Actually, Democrats are doing this to themselves. I expect the trend to continue.
October 2016: 32% identified as Democrat
July 2019: 27% identify as Democrats
Party Affiliation
Funny how you have "both" parties in the 20s and you can only see one of them.
Your own link proves yet again what I've been telling you sheep for years --- that
both parties have been losing "members" for years, as "must-obey-and-join-club" robots figure out that there's no point in it and that we Indies outnumber both of you. And that isn't new. Check your own link, it's all there.
So rotsa ruck keeping that juvenile treehouse fantasy alive, take some extra hallucinogens and click your heels together. Bwahahhaha..........
I wish this were true but I no longer think this is the case. While people are beginning to refuse to pigeon hole themselves in a single party openly, they are doing so in the voting booth MORE.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/11/17/is-split-ticket-voting-officially-dead/
Party membership sinking seems to be utterly unconnected with reality. The only reason I can attribute to this is that Americans seem more interested in appearing to not be a robot more than they actually want to think. I think it is a pretty far reach to think that straight party tickets represent 'independents' very often .
I would posit that this is actually harming the political process even further by leaving the nut jobs in the parties but the more moderate people dropping affiliation. In places where the primaries are closed this will cause some very unfortunate circumstances IMHO.
You can't pigeonhole yourself in a voting booth. Granted one can do all kinds of things to oneself in private, but the guy who draws the curtain, waits a moment and yells "HEY! THERE'S NO TOILET PAPER IN HERE" is making an appropriate comment on the system, nothing more.
Being a "member" of a party is an abstract, something of which you advise either your registration board (in some states) or a pollster. Unless you're actually employed by that party, it has no meaning. Nobody needs to be a registered "member" of a party to vote for or against that party with the exception of some primary elections (again in some states), which are a meaningless farce anyway. You can "identify" as a "member" of party X today, a "member" of party Y tomorrow, and not a member of anything the next day. It means nothing heavier than "four out of five doctors".
This entire "X is a Republican, Y is a Democrat" charade is meaningless rhetorical tripe that serves no purpose beyond fomenting dichotomy disease and division. Right
up down there with the bullshitious "red states" and "blue states".