A Conversation Long Overdue: Karine Jean-Pierre highlights the need for Independents.

A Crisis of Representation

When Karine Jean-Pierre appeared on The Late Show to promote her book Independent, the former White House Press Secretary delivered a message that should shake both parties: “Right now, the two-party system is not working.”

That statement wasn’t partisan bitterness — it was an alarm. The woman who once stood at the White House podium is warning that the machinery of both major parties no longer serves the people it was built to represent. Her encounters with ordinary Americans after leaving office — “people coming up to me in tears… asking why leadership isn’t fighting” — reveal a nation exhausted by betrayal and inertia.

Economically, politically, and morally, the two-party duopoly has hollowed out the middle class, sidelined civic participation, and transformed representation into a spectator sport. Jean-Pierre’s call for independence isn’t about a third party; it’s about recovering self-governance.

Economic Independence: Restoring the Forgotten Class

Jean-Pierre’s critique lands hardest where America hurts most: the economy. She describes a system where neither party truly fights for workers, where the people “who are vulnerable and need protection” are instead “thrown under the bus.”

That’s not just policy neglect — it’s economic abandonment. Wages stagnate while corporate profits soar, and the so-called party of labor clings to corporate donors as tightly as its rival. When both sides depend on the same interests, workers lose their seat at the table.

To rebuild the middle class, citizens must break the financial chokehold of partisanship. Independent candidates — accountable only to their constituents — could begin to restore equilibrium between capital and labor. Independence, in this sense, becomes the economic firewall against political capture.

Judicial Integrity: Freeing the Law from Party Rule

“Our democracy,” Jean-Pierre warns, “is slipping through our fingers.”

Across decades, both parties have politicized the judiciary, transforming courts into extensions of party will. Supreme Court nominations now resemble campaigns, not confirmations. Each administration installs ideological loyalists rather than impartial arbiters.

Only a balance of independents in Congress can halt this spiral. Independent representatives could confirm judges based on constitutional fidelity, not party allegiance — restoring faith that justice serves the people, not the platform.

Self-Governance: Seeing the People Again

As she put it, “As a Black woman who has walked through the walls of the White House… I believe we get forgotten. By and large, the Democratic Party does not see us.”

Jean-Pierre’s revelation is deeply American — because self-governance begins with being seen. The two-party system has conditioned voters to accept invisibility as normal. Each election becomes a hostage negotiation: choose your captor.

Independents offer a return to sight — a government beholden to citizens, not strategists. Her insistence that she’s “not telling everyone to be an independent,” but merely “trying to start a conversation,” captures the civic humility the republic needs most. Democracy isn’t a party membership; it’s a daily act of ownership.

Preventing Majorities from Becoming Monarchies

Jean-Pierre’s warning echoes Washington’s farewell address. “We are under attack,” she said, “and this is the time.”

Unchecked majorities, whether red or blue, inevitably behave like monarchies — consolidating power, silencing dissent, and rewarding obedience. The founders foresaw this danger when they cautioned against factional dominance.

A Congress divided among independents would force negotiation, transparency, and cooperation — virtues long extinct in the age of party warfare. Independence isn’t fragmentation; it’s balance.

The Democratic Experiment at Risk

Jean-Pierre recalls one of President Biden’s own reminders: “Our democracy… is an experiment. If we do not fight for it every day, we will lose it.”

That fight no longer lies in defending one party from the other. It lies in defending the nation from both — from the polarization that devours reason, from the complacency that cedes freedom.

To elect independents is to restore the founders’ original hypothesis: that free citizens, not party hierarchies, can govern themselves.

Conclusion: The Courage to Break the Binary

Karine Jean-Pierre’s journey from the West Wing to Independent is not apostasy — it’s patriotism. It’s the recognition that neither side can save America alone, and both together have forgotten who they serve.

Her message is both diagnosis and cure:

• Economically, independence frees policy from donor capture.

• Judicially, it restores integrity to the law.

• Civically, it makes government visible again.

• Philosophically, it preserves the republic from the tyranny of majority rule.

To preserve the republic, Americans must do what every generation of patriots has done when parties failed them: stand alone together.

Not as Democrats.Not as Republicans.But as citizens — independent, indivisible, and indispensable.