The bromance of Elon Musk and Donald Trump is seemingly on life support. To the point where Musk as teased creating a third party, called the American Party. Musk, who much like Trump, is a wealthy man thanks in part, to the work of his father, is claiming that his party will offer a fresh alternative to the current system.
Let’s examine that defective line of thinking. First, we’ve already had an “American Party”. This party was an offshoot of the Whigs and the Know-Nothings. The American Party had some pretty clear mandates. Immigration to America was to come to a halt. Nativism was quite high on the list. As was keeping slavery alive and well. Oh, and if you weren’t a Catholic, they pretty much wanted nothing to do with you either. Maybe Elon should have researched his party name a little more. Or maybe he just felt that by slapping the name “American” on it, it would trick people into feeling a little more patriotic. As we’ve seen the past, slapping the American flag on something really helps sell the product. Allen Jackson and the late Toby Keith milked that for all it was worth. Lee Greenwood fashioned his entire career off of it, coasting on his “Proud To Be An American” song.
However, we must look at third parties and view why they’ve been a complete failure, and why Musk’s modern version of the American Party is doomed to be an epic failure. There have always been third parties. Every election you can see some third-party candidate. If you subscribe to Duverger’s Law, third parties mainly split votes away from the two main parties. Examples of that being 1844, 2000, and 2016. The dire effects of 2016 being that even though one could see Duverger’s Law in effect, Jill Stein, a third-party candidate, was either too dense, or too arrogant see the damage her campaign was inflicting on the election. In a sense, one could argue that Jill Stein played a major role in getting Trump elected to his first term.
The Green Party, Libertarian Party, Constitution Party, and many others nominated candidates, but often struggle to get said candidates on ballots across the country. Often times, they can’t get enough signatures to get on the ballot, so the candidate will encourage their followers to write them in. Other times, the third party is just underfunded. They don’t have the backing to buy commercial time, and to make their candidates polices a matter of public record. How times have you the voter gone into the booth during election time, only to be faced with third party candidates you’ve never heard of, and will never see again? And other drawback is that many times, these candidates have policies that are not, and perhaps, will never be accepted by the mass of the population.
Third parties sound good on paper. You’re finally getting a choice. No longer do you have just two options. The reality is they are just doomed to fail. American voters have long since been conditioned that there are only two sound choices. And even that being said, as stated earlier, sometimes a third party can lead to disaster, and you end up with a wholly unqualified candidate getting into office. Donald Trump is a perfect example of that. Trump has shown himself not to be a fan of the constraints laid upon him by the U.S. Constitution, of which he has a frosty relationship with. He prefers to rule by edict via social media. He finds any challenge to his policies unacceptable. He even coined a new term, “Activist Judges.” Any judge that dares upholds the constitution at the expense of Trump’s policy is an “Activist Judge”. Trump’s own press secretaries have openly lamented that judges have no right to challenge anything that Trump does.
While it’s safe to say that Trump will follow the rules and not run again, the Republicans will run a Trump approved clone in his place. It could even be his own son that runs for office. Enter Musk and his third party. Either the American Party is going to take enough votes away and the Democratic candidate gets in office, or some how we have a repeat on 2016, and America continues its trek to becoming an Authoritarian state. I don’t warmly greet the idea of a third party for many reasons. One being Musk, and his love affair for tyrannical rule akin to Trump. Second being the aforementioned risk of a repeat of 2016. Or that the third-party candidate gets enough votes that it throws the entire system into chaos when none of the three reaches the threshold to claim the White House.
Thanks to the isolationism that has become a growing movement in the Republican Party, as well as it’s bigoted views towards immigrants and the LBGT community, America cannot afford a third-party candidate that gives a repeat of 2016. Especially when that so-called third-party candidate is funded by a wealthy elitist like Elon Musk. Unholy war chest of funds for the GOP and the Democrats is what muddied the water in the first place. With Citizens United still in place, and Musk’s willingness to spend with ever is needed to buy the White House, one has to ask themselves this question.
Is this a true third-party, or just an expansion of Republican policies with a re-branded name?
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