How the project could disrupt politics
The threat of Elon Musk this week to train his own political party is not the first time that he has flirted with the idea.
In 2022, just before it is strongly involved in republican politics, Musk thought about the politically staging in a series of publications on social networks saying that he did not feel at home in democratic or republican parties.
“A more moderate party on all questions that representatives or DEMS would be ideal,” published Musk on X, then known as Twitter in May 2022.
It was a short -lived dumeliance. After an overview of the media coverage, Musk never followed the idea of a third party and rather began to pay money in right groups.
But now, he returns to the idea of a third American party, with him and President Donald Trump competing for the republican megabill that could increase the national debt by 3.3 billions of dollars.
“If this crazy spending bill, America’s party will be formed the next day,” Musk wrote Musk on X in an article on Musk that had more than 42 million views in one day. The bill adopted the Senate on Tuesday and will be deliberated in the House, where the Republican leaders hope to adopt it by July 4.
Musk posted at least eight times this week to promote the idea of a new political party. He said that his party would focus on reducing national debt – which he said that neither the Democrats nor the Republicans were able to do. He said that the two major parties had acted in concert as a “porky pork festival !!”
Musk did not explain his plans beyond the name “America Party” and the accent put on the debt. He did not respond to a request for comments sent by e-mail. Experts told NBC News that Musk would face a difficult battle if he chose to try to build a new party.
Trump responded to Musk’s announcement by a threat to reducing government support to Musk companies, saying that his administration could “eat Elon”.
And the unpopularity of Musk, including among those who do not identify with any of the main parties, would make him an unlikely person to launch a third political party. Among the political self -employed, 59% considered it unfavorably and 29% considered it favorably in a university survey of Quinnipiac on the voters registered last month.
His position in the public was, if something has won since he left his job in the Trump administration a month ago, according to a tracker of his popularity managed by the statistics writer Nate Silver.
But Musk has access to large resources as a richest person in the world, largely because of its challenges in Tesla and SpaceX, and it controls important media in X. These assets could be useful for the launch of a political party.
The number of independents registered and third -party members also increases as voters stand out from the bipartite system at increasing rates, according to an analysis of NBC news of the recording data of voters.
Democratic and republican parties have had almost property on the American political system for decades, and although the self -employed have been elected at the Congress, including two currently in the Senate, they generally have a caucus with the main parties and do not work as real third -party candidates. The main parties regularly modify the laws of the states or take other measures to prevent third parties from putting themselves on the ballot.
Richard Winger, who helps direct the news of the vote and is a long -standing defender of access to the easier ballot for third parties, said that he did not know what to do with Musk’s announcement.
“He’s so flying,” he said. “He has achieved a lot in life, but to look at him in politics, he seems so little put into service.”
Last year Musk became the biggest expenditure in republican policy, giving more than $ 290 million to help put Trump back to the White House. He also pushed right -of -the -right policy worldwide, including a German party that has minimized Nazi atrocities. But he moved away from many Republicans after taking away from the Trump administration a month ago.
Few thirds have had a major success.
A handful of small thirds, such as libertarian and green parties, organize conventions and direct candidates for their functions, but their victories are few. Many other attempts to third parties, such as the progressive party of former president Theodore Roosevelt in 1912, did not last.
The American system is an aberrant value on a global scale. Democracies in Canada, Europe and elsewhere generally have multi -party systems, often with parties forming coalitions with each other to gain control in the legislative chambers.
Bernard Tamas, professor of political science at the Valdosta State University in Georgia, said Musk should overcome many obstacles to establish a third party.
“It’s not like managing a business,” he said. “It must be more like a social movement. It must be a kind of local thing, where people are motivated and energized to fight. ”
And although Musk seemed to help energize certain Trump voters in swing states last year, a truly competitive third party would involve a much larger organization than Musk’s Super PAC.
“Even if he could put money, he cannot reproduce the amount of the institutional structure that these two parties,” said Tamas. “This is an open question if it can do it or not, but money is not enough. Money is not the only obstacle in front of third parties. ”
At least one third organizer, Andrew Yang, who ran without success in the 2020 Democratic primaries for the president, expressed his interest in teaming up with Musk, and Musk said in 2022 that he supported Yang earlier. But it is not clear that Musk is always interested. Yang, who did not respond to a request for comments on Tuesday, criticized Trump’s budget bill as a symptom of broader problems, writing on X, “so many people hate this bill; this is an excellent example of how our political system is spoiled.”
Yang’s avant-garde party did not have a general success, but it has a handful of members in elected functions across the country, including a state senator in UTAH.
The laws for the establishment of political parties vary depending on the state, but generally oblige the organizers to bring together thousands of signatures and to meet other requirements. In Texas, where Musk lives, a party should identify around 81,000 supporters – who, according to experts, is achievable with enough time and money.
“You can hire remunerated petition companies and you can put people on the ballot,” said Winger. “Especially since it is so far from the next elections, he has time.”
But the requirements have recently worsened, he added, several states increasing the requirements of third parties or independent candidates to obtain the ballot.
“When the country feels good and calm, the laws on the ballot tend to improve. When there is a lot of anxiety, the laws are getting worse. This decade was horrible,” said Winger.
“We had an excellent decade in the 1990s,” he said, recalling the rise of the candidate for the billionaire presidential Ross Perot and his reform party helped by modifying the laws of the state.
Perot won 19% of the popular vote in 1992 as an independent presidential candidate, which was largely presenting themselves on the national debt reduction platform. And although he has not won electoral votes or created a sustainable competitive third party, he pushed the reduction of the deficit at the top of the national agenda, and the federal budget was briefly balanced at the end of the century. He died in 2019.
Trump himself flirted with a third-party race. In 2000, he explored the continuation of the presidential appointment of the reform party, saying that his survey was “incredible”. But he left the race after four months, saying that the reform party was controlled by “fringed” extremists likely to be excluded from national debates.
Musk did not launch his first ballot in an election until 2016, when he was 45 years old.
Tamas said that a possible scenario is that Musk is launching a third party which is then co -opted by a large party in competition for the same voters. Tamas said that third parties who have managed to achieve their goals generally disappear within 10 years.
“What you do as a third party is that you are supposed to cause pain,” he said. “You are supposed to injure them and injure them by making them lose seats or losing elections, then, once they lose, hope is that they co -opted everything that the third party sells. They change to stay alive. ”
