The nation’s two dominant political parties seem to be waging a bizarre war of attrition, with each trying to alienate the fewest number of voters.

They’re both losing.

A landmark new Gallup poll shows 42% of Americans now consider themselves political independents beholden to neither Democrats nor Republicans. That’s a record high. Republicans seem to have lost the most, with just 25% identifying with the GOP — down from 34% in 2004, when President George W. Bush won a second term in the White House. Democrats have nothing to celebrate, however, with their share falling from 36% in 2008, when Barack Obama was first elected president, to 31% today.

It’s well-known that Americans are fed up with all the pointless spitball fights in Washington. But their disgust with politicians is fundamentally an economic problem, with most national leaders unable to press or even articulate rational solutions to a persistently weak economy and falling living standards for many.

What Americans want

Americans have been clear in telling their elected officials what they want. In poll after poll, people say a weak economy and lack of good jobs are the most pressing problems in the U.S. today. Here’s what Congress has done about it during the past few years: raise taxes, cut government spending, shut down the government, and threaten twice to default on U.S. debt, spooking financial markets. There’s been some minor progress on scaling back the $17 trillion national debt, but most economists will tell you that does little or nothing to help the economy in the short run, though it can help a few years down the road.

Obamacare, the sweeping health-reform law that passed in 2010, is cited as a source of salvation by Democrats who support it and as a disaster by Republicans who oppose it. It’s neither, and the extremist positions taken by both sides help explain why voters are thumbing their noses in both directions. Obamacare will help some people and impose costs on others, in the end probably having an impact that ranks somewhere between -3 and +3 on a scale that ranges from -10 to +10.

The economy needs a lot more help, meanwhile, than praising Obamacare or repealing it will ever provide. Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke channeled many people’s frustrations with politicians when he said during a recent speech that “excessively tight near-term fiscal policies have likely been counterproductive.” In plain English, he’s saying Congress has been hurting the economy, not helping it.

Retired Defense Secretary Robert Gates is more outspoken in his new memoir, describing Congress as “uncivil, incompetent … micromanagerial, parochial, hypocritical, egotistical, thin-skinned and prone to put self (and re-election) before country.” Once they’re out of government and able to speak freely, Bernanke and other economic officials may express views similar to those of Gates, since Congress has flubbed economic matters at least as badly as national-security ones.