Sixty Percent Want a Third Party in the United States

FiveThirtyEight, a bastion of faux-hipster centrism led by Nate Silver, this morning publishes a round-table chat on third parties, "Does America Want A Third Party? (Or Is It Just David Brooks?)"

It is superficial and not worth the time. The writers and editors mostly take aim at New York Times columnist David Brooks, and they are largely on the mark:

micah: The column: “The End of the Two-Party System.” Can someone give us a fair summary of Brooks’ argument?

natesilver (Nate Silver, editor in chief): The summary is that we need the Reasonable Center Party, which happens to have exactly the same policy positions that Brooks has and would be enormously successful if only anyone bothered to create it.

The FiveThirtyEight crew has a hard time grappling with this -- "About six in 10 Americans think third major U.S. party is needed." They spend the most of their time talking in circles. They do briefly mention the structural barriers to third parties in the United States; they mention electoral reforms liked ranked choice voting before dismissing the possibilities for such change; they mention the flexible nature of the two-party system and its ability to accommodate populist surges; and they briefly mention the success of Emmanuel Macron in France.

Overall I think they dismiss Brooks' third party too lazily. I think a billionaire like Bloomberg fronting someone telegenic like Macron could run a successful third-party presidential campaign in the United States.

It won't happen as long as the Democratic National Committee stays in neoliberal hands, and, according to Kim Moody's On New Terrain, there is zero chance of it not remaining in neoliberal hands (which means no Bernie in 2020).

My guess is that it will be Cuomo in 2020, someone whom I think Bloomberg and Brooks are fine with. The question is, What about Indivisible?

We'll find out this year if  #resistance can stay together after repeated betrayals by congressional Democrats. My guess is probably, but only as another well-funded, top-down hollow organization.

Give Trump credit, his white supremacist GOP has the most active support of any mass political organization in the U.S.