Why is everyone rushing to label themselves an 'independent'?

INDEPENDENTS ARE SO hot right now — and will be for the foreseeable future.

- JONAH GOLDBERG COLUMNIST

MARIO TAMA Getty Images NEARLY HALF of all Americans now exist in the middle of a great political divide. That doesn't mean they've abandoned politics.

According to a major survey commissioned by CNN, nearly half of all Americans — 44% — call themselves independents while only 28% and 27%, respectively, identify as Republicans or Democrats.

I have a theory as to why. But I have to throw some fancy terms to explain it.

"Independent" is what students of semiotics call an "empty signifier," a term that has very little, if any, substantive content. If you describe yourself as an independent, I still have to ask you additional questions about what you actually believe. All you've told me to that point is that you reject a party label (believe me, I sympathize).

It's hard for young people to believe today, but Republican and Democrat labels used to work much the same way. A little more than a generation ago if you claimed to be on one side or the other, I'd have to ask a followup question to figure out if you were conservative or liberal, pro-life or pro-choice, for gun rights or against, etc.