Responding to a post by Michael Smith

 

The Facebook version of me read a post this morning by a smart man named Michael Smith. He was talking about third parties. I read his ‘Essay Part 1’ and was disposed to make a comment, which got thrown out for being too long. So here it is. Smith’s post is first. Robert Laird’s response is second.

MICHAEL SMITH.  Essay 1: The Case Against a Third Party

My granddaddy, Baker T. Goodwin, when faced with something with which he disagreed, used to say, “I’m agin’ it,” and when it comes to this “America Party” nonsense floating around - like Ross Perot’s old Reform Party - I’m mostly still “agin’ it.” But I’ll toss in one caveat: if we’re talking a third party, it better be a complete replacement party for the GOP and whatever scraps of the Democrat Party still respect the Constitution - if any exist – but if there are any left, they’re hidden better than a moonshine still in the Ozarks.

Conservatives need to learn to play the long game, or we’re doomed to a future of Democratic presidents and Congresses. I’m dead serious about this. If we don’t get our act together, we’ll be back here after 2026, whining about how losing sucks and griping about liberals.

Or we can start building a plan, so our kids don’t have to rehash these same tired arguments. 

The choice is ours.

I’m not sold on a third party being the answer. A two-party system gives clarity, even if it risks both parties morphing into one big self-preservation machine. That’s why we need a mechanism for change within any major party - new or old - or they’ll turn sentient, obsessed with their own survival and deaf to the folks who vote for them. It’s like corporations: they’ve got boards of directors to keep them in check, though that doesn’t always work. Political parties need the same kind of accountability, not just a shiny platform to stand on.

The history of third parties isn’t exactly a success story. Take Ross Perot in ’92. He pulled an impressive 18.9% of the vote - historic for an outsider - but what did it do? Siphoned votes from George H.W. Bush and handed the White House to Bill Clinton. Fast forward to 2000, and Ralph Nader’s 97,421 votes in a razor-tight election arguably tipped the scales from Al Gore to George W. Bush. Third parties dilute the vote, especially in our winner-takes-all system. No parliamentary coalitions here - just a guaranteed win for the opposition if you split the vote.

That’s why I’m skeptical about third parties muddying the waters. A “third party” often just steals votes from the major party its closest to ideologically, paving the way for the other side to waltz in. Until a new movement gains enough steam to outright replace one of the big two, it’s a losing bet. We don’t have the numbers for that kind of upheaval right now - if we did, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. Conservatives need to focus on something smarter than flash-in-the-pan third-party dreams.

I’ve spent two-thirds of my 45-year business career turning strategies into reality on the battlefield of commerce. It’s not life-or-death like a military campaign, but it’s a lot like politics. You don’t have direct command over everyone, so you’ve got to influence people to follow the plan without barking orders.

A third party sounds appealing to some, but it’s a tactical misstep. It risks handing long-term control to progressives while we’re busy sorting out our ideological purity. We’ve got generations hooked on the federal gravy train - individuals, businesses, even state governments. Unwinding that mess too fast is like trying to defuse a bomb with a sledgehammer. We could win a battle within the conservative movement but lose the war to progressivism if we’re not careful.

I’m not thrilled about 40 or 50 years of wandering in the political wilderness, watching a string of Obama/Biden-like administrations wreck things.

We need a strategy that doesn’t just chase ideals but wins elections and puts electable people in office that will follow a conservative agenda – as far as they possibly can. I detest Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski and have no love for Mitch McConnell because they are unreliable – but we need GOP headcount to pass stuff. Rand Paul is beginning to get on my nerves because what he wants is not always possible, so he votes against whatever it is.

That’s where the real fight is.

ROBERT LAIRD. Michael Smith. I think you need to revisit this post and this subject. I appreciate some of the points you make in passing, but what’s missing is a close look at the history and the starting point and prime actors this time around. I agree with your Granddaddy’s “I’m agin it” too, but for different reasons than yours. Why?  The history shows that a third party which becomes a force in the 20th Century and beyond is always a flash in the pan that serves to wreck the next election. The history shows that the historical phenomenon is a function of the outsized ego of one man. Teddy Roosevelt and Ross Perot were both wrecking balls. TR taught Trump that he had to recapture the Republican Party, not replace it. The 2024 election saved us from a repeat of the catastrophic 1912 giveaway to Woodrow Wilson and the Progressives, who were remarkably like the Democrat Party of today, caring only for a supposedly superior elite. It was madness lucking into the White House and ending the same way as the fully Progressive term of Biden, with an insensate figurehead operated by his wife. 

What Musk is attempting is nothing like the Bull Moose fiasco. It’s VERY like Ross Perot. A phenomenal business success who read his own press clippings and disdained both parties to short circuit his way to the top. you mentioned your own consulting career. Did you ever run into Perot’s EDS? I did. Twice. Once when they were the steamroller that took charge immediately even in a consulting role. again, when they had been acquired by GM and all they had left was the illusion that they should automatically be in charge of whatever they touched. True believers throughout. But predictably a flash in the pan as a business just as Perot was in politics. Just as Musk will be. He has no personal appeal at all. He is a leader of his handpicked followers, not a leader of men. He may be a genius in his specialties but he is also a nut. 

Interesting that you mentioned Rand Paul. I believe this is the true source of surviving third party sentiment on the anti-left side of the political spectrum. What Musk is trying to tap into beyond his own grievance-mongering. Libertarians have always wanted to be an effective third party, seeing themselves as akin to various ”Liberal” parties in Commonwealth nations, the smart guys who can ally with the nose-to-the-grindstone set when circumstances permit. But this kind of third party can only share power in a Parliamentary system, when a government can be formed by coalition if no party has a majority. How you get a Wilson or a Clinton instead of a chastened Republican for President.

But Libertarians don’t care about their lack of viability as a political entity. They also have no core principles, just personal bête-noirs they see themselves as noble for opposing. Mostly, the only thing Libertarians agree on is legalization of drugs (killing the Federal Reserve Bank a respectable second), but that is not the basis of a third party capable of governing. They even exist as a party, but organizationally they are so lame no one even gives serious thought to taking it,over and using it to acquire significant electoral strength through time. Libertarians just want what they want, and they had their chance after the Revolution. It was their Articles of Federation that the more articulate of them still pine for, but the Articles were nothing but a recipe for failure, failed, and had to be replaced.

In other words, there simply is no case for a third party movement of any kind on the anti-left side. Runaway ego or impotent (cranky) nonentity. Those are the alternatives. Musk’s American Party is clearly in the Ego mold. All of which means it’s not an issue. It’s a tantrum, which will blow ever when Elon gets back on top of his drug use.

Your other observations are valid and valuable, but only academic after the real situation has been understood and accepted. 

The question that remains is what to do in the interim, if anything.