The American people have declared independence from the US’s two major parties.

Gallup found in a longitudinal study that the public is increasingly shifting from partisan labels. Fully 42% of Americans now identify as independents, whereas only 31% identify as a Democrat and 25% identify as a Republican. It is the highest rate of people identifying as independents since Gallup started conducting the poll 25 years ago.

What’s most damning about this tidbit of data is that Republicans are hurting the most. Since peaking at 34 percent in 2004, Republican identification has now fallen to 25 percent — the lowest level in 25 years. More conservatives and libertarians are leaving the party in frustration as two party politicking begins to look more like Noam Chomski’s version of the world. As he declared many, many years ago, “they’re really factions of the same party.”

TownHall.com reported on this same poll, but came to a very odd conclusion:

If more Americans than ever are checking the ‘no labels’ box, what kind of Republican candidates are expected to win national elections in the future? Rigid ideologues viewed as uncompromising, or centrist RINOS with more nuanced positions? Editor’s note: RINO stands for the pejorative term, Republican In Name Only

Centrist RINOs huh? Like John McCain, George Bush Jr., and Mitt Romney? Aren’t these the same guys who have been consistently hurting the Republican Party because their policies are radically anti-liberty and generally do not benefit the American people as a whole? Notice that the Republicans lost most of their support while George Bush Jr. was in office. Why would we advocate for more people like him?

What TownHall.com is missing is that the true centrists in the Republican Party are not the status quo. These are the individuals who are uncompromising on their willingness to fight for small business owners and balance the budget, yes, but they are also our elected officials that are willing to stand up for gay rights, drug legalization, and the Fourth Amendment. These are your libertarian Republicans, and they are the Republican Party’s best hope for the future.

A recent Huffington Post article by Travis Irvine entitled, “Millennial Progressives and Libertarians Will Change Politics in the Future” sums up why the RINOs in Washington are done for. He writes that across the aisle, young people want to end unnecessary war, to end the War on Drugs, to support gay rights, to have their civil liberties respected, and to “reduce the national debt and increase Federal Reserve transparency.”

Republicans are known for being on the wrong side on four of the five of these issues. No wonder voters are abandoning the GOP in droves; they want to do away with the social conservatism without compromising their beliefs in the free market.

That’s where libertarian Republicans come in. And it’s what lies ahead in the future of politics as Republicans realize why so many are leaving their party.