How to End the Uniparty
Takeovers, not Third Parties
Elon Musk wants to start a third party to give actual competition to our ruling uniparty.
Prediction market kalshi is putting 41% odds it'll actually happen.
So is it a good idea?
The Third Party Dead-End
A few days ago Elon posted on X that if the "insane" Big Beautiful Bill passes "The America Party will be formed the next day" to save Americans from uniparty debt slavery.
X user Roman Helmet Guy replied the new party would get 20% of the vote, coming mostly from former Republicans.
Which would hand Dems a supermajority they would use to throw Elon in prison.
To which Elon responded, laughing, "pretty much."
Unfortunately, this is how third parties worked in American history. I mean minus the throw in prison part -- that's new.
The last time a third party candidate had a serious presidential run was 1992, when Ross Perot won 19% of the vote, mostly from George Bush.
This was enough to flip 22 states to Bill Clinton, handing him the White House.
Ok, forget the President, what about a third party? Well, we've had hundreds of third party tries in America -- indeed, the Libertarian Party trudges on after 50 years of failure.
Of those hundreds, 7 have gotten more than 10% of the vote. And all but one did the same thing: drain votes from whichever party they're closest to.
Handing power to the guys their own voters most hate.
The Exception: 1800
There's one single third party success, dating to 1800.
Back then it was big-government Federalists vs small-government Jeffersonian Democratic-Republicans.
The Federalists became so unpopular -- they got just 27% of the vote by 1804 -- that elections functionally happened inside the Democratic-Republican party.
Just like in New York today how the Democrat primary is the election.
Incidentally, the issues that broke the Federalists were
Censoring and imprisoning critics -- the Alien and Sedition Acts.
Establishing a central bank -- the First Bank of the US -- to counterfeit money.
And a federal property tax to pay for a permanent standing army.
So not much has changed.
Alas, once Democratic-Republicans held total power it sharpened in-party divisions.
Leading the Northern branch to break off as the Republican party. Which absorbed the now-homeless Federalists.
This gave us a southern Jeffersonian small-government Democrat party. And a northern Republican party infected with Federalist lust for government.
In sum, hundreds and hundreds of third party fails. And the single sort of win was only because a major party fell to 27% of the vote.
What Does Work: Party Takeovers
Before we lose all hope, there is a tactic that works wonders: Party takeovers.
As in ideologues invade the party, channel money, resources, and messaging to topple one ideology inside the party and replace it with something new.
This worked in the 1820's Jacksonian takeover of the Democrats, turning them into the 19th century version of Ron Paul populists.
It worked when the Abolitionists turned the Republicans militant in the 1850's.
Again when left populists took over the Democrats in 1896 -- the famous William Jennings Bryan.
It worked in the 1930's when FDR turned the Democrats into a progressive coalition of labor, minorities, and urban liberals.
And it worked when Clinton's Democrat party ditched that coalition in the 1990's for Wall Street and corporate America.
It even worked in the Tea Party revolution that in just 8 years took the GOP from John McCain and Mitt Romney to, by 2016, a boss battle between the Tea Party Ted Cruz and the Tea Party Donald Trump.
In short, with the single case of 1800, third parties are doomed. While takeovers are eminently successful -- even today.
How to Takeover a Party
The key here is three important facts.
First, parties are lightly defended. They have thick walls between the parties, but it's wide open on the inside. In particular, it's wide open to money.
Second key fact: politicians don't actually believe in anything. People say this in lament, but it means most won't fight you. They'll follow the money like dogs.
Third key fact: every party is a permanent civil war between its voters and its special interests and donors.
Meaning that, at any given moment, politicians are doing lots of things their own voters hate.
This gives you the opening -- there is always widespread discontent with the party.
So apply this to the two most recent party invasions -- Clinton Democrats in the 90's. And the Tea Party.
For Democrats, the Carter years showed they're the party of socialism and decline. While Reagan's Morning in America shone.
But 60 years of socialism had given Dems a very valuable asset: the permanent bureaucracy that actually ran the country.
So they did what any dying party would do: they sold to the highest bidder. Flipping from the party of the common man to the party of corporate Pride month.
No third party required. Money talked.
In the case of the Tea Party, it wasn't the money -- the money was on the establishment RINO side.
Instead, it was the permanent civil war. Specifically, the 2008 crisis, when Wall Street was showered with trillions of taxpayer money instead of going to prison.
That sparked uprisings on both sides: the Tea Party on the Right and Occupy Wall Street on the left.
The left dutifully doused the Occupy flames for their new friends on Wall Street.
But the Republican establishment couldn't douse it. As Tea Party activist Matt Kibbe put it, this isn't a partnership, it's a takeover.
Trump saw that opening, riding the precise issues where the base was angriest with their party: immigration and corruption. The swamp.
What’s Next
Elon's right that our uniparty system is broken. But third parties are doomed, while takeovers have a fantastic track record.
Takeovers can be frustratingly slow -- it's trench warfare primary by primary.
But they work. And the more voter anger the faster they work — the primaries score hits.
Right now Republican voters are fired up -- the kindling is there. But they also deeply trust Trump. Meaning Elon would have a much easier time remaking the GOP with Trump's blessing.
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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.
Brilliant. And a nice dose of political history. I hope Elon and Trump make peace and Elon doesn't start a 3rd party.