The American Independent Party is Still Around After Half a Century

There was this interesting blurb from yesterday's Water Cooler by Lambert Strether:

CA: “California Voters Keep Accidentally Joining George Wallace’s Zombie Political Party” [New York Magazine]. “An April 2016 Los Angeles Times report showing that a vast number of indies who should have been registering as ‘No Party Preference’ voters were instead signing up for the [American Independent Party, a hold-over from the Wallace campaign in 1968]…. it certainly did not help the Sanders campaign, which was counting on indie votes…. If there’s a 20-candidate presidential field and Sanders or somebody else is counting on indies to get them across the line in California, they’d better start getting the word on about the AIP pretty soon.”

Who would have imagined that the American Independent Party exists more than 50 years after the 1968 presidential election. It seems to be limited to California; headquartered in Vacaville.

Last night, thinking about the 2020 presidential campaign, I wondered, If Wallace had somehow managed to get elected in 1968, could he have won a second term in 1972?

Because in many ways Trump's presidency is as if George Wallace had been elected, the main difference being that, as Michael Moore does a good job reminding us in his film Fahrenheit 11/9, Trump won in 2016 by running to Hillary's left on a host of issues, particularly war and peace. George Wallace, with General Curtis LeMay on his ticket in '68, ran as an unrepentant war-pig.

But all of Trump's left-progressive packaging has been ripped off after two-plus years in the White House.

As I drifted off to sleep I thought the only chance that Trump has is if the Democratic Party comes to the rescue. This is not out of the realm of possibility. If Sanders win's the primary, Democratic Party leaders might see their best hope of survival the sabotage of his candidacy.