Elon Musk claims his America party will change US politics. Experts disagree | US news

“You want a new political party and you will have!” Elon Musk said in early July.

The richest man in the world is never the type to avoid grandiose declarations, and he continued: “Regarding the bankruptcy of our country with waste and transplants, we live in a unique system, not a democracy. Today, the American party is trained to make your freedom. ”

The party of America, hopes Musk, will be a viable alternative to democratic and republican parties: a political organization which can influence the future of American politics. He spoke of the candidates for the race for two to three seats in the Senate and up to 10 districts of the house. Given the tight fracture between the Republicans and the Democrats in the Congress, Musk thinks that capturing the small number of seats “would be enough to serve as a decisive vote on controversial laws”.

Since there is always a strong support for an alternative to the two main parts, it should be a good idea, right?

False, said Bernard Tamas, professor of political science at the Valdosta State University and author of the disappearance and the Renaissance of American third parties.

“Right now in American politics, I have no evidence that you are going to get another seat winning in Congress and be able to have an impact on the government,” said Tamas.

“It is not only the money that Democrats and the Republicans have. They have all the resources. They have the money. They have 150 years of structure. They have all professional politicians, and they have all the consultants, and they have all the advertising companies of Madison Avenue who work for them. ”

The whole concept of the America party apparently gathered in a few weeks, following the famous row between Musk and Donald Trump. And as with many ideas born of spite and fury, some elements do not seem to have been fully thought out. Americaparty.com, for example, is already registered with someone else, who now seems to try to sell the domain name for $ 6.9 million. On X, that Musk owns, @americparty has already been taken, so the new company had to opt for @amicartyx.

It is not yet known what the party will represent, beyond the opposition to the hot air balloon by the Republicans of the national debt. Musk has not yet developed the “disputed laws” that his politicians would contest, and there is no party platform or a manifesto.

In any case, third parties rarely, if never, succeeded in the way Musk plans. But where they can make a difference is to highlight the problems and put the two parties to act.

“In terms of games that have really had a big impact, they have not won seats,” said Tamas. “The work of third parties is a disturbance. It is to prick like a bee. It is to cause pain. “

Tamas underlined the progressive party in the Wisconsin and the farmer party of Minnesota, which managed to win key victories on the emergency services for voters and banking reforms in the state, such as examples of political groups that have managed to inflict such a sting. It does not seem to be what Musk is looking for, although there is an opportunity for a spicy insect.

“Here, the Republican Party moves more and more to the right, and further and further in this kind of management Maga, no one in the republican party at the Congress ready to stand in Trump or this movement,” said Tamas.

“It is a perfect opening for a third party. This is what it looks historically. But you are not going to replace them. What you do is that you attack them for that. You try to bring them back to the center.

“This is how third parties have always succeeded. The idea is that you cause them pain, and what they do, if it works, is that they come back to something that reflects more what the public wants or deals with the problems that the third party raises. “

The parties that continued the elected approach to Get-People behaved less well than inflicters in the pain. Forward Party was founded by Andrew Yang, who had previously organized for the Democratic presidential appointment, in 2022, with the slightly style slogan of “no on the left. Not to the right. Ahead”. These days, the party is barely appearing on the national political landscape, although it continues to stimulate the content of social media – a recent article of July 4 on Instagram attracted nearly 40 likes.

When it was created, the personalities of the front parties affirmed that the republican and democratic parties had become too radical and declared that their new company “cannot be fixed to the traditional spectrum from left to right because we are not built as existing parties”.

In one way or another, a promise not to really have a firm ideological position on anything is not a very sexy terrain for voters. Among the “elected affiliates” appointed on the Forward website are the former mayor of Newberry, Florida, a city of 7,300 inhabitants, and a man who “is responsible for sanitation and public services” in the Connecticut de Stonington district – 976 people.

There is general support for a third party. The polls have shown several times that people want a third party. But what it looks like is to see. In the own musk survey on social media, asking if people wanted it to start a new party, only 65% said yes, and 34% said no, although a ballot in early July showed that 14% of voters said they would be very likely to support the party, with 26% somewhat.

There are already problems with the American party becoming a third viable choice. Musk is approaching eccentric political advisers, notably Curtis Yarvin, a right -wing technology blogger who argued that American democracy has followed its course and the country should rather be managed by a CEO of dictator.

A more fundamental problem with the America party is unique to musk: people really don’t like it. A survey last week revealed that 60% of Americans have an unfavorable vision of Musk, against 32% in favor.

America will have a third, said Musk at the start of its new business. But does America want this type of third party, with this kind of objectives, managed by this kind of man?