually moved my party to the locations of Libertarian, but now I open up my Twitter
1:47.9	feed and the Libertarian party has got completely off the rails. So now I find myself pretty
	...

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