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    "original_url": "https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/interactive\/2026\/09\/17\/opinion\/liberal-conservative-politics-heterodoxy.html?emc=edit_na_20260917&nl=breaking-news&segment_id=226650",
    "parsed_content": "OpinionGerman Lopez This Is Why So Many Voters Hate Both Parties Illustration by Fortunate Joaquin By German LopezGraphics by Sara Chodosh Mr. Lopez is a writer for the editorial board. Sept. 17, 2026 Share full articleAmerican politics is often described as a battle between liberals and conservatives, but most voters have much messier views than those partisan labels suggest. They aren\u2019t reliably liberal. They aren\u2019t reliably conservative. They have a mix of opinions that are almost impossible to find in any one politician.By contrast, today\u2019s Democratic Party has liberal views almost across the board, and today\u2019s Republican Party has the opposite. Few Democratic politicians oppose climate regulations and few Republican politicians oppose gun rights, for example. Among voters, this kind of purity is rare \u2014 more typical among voters with four-year college degrees.The disconnect helps explain why many Americans are unhappy with both parties in this midterm election year. The Democratic Party\u2019s approval rating hovers around 40 percent, and the Republican Party\u2019s is even lower.To see the disconnect, let\u2019s start with two hot-button issues that divide along conservative and liberal lines: whether to allow organized prayer in public schools and whether to allow homeless people to camp in public spaces. In a world of ideological purity, a Democratic voter would always oppose the first and support the second, while a Republican voter would do the reverse.But it doesn\u2019t work that way. In reality, people often have heterodox views that defy strict partisanship. Should prayer be allowed in public schools? Should homeless people be allowed to camp in public spaces? Conservative positionAllow prayer in schoolsLiberal positionDon\u2019t allow prayer in schoolsConservative positionDon\u2019t allow homeless encampmentsLiberal positionAllow homeless encampments Liberal Don\u2019t allow prayer in schools Allow homeless encampments conservative Allow prayer in schools Don\u2019t allow homeless encampments Heterodox Allow prayer in schools Allow homeless encampments Heterodox Don\u2019t allow prayer in schools Don\u2019t allow homeless encampments 24%28%30%18% Allow homeless encampments Allow prayer in schools Don\u2019t allow prayer in schools Don\u2019t allow homeless encampments The data here represents 100 self-identified Democrats and Republicans, based on polling data from the Searchlight Institute, a Democratic-aligned think tank. Two groups of small figures, 100 blue Democrats and 100 red Republicans. When polled on prayer in public schools, Republicans unsurprisingly made up a majority of the conservative position while Democrats made up a majority of the liberal position. The people rearrange themselves into roughly equal groups, one that believes we should allow prayer in public schools (majority Republican) and the other that thinks we shouldn\u2019t allow prayer in public schools (majority Democrat). The same thing happened when they were asked about homeless encampments. The people rearrange themselves into two unequal groups: a larger one that would ban homeless people from camping in public spaces (majority Republican) and a smaller one that would allow it (majority Democrat). But when the questions were grouped together, people\u2019s viewpoints became far less predictable. When you group the questions together, people arrange themselves into a grid where their viewpoints are more evenly spaced. While half of the respondents still held consistently liberal or conservative views \u2026 Half of the respondents have politically consistent views. \u2026 the other half held heterodox views. This means that these people held one conservative view and one liberal view, regardless of the party they identified with. Half of the respondents have politically heterodox views. In fact, the heterodox position of forbidding school prayer and also restricting homeless encampments is the second-most-common viewpoint. The group that thinks we shouldn\u2019t allow prayer and also that we should ban homeless camping is the second largest. This is one of many examples. Another involves views on gender roles and student loans. Here, more voters fall in the purely liberal or conservative groups, but nearly 40 percent of voters hold heterodox views. Should the government promote traditional gender roles and forgive student loan debt? Forgive student debt Promote traditional gender roles Challenge gender roles Require loan repayment Yet over the past several decades, the parties have become more polarized and rigid in their views. Anti-abortion Democrats and pro-choice Republicans in Congress once numbered in the dozens, but no longer. As a result, the country\u2019s heterodox population is constantly forced to compromise between two options that can never fully satisfy them.Heterodoxy comes up in issue polling again and again. Most people are comfortable simultaneously having liberal views on some issues and conservative positions on others.Some types of heterodoxy are more common than others. Broadly speaking, many Republican voters are to the left on economic issues, including taxes and government support, compared with party leaders. And many Democratic voters are further right on social issues and more worried about government waste than their leaders.Take an issue like health care, often cited as one of Democratic voters\u2019 top concerns. In Searchlight\u2019s polling, most respondents \u2014 66 percent \u2014 said the government should provide health care to all Americans, regardless of age or income. That\u2019s a liberal position. But 72 percent said adults should have to work or look for work to receive government benefits unless they\u2019re disabled. That\u2019s a conservative position.When these two issues are combined, the group that supports government-provided health insurance and work requirements is by far the largest: Should the government provide health insurance and impose work requirements for government benefits? No work requirements Mostly private insurance Government insurance for all Work requirements The plurality position isn\u2019t liberal or conservative. It\u2019s a mix: Americans want the government to offer help to everyone, but they also want that offer to come with conditions that, in their view, will encourage work and prevent fraud.Now let\u2019s look at an issue that Republican voters often put at the top of their concerns: government spending and taxes. About 73 percent of Americans support higher taxes on the rich to fund public programs \u2014 the liberal position. But 65 percent believe new government programs should be funded by shifting money from other programs, not new taxes \u2014 the conservative view. Again, the biggest group is the one with both of these positions: How should the government fund new programs, and should it raise taxes on high-income individuals? Tax the rich Shift funds Raise taxes Lower taxes In short: Most Americans support higher taxes on the wealthy, but they\u2019re also worried about wasteful government spending.This appears across a range of other issues important to both parties, including public safety, immigration and foreign policy. Searchlight argues that voters fall into nine buckets (and produced a quiz so you can see which group you fall into). Even these groups require generalizations. Individuals turn out to be very nuanced in their politics.Our political system was not built to handle this heterodoxy. The two-party structure forces people to cluster in ways that can defy intuition. Why does somebody who supports government-provided health care also have to back more open immigration policies and action on climate change and more U.S. aid for Ukraine? These are all different issues that reflect different values. But almost no politicians mirror most voters\u2019 complicated views.It doesn\u2019t have to be this way. Other countries have parliamentary systems, which have a wider array of political parties that can challenge those in charge. In the Netherlands, a party focused on animal rights holds seats in Parliament. In Iceland, one ruling coalition party focuses on disability rights and pensioners\u2019 interests. Poland, Bulgaria and Slovenia have parties in power that did not exist a decade ago. For better or worse, these systems represent the views of their voters more accurately. They are, in that sense, more democratic.In America, getting from here to there would take serious changes to our political system. A key reform would be proportional representation, in which political parties gain legislative seats proportional to how many votes they win in an election. A party with 5 percent of the vote would win about 5 percent of congressional seats, and one with 50 percent of the vote would win about 50 percent of the seats.Short of that, our two parties should become less rigid. They should stop their decades-long shift toward uncompromising positions \u2014 a change that has left voters dissatisfied not only with the parties but also with the American political system as a whole.Not too long ago, the parties functioned more as coalitions, each working toward shared values but willing to accept differences in the details. That model made sense for our country then and now. If only two parties are to represent a complex and diverse American electorate, they should have the flexibility to match the heterodoxy of their constituents. German Lopez is a writer for the New York Times editorial board.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We'd like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here's our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow the New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, X and Threads.",
    "published_at": "2026-09-17T09:05:03+00:00",
    "author_name": "German Lopez",
    "site_name": "The New York Times",
    "section": "Opinion",
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    "ai_headline": "This Is Why So Many Voters Hate Both Parties",
    "ai_simplified_title": "German Lopez Explains Voter Discontent with US Parties",
    "ai_excerpt": "Many American voters hold heterodox views that don't align with either the Democratic or Republican party's rigid platforms. This disconnect leads to widespread dissatisfaction with the two-party system, which struggles to represent complex voter opinions.",
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