America is going independent. Both major parties are hemorrhaging members as voters-including growing numbers of people of color-increasingly see both parties as self interested and self perpetuating, not as engines for progress and policy innovation.
Can traditional notions of bipartisanship be restored in this environment, or does the growing dissatisfaction with “traditional politics” demand something new?
Dr. Benjamin Chavis is a long-time civil rights leader, entrepreneur, businessman, educator, and author. He began his career in 1963 as a statewide youth coordinator for Dr. Reverend Martin Luther King Jr, and has been fighting racial injustice and wrongful imprisonment across the country ever since.
Lorraine Marquez Eiler’s photo of her great-great grandparents and her great-grandparents, who would walk about 50 miles through the Sonoran Desert to the springs.
Construction equipment is seen near the U.S.-Mexico border just west of the Lukeville port of entry on Monday, Aug. 24, 2026. Credit: Stephanie Casanova
Rep. Adelita Grijalva, left, and Tohono O’odham Chairman Verlon Jose listen as Lorraine Marquez Eiler, a Hia-C’ed O’odham elder, shares how her ancestors would hold ceremonies at Quitobaquito Springs. Grijalva visited the springs with tribal leaders on Monday, Aug. 24, 2026. Credit: Stephanie Casanova
Sara Mae Williams, Justice of the Peace in Ajo and a Tohono O’odham citizen, shares their concerns regarding border wall construction on Tohono O’odham land at a town hall at the Ajo Plaza Rec Hall on Monday, Aug. 24, 2026. Credit: Stephanie Casanova