Generally, it is assumed that there are three types of political participants: supporters, opponents, and independents. But I feel there are four, based on what I see on social media and in real life, I divide supporters into four groups. According to me, the four groups are as follows:
1. Hardcore supporters: These are the core base or the most loyal voters of any political party. These people support the party no matter what, they believe in the ideology of the party and are the most conservative core of the party who up their loyalty to the party and its leaders ahead of anything else, even their country. These supporters don't care whether the acts of their political leaders are moral or immoral, they are not bothered about corruption, internal democracy, nepotism, dynasty, or anything happening within their own party, that is, they don't see any difference between their religion and political affiliation. Many of them are willing to die or kill someone for the sake of political leaders and parties.
2. Hardcore opponents: These are the ones who oppose some political party no matter what. They do not see any merit in any of the actions of their opponents, their whole purpose is to attack the opponent, no matter what. This habit creates an amazing spectacle where someone is attacking another for doing the same thing that they did when they were in power.
It is no surprise that these two groups often include the same people, that is, hardcore supporters of one party are often hardcore opponents of their opposition. These are the people who flock for rallies, they participate in communal or other riots, defend their leaders no matter what, or attack their opponents no matter what. Nowadays some of them even become party spokespersons and appear in TV debates to create some drama and excitement for their support base.
3. Loyal supporters: This is an interesting category. They are the type of person who might question the party that they support, might oppose some of their actions, or occasionally even express dissent, but in the end, they stand with their party. They cannot see themselves supporting any other party. They are not the ones who participate in riots or physical alterations for their party, but they are the ones who justify these things as much as they can in their posts on social media or TV debates. Some of them are labeled as "intellectuals." These people design very interesting and intelligent rationales to justify the support and actions of their party. Many of these do not have mass appeal, but parties need such people to look mature and sophisticated, and these people also need some platform to broadcast their views. Some loyal supporters are the silent ones, they really do not bother to comment or say much, if they do speak or comment, they do it occasionally, but as far as their support is concerned it is solidly aligned with one political party.
4. Independents: These people do not have any fixed political ideology. They do have their principles and ideas but the problem is that they cannot find a single party that subscribes to their ideas. These people like some ideas from each political party but disagree with some core ideological issues of each party. They often offer their support based on what they feel is the most important issue for them during that election cycle. These are also the people who get trolled by the hardcore supporters of every party because they are bound to criticize each one of them at some point.
Now, the most interesting part, political parties do not care about the first three groups. You might ask, Why? Aren't they the most loyal supporters of the party? Yes. However, parties know where the loyalties of these three groups lie. They know that hardcore supporters and loyal supporters are not going to leave them no matter what, and hardcore opponents are not going to join them, no matter what.
Therefore, ideally, independent players can be game-changers, a difference between a win, and a loss. However, the independent players in this game matter only when their support matters in deciding the result of crucial elections. If hardcore and loyal supporters considerably outnumber hardcore opponents and independents combined, why the heck any party will care about the independents, as they are not required to win any elections. For obvious reasons, the party will entirely focus on catering to their support base (the current situation in India).
However, if the opinion of independent voters matters in deciding key elections (like the senate or presidential election), then the parties will try to design their campaign that does not drift too much towards either right or left (the current situation in the US).
The readers must understand that this is not a scientific analysis or hypothesis. It is quite possible that people can switch their political allegiance if they want and whenever they want. So, which type of political participant you are? Remember, it's not an easy analysis, many love to declare themselves as independent, but fail to behave like independents when it matters.
Thanks for reading and please share your opinion about this topic.
