This is one of those “I don’t even know where to start” days. So I’m randomly starting with Elon Musk’s announcement that he is forming a new political party. I’m not expecting this to go very far, mind you. Elon has a track record of not following through on a lot of what he promises. And third parties just don’t get very far in the U.S., for reasons previously discussed. And I don’t know if Elon has all that much of a following any more.
Still, he does have a lot of money, and the party has a website. It’s the America Party. There already is an American Party, I take it, although it seems a bit inactive at the moment. There was an American Party in the 19th century that was better known as the Know Nothings. That party was xenophobic, nativist, and steeped in conspiracy theories. For example, Irish immigrants were part of a “Romanist” plot to take over the U.S. and put it under the control of the Catholic Church. Here’s an article from 2021 that draws some parallels between the Know-Nothings and QAnon. Interesting stuff.
But this takes me to the present day and the way the Republican Party has been entirely consumed by MAGA. Former Republican senator Jeff Flake has an op ed in the New York Times that mourns the passing of the Republican Party of his day. Flake’s political career — first in the House, then the Senate — spanned the years from 2001 to 2019, but he announced in October 2017 that he would not seek a second term in the Senate. “I noted that in today’s Republican Party, anything short of complete and unquestioning loyalty to President Trump — then in his first term — was deemed unacceptable and suspect,” he wrote in the op ed.
I wrote about Flake’s announced departure from the Senate when it happened, in a post called Flake Out, It’s interesting to go back and read it now (and the comments by our departed CUNDgulag and Swami) for the perspective. Flake appeared to be positioning himself as a leader of a Republican resistance to Trump. He even wrote a book and may have been considering a run for the presidency in 2020. But the resistance never materialized.
The gist of Flake’s new op-ed is that the Republican party has become entirely driven by loyalty to Trump, which of course it has. And this is very bad, which of course it is. The question he doesn’t directly ask is, what will become of the Republican Party when Trump is no longer in power? What happens will depend a lot on the manner of Trump’s leaving the political scene, whether in handcuffs or an ambulance or a prolonged retirement in Mar-a-Lago where he continues to jerk his cult around on Truth Social. But I don’t see anyone who could step into his place and hold the cult together. It’s all too much about him to survive without him. There is almost certainly going to be some kind of realignment on the Right, and where that will leave the GOP remains to be seen.
So this sorta kinda takes us back to Elon Musk and his America party. Again, I don’t expect big things from Elon’s party, but this may be just a first step in a movement away from Trump that will point us in the direction of what might come next.
Speaking of political realignments, Peter Beinart reminds us that there was another realignment of sorts in the GOP not that long ago. The Tea Party, which you’ll remember picked up steam in 2009, swept away a lot of the movement conservatism that evolved out of Reaganism, foiled the Clinton Administration, and reached its peak in the George W. Bush years. After the Tea Party got going many former GOP powerhouses like Eric Cantor, Paul Ryan, and John Boehner were swept away. Jeff Flake and Kevin McCarthy were later casualties. The Tea Party paved the way for MAGA and was absorbed into MAGA.
Beinart’s column is really about how Israel is no longer popular with rank-and-file Democrats and party leaders need to wake up to this. His supporting arguments are more interesting to me than the main one, frankly. He argues that the primary victory of Zohran Mamdani in New York City is analogous to the primary defeat of Eric Cantor to Tea Partier Dave Brat in 2014. Maybe. But I generally agree with Beinart that “Mr. Brat and Mr. Mamdani have little in common. But they won their primaries for similar reasons: Each exploited the chasm between his party’s grass roots and its elites.” That chasm among the Dems has been there for a long time, and it keeps getting bigger. So we may be seeing the beginning of a long-delayed realignment among the Dems as well.
Also: Do read Critical Read About the BBB, Federalism and the Future of American Democracy by Josh Marshall. Serious stuff.
I wasn't sure about Vic, now I know. Long time coming …
The Israel critiques are only partially right. Yes there's a divide in perceptions of Israel, but that's between older voters who still remember the 20th century struggles/conflicts and younger voters who only know Netanyahu and his crimes. But the problem is acting like this was always the case and ignoring why so many Jewish voters supported the country, which does piss a lot of us off. We can find common ground that the right-wing government is nightmarish, but when it tips into declaring a country illegitmate, that's when so many of us get wary of forming alliances. And pro-Palestinian groups need us if they want to actually secure some major foothold in the party beyond a mayor.
Peter Beinart did stir up some quotable comments. The current republican mind (If one can mentally fly to temporary acceptance of a probable oxymoron) seems incapable of categorization of what is going on in Gaza as genocide. This is also true, it seems of Democrats to some extent, as mentally they tend to equate the word only with approved historical events not with current events. At least Democrats show intolerance for holocaust denial and avoid historical revisionism. Still, they waffle, excuse, and avoid pointing out that the Israeli democracy has caved to the fundamentalist theocracy, and is presently engaged in quite an apparent course of genocide. Not so for highly recommended commentors to Peter.
Pete from Cincinatti OH commented:
Terry from Maine penned this gem of a comment:
And from Vermont this insight from Annabellina:
Reading the comment of the gulag and Swami to Flake showed how prehensive they both were. Amazing and tear provoking.
Can Musk hurt Trump? Let's look at Musk's complaint as he phrases it, and what it means to MAGA. Musk has protested "debt slavery" and the fact that the bill explodes the national debt. I've seen no complaints about tax breaks for the rich, so it's not too presumptive to assume Musk is complaining that spending cuts were not deep enough.
How dies this square with conservative thinking? The GOP has opposed every thread of the social safety net from Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, SNAP. All of it. Even with the gawd-awful cuts in the bill, the essential social safety net is left intact. That I'm still getting a Social Security check is not because Trump or the GOP believes in retirement with dignity. They just can't piss off that many active voters and survive the next election. Musk, I'm guessing, does not think Trump should allow the next election. IMO, Musk subscribes to the TACO theory now. But Musk glued himself to Trump in the months after the election at MAL. Did Musk not discuss what he expected back for the quarter-billion he spent on Trump? Again opinion, but, yes, they did. So Trump blinked. WHY?
The Big Ugly Bill barely squeaked by the Senate. It's not unlikely that Trump got warning as Musk was weilding a chain saw that the Senate was less than thrilled. IMO, Musk would have decapitated IRS and the VA but the pushback from voters to Congress forced a retreat. Warnings from Congress convinced Trump that the BBB would not pass if Musk continued with the scorched-earth campaign. Why was/is the BBB crucial? Funding for ICE. The size of the funding for ICE is staggering. ICE does not do law enforcement. They are not part of DOJ.
I could be wrong but Miller may think he can do apprehensions, detentions, and possibly deportations of Americans through ICE and sidestep the courts. If the FBI arrests, they have a strict timeline, by law, to charge, argue for the need to detain, bail, etc. In other words, the federal justice system, including judges who are not blind to the law, would thwart the attempt to suppress assembly and free speech by Americans.
So ICE has a fleet of unmarked vehicles. I mean, no license plates. Their goons, wearing masks grab me (or you) from a parking lot. Maybe people get video but of what? OCE denies having been there. I do not show up on any lists of apprehensions. They take all my property, ID, phone, clothing. No phone call to ANYONE. I get shipped out to a gulag with hundreds of other activists. Everyone in the US would KNOW what was happening, but there is no proof that these were ICE abductions.
What effect would this have on political activism? Who would dare protest publicly? The only recourse would be masked acts of violence and destruction, which would fuel the crackdown they must have to suspend elections. There's a lot of places this plan could fail, but I think a federal Gestapo not a part of DOJ is a higher priority than deportations. It had to pass Congress and it would NOT have passed if Trump gave DOGE unlimited power.
Look at it from Musk's viewpoint. Trump found it necessary to play nice with Congress to get a huge pile of money for ICE. Trump bowed to the necessity of partially playing within the Constitution, which does not allow Trump to appropriate funds. So to keep Congress happy, the chainsaw massacre of government employees won't happen. And Musk can't accept that. But Musk is not alone. A HUGE percentage of Republicans think they will have "freedom" if the federal government ceases to exist. If Trump is not going to lead the effort to exterminate everything federal, a part of MAGA will feel that's a betrayal. How many? Will they support a split from Trump to ??? Not enough to be viable as a third party, but enough to cost the GOP in a close election. Musk is trying to force MAGA and the GOP to play his game.
Musk's new party is probably a flash in the pan but a) it has very serious funding which most other alternative parties have not had and b) it is founded on someone who was not raised in a US political model.
I have often thought that the reason that the USA, for all intents and purposes, a two party system is that US politicians think and plan in two or four or six year time periods.
In other countries a new party may think of gaining minor successes in 3 or 4 elections before they become a national or state power. They understand the slog needed to build a new party.
Musk is more likely to think of longer term party development than most US politicians. If nothing else he lived through most of the rise of the African National Congress in South Africa.
Mind, I still think it's a flash in the pan but with a few good figureheads ….?
We're locked into a two-party system because of arithmetic. The way we determine winners of elections (mostly) is whoever gets the most votes wins. This sets up a dynamic called Duverger's law, which makes it really difficult for a third party to break through and grow into anything. It’s explained at the link.
Musk could do some serious damage to Trump IF he actually follows through on his announced plans. I found this today:
"A Quinnipiac University national poll last month tested Musk’s popularity: It found that he’s viewed favorably by 62% of Republican voters but just 3% of Democratic voters. And in battleground Wisconsin, a recent Marquette University Law School poll found that three-quarters of Republicans have favorable opinions of him, compared with 1% of Democrats."
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/elon-musk-third-party-threat-politics-desk-rcna217363
So, he could split the vote pretty badly, which would be a huge gift to the Democrats.
Is it likely to happen? I doubt it – but never underestimate the revenge motive of a narcissist who believes he has been treated badly and betrayed – especially when that narcissist is a centibillionaire…and used a quarter of a billion dollars to help elect the person he blames for that treatment.
I guess we'll see – if he actually sticks to the plan and starts to draw a lot of supporters – who he can grift for money – he may do what Trump did and continue, simply out of personal interest in retribution combined with greed.
I'll buy the popcorn.
I guess he could do some damage. I have no sense of what righties think about him these days, I guess.
(and the comments by our departed CUNDgulag and Swami)
Those two always had something sardonic to say, I sure do miss them here on the mahablog!
"I don’t expect big things from Elon’s party, but this may be just a first step in a movement away from Trump"
I would tend to agree with you although we live in the age of the online idiocracy where the ever expanding willfully uninformed eagerly consume the clickbait like a junkie needs the smack. Musk knows how to manipulate those rubes and has the digital infrastructure to super charge it. Stump knows how to hoodwink the pro-wrestling crowd but only has his sad Truth social platform, so in the Stump vs Musk war for the nincompoop's my money is on Eloon!
I remember the "Flake Out" post, and I stick by my comment there:
"I have no sympathy for Flake and other “principled” Republicans."
Furthermore, I don't buy the idea that the Old GOP is dead. The infrastructure of that faction still exists, and is still supported by lotsa $M donations. Yes, they have had to adjust their positions and attitudes to avoid Trump's wrath, and to find ways to stay relevant in a time when the politicians who they once supported are regularly laughed out of office for being 'out of touch'.
They are still dedicated to their true mission – removing Government as an obstacle to Corporate power – and Project 2025 is *their* baby, not Trump's (though they had to paint on some orange hair to get Trump to kiss the little b******).
Musk and the other Techboi Zillionaires are not part of that club. They are upstarts, with inflated sense of self-importance. Like Trump, they are incapable of cooperating with others; unlike Trump, they lack the ability to work a crowd, to recognize the lines that make the Mob cheer, and repeat those lines for more cheers. The Techbois actually care about their ideas, no matter how hair-brained, and they don't really care if the Mob likes those ideas.
They are personally incapable of doing Politics. Sure, they can rent politicians, but even then, skilled rentable politicians will recognize that the Old GOP offers a better deal. If you go to work for Musk, you'd better get a lot of money up front, because he'll forget about you in a year or two. When you sign on with the Old GOP, you will have a very comfortable retirement (on a Corp Board of Directors, hobnobbing with retired Pentagon Brass).
The inevitable end of Trump's political career is more of a problem for the Old GOP. If Trump gets assassinated, it will be easy for them to regain control of his Mob by blaming his death on Democrats; this would give them complete control of the Federal Government for a decade at least, so, please, don't imagine that it would be a Good Thing if some nut shoots Trump.
Other scenarios for a Post-Trump GOP are murkier. Part of the problem is that they are the Dog that Caught the Car: Now what? They have succeeded in bankrupting the Federal Government (and thereby impoverishing State and Local Governments); they have hobbled most of the Social programs that they hate; and Citizens United gives Zillionaires unbridled influence over politics.
The only targets left are the ones where they cannot disguise the fact that their policies would be terrible for a huge majority of Americans: Social Security, Medicare, and the VA. The (tepid) pushback against the BUB shows that they are already hitting that wall.
I think we're in End-Stage Capitalism, where various Financial Elites fight over the carcass of our once-great Society. It's been a good run; I'm blessed to have lived through a beautiful time of History. I hope the Chinese don't get too nasty when they take over.
“I don’t buy the idea that the Old GOP is dead.” I’d say it’s been overrun. Twenty-five years and more ago most of the GOP were neocons and “free market” worshippers. Now most of the neocons have been run off and replaced by nativist isolationists with no discernible economic ideas other than What Trump Says Right This Minute. The only consistency since Reagan is that they still put tax cuts for the rich above everything else. That much hasn’t changed. But in a lot of other ways this is a very different crew from when I started this blog in 2002. And as you say much of the supporting infrastructure, like the Heritage Foundation (founded 197) and Americans for Prosperity (founded 2004) are still with us. But Heritage is more isolationist and nativist than it used to be, also.