'Coalition of cranks and outsiders': Why a third party won't work — and why MAGA is doomed

13 July

Donald Trump at a campaign rally in Atlanta, on August 3, 2024. (Photo by Phil Mistry/ShutterStock.com)

New York Times Columnist David French says a clear majority of Americans are exhausted with both political parties—but that doesn’t mean they’re ready to follow billionaire Elon Musk or anybody into the bosom of a third party.

“There is something called the exhausted majority in the U.S.,” said French, speaking with New York Times Columnist Michelle Cottle on The Times’ latest episode of ‘The Opinions’ podcast. “This is a documented phenomenon that does exist. And this is about two-thirds of Americans who believe that neither party listens to them, so they feel unseen and unheard in public discourse.”

There’s a catch to that impressive size, however, which makes it nearly impossible to exploit, he added.

“If you’re starting a third party and it says, ‘You’re not being heard,’ everyone’s going to yell ‘Yay.’ Two-thirds of the people. ‘There is no compromise’: Thunderous roar. ‘We need to sit down and listen to each other’: Thunderous roar. But then you move on to one concrete policy position and then, all of a sudden, this coalition is going to start to crumble … because this exhausted majority isn’t the same thing as the moderate middle. It’s not a synonym.”

The ‘exhausted party,’ says French, contains impatient voters on the far left and the far right, and they don’t agree with each other on tax rates, health care policy and the nuts-and-bolts things that put together a party.

“When the Republican Party [formed]—which is really our last successful emergent third-party movement—they had an idea. They were against the expansion of slavery. They were against polygamy, for example. They had an idea,” said French. “If you’re organizing a third party around a tone or a vibe, that’s a lot harder than organizing a third party around an issue or an idea.”

The recent victory of Socialist Zohran Mamdani in New York’s municipal election, said French, is less about the appeal of third-party-style socialism and more about a competing establishment candidate who “was a guy who was just run out of office after a sexual harassment scandal.”

But Cottle said the insider-outsider split within the two political parties is lending itself to charisma-based demagogues like President Donald Trump.

These movements are usually short-lived, said French, because demagogues build personal movements, not institutions.

“[Trump has] assembled this coalition of cranks and outsiders, but the only thing they have in common, really, is they’ve agreed to support Donald Trump. So, you’ve got this very fractious coalition that’s united under the charismatic leader. And then when the charismatic leader is gone, what is that coalition any longer?”

A far easier alternative to a third party, said French, “is to just have the major parties shape up a bit.”

Read the full Times transcript at this link.

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