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John Adam Daniels's avatar

Man, this is fascinating stuff — and while I get the argument that third parties usually just play spoiler, I think there's a bigger question we should be asking:

What if the real threat isn't a third party at all — but the continued entrenchment of the two broken ones?

John Adams warned that “the greatest political evil under our Constitution” would be the division of the republic into two great parties, each fighting only to defeat the other. Well... check the scoreboard, folks. We’re livin’ it.

But what if — what if — a third party didn’t just split the vote, but replaced one or both of the old titans? What if it wasn’t a wedge, but a reset?

We’ve seen it before. The Federalists collapsed. The Whigs vanished. Political tectonic plates do shift when the public gets fed up enough. Maybe Elon’s not building a spoiler — maybe he’s laying the foundation for the next dominant movement.

The idea isn’t to throw in another party so we can juggle three. It’s to break the current loop, burn down the Uniparty forest, and plant a tree called “We the People” again.

Might not work. But doing nothing definitely won’t.

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John Adam Daniels's avatar

“There is nothing which I dread so much as a division of the republic into two great parties, each arranged under its leader, and concerting measures in opposition to each other.”

— John Adams, letter to Jonathan Jackson, October 2, 1780

Then he drops the mic with:

“This, in my humble apprehension, is to be dreaded as the greatest political evil under our Constitution.”

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