The Telegraph – He claims to want to represent the vast ‘middle’ of the US electorate with his new party. The idea is doomed before it even starts
“I am saddened to watch Elon Musk go completely ‘off the rails’, essentially becoming a TRAIN WRECK”, was how Donald Trump reacted after his former adviser quixotically announced he planned to create a third party – the “America Party” – to challenge both Republicans and Democrats.
Third parties have a dismal history in American politics. Despite some discontentment with the country’s two-party system, no third party has come close to winning the presidency since the 19th century. No third party is represented in Congress. None has won a single electoral vote since 1968. But Musk – who has overcome much scepticism in his business ventures – promises that this time will be different as he seeks to appeal to what he believes to be a vast “middle” encompassing as much as 80 per cent of American voters.
Musk is setting himself up for spectacular failure. To begin with, it is vanishingly unlikely that there is a vast middle thirsting for independent leadership, still less the independent leadership of a businessman whose only apparent policy issue is his opposition to one budget bill that he feels spends too much.
Even if Musk had anything resembling a platform, the American electorate is perhaps more partisan and divided than ever. Independents who might fuel a third party in almost all cases have preferred to flip between the major parties as they see fit. Republicans and Democrats are far more doctrinaire in ideology than they have been for a long time.
Robert F Kennedy Jr, the only serious third-party candidate in 2024, was attracting about 5 per cent of the electorate before he decided his lot would be better if he backed Trump. The Libertarian Party, which has reportedly reached out to Musk, polls so badly as to be statistically insignificant, as does the environmentally focused Green Party. A middle way “no labels” effort sputtered so embarrassingly last year that it could not put forward any candidate for any office. The “Forward” party, a movement of once prominent anti-Trump Republicans that launched in 2021, quickly vanished from the headlines.
If Musk’s goal is a dramatic mano-a-mano battle against Trump, he will be sorely disappointed. Trump is constitutionally barred from a third term, while Musk, who was born in South Africa, is ineligible to hold the presidency. The most Musk could hope for is a farcical contest between stooges loyal to him, assuming he can find any, and major party candidates chosen through the standard electoral primary process.
Americans are unlikely to vote for stooges in this or any other scenario, particularly when both parties and the mainstream media, which already reviles Musk, point out the probable truth – that his third party ambition is not about America, its people, or their concerns, but about himself and a desire to settle a bitter political score.
Some Republican strategists fret that Musk’s third party might take more votes away from them and hand power to the Democrats. Republican voters, however, overwhelmingly support Trump and Congressional Republicans, and even back the budget bill of which Musk so obviously disapproves.
The shrinking number of moderate Republican leftovers who do not support Trump are weak – some have announced they will not seek re-election – and many are in any case unsympathetic to Musk. Ironically, the only Republicans who might logically find common ground with Musk are the handful of Right-wing Congressmen who shared his opposition to the newly passed budget for not cutting enough spending. But even most of them eventually voted for it, despite Musk’s threat to support primary challenges to Republican lawmakers who backed the bill.
Despite reporting significant dissatisfaction with their own party and its leadership, Musk is highly unpopular among Democrats, his reputation tarnished in their eyes after he latched himself onto Trump. Indeed, leading figures of the Democratic Party’s ascendant progressive wing even believe that people like Musk – that is, billionaires – literally should not exist, still less lead a new national political movement with their support.
Musk thus has no real constituency. He represents nothing other than frustration from his short time in government and a portfolio of businesses, some now struggling after his difficult involvement in national politics. On the Monday after his announcement, and following Trump’s derisive post about it, shares in Tesla fell sharply, adding to the woes of investors in Musk’s flagship electric car company.
Trump has talked about slashing the subsidies Musk’s businesses still receive. But the president is, as his weekend post suggests, a forgiving man. If Musk can get over himself, he may yet find his way back to power and influence – or at least usefulness. Poking the two-party system will only invite humiliation.