The richest man in the world wants to fulfill one of my long-term political dreams. So why am I not thrilled?
Regular readers of this column may remember that I am a registered independent. The only thing I like less than the Democratic Party is the Republican Party. My slogan is: “No Republicans, No Democrats,” although some friends prefer “No Democrats, No Republicans.”
And now Elon Musk is starting the America Party, which he plans to fund with millions, if not billions. It should be a dream come true.
Unfortunately, Musk is the kiss of death. Any party he backs is doomed. MAGA people don’t like him because of his public argument with Donald Trump. Real Republicans, if any, don’t trust him because he used to be liberal but is now conservative, except when he is neither. Democrats can’t stand him because he just fired a lot of government officials without checking to see if they were the bad ones.
So anything Musk does starts in a hole. Liberals and conservatives are selling their Teslas if they possibly can. Musk can go to Mars — alone.
It would be better if someone else started the new party, and Musk funded it secretly. But Musk is unlikely to fade into the background. Even if he would, the America Party is not what independents want.
The name sounds like a big celebration. Americans, party on! You’re supposed to name a party for its philosophy, not its location.
The party most of us want should be more than not Republican and not Democratic. We already have the Libertarian Party (the third largest in New Mexico) and various others. But few join those parties because they focus too narrowly. But what else is there?
Independents aren’t Republicans because the party of Lincoln, Eisenhower and Reagan is now the party of Trump, with only a tenuous philosophic relation to its history of free trade and sensibly tough foreign policy. We’re not Democrats because that party has also wandered. Independents didn’t like the fiasco in Afghanistan, the coverup of Joe Biden’s decline and the selection of Kamala Harris with no process.
I wish these two bad parties would fade away, but historically, that’s not how parties disappear. Usually, one party is replaced and the other evolves to counter the new party. That’s the way it has worked in many other countries, and in our own country for its first 65 years
Here’s the short, simplified history of American parties: The founders didn’t like parties, which they called factions. Nevertheless, founders started our first parties. Alexander Hamilton started the Federalist Party. Thomas Jefferson and James Madison started the Democratic-Republican Party, which eventually evolved into the current Democratic Party.
The Federalist Party disappeared. Eventually a somewhat conservative Whig Party emerged. It died and was replaced by the current Republican Party in 1860. Republicans versus Democrats has been the rule for the last 165 years, although both parties have evolved, sometimes into their opposites.
The change is local as well as national. Grant County is known as a Democratic stronghold, and it voted for Harris last year. But it also elected Republicans to the state House and Senate. If our Democrats can’t find winning candidates, maybe the new party should start at home.
I believe there will soon be consequences for tariffs, deporting workers, climate change denial and short-sighted foreign policy. I hoped (perhaps unrealistically) that chaos might give birth to a new party to replace one of our bad parties. If people came to see Republicans as too conservative and Democrats as too liberal, sensible moderates might dump the lunatics on both sides.
But that’s not likely to happen now, because Musk takes up all the air. Like Trump, he’s kind of random — not even on the liberal- to-conservative scale. I appreciate Musk for his leadership in the electric car industry and in solar and space technologies. I wish he would go back to those businesses.
I don’t necessarily buy the argument that we are stuck with these two bad parties forever. Yes, they make the election rules that make third-party votes wasted or worse. But ranked-choice voting has changed the electoral strategy in Alaska, Maine, New York City and elsewhere. Maybe people are fed up enough to make change possible. A lot can happen before 2026, and still more before 2028.
But remember that those like me who want a new party are a minority. Most voters are sticking with the Democratic and Republican parties, despite criticism of specific politicians and policies. They just want better party candidates.
Well, I’d vote for that. Perhaps there is an opportunity for our parties to renew themselves and become once again the opposing but respectful parties their founders would be proud of.
