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Could a third party save America?
Spiked ^ | Joel Kotkin

Posted on 09/29/2023 8:09:11 PM PDT by FarCenter

Voters deserve far better than the decrepit Democrats and Republicans.

With the presidential race now heating up, the US faces a choice of disastrous proportions. It is shaping up to be an unpopularity contest between Donald Trump – an unstable narcissist – and the doddering, likely corrupt Joe Biden. In fact, three-quarters of Americans think Biden is too old to be re-elected and the majority consider him not mentally up to the job.

Given that the vast majority do not want either of these foolish, dangerous old men to be in power, why not create an alternative party? This was last done successfully in 1854, with the founding of the Republican Party.

The US in 1854 was also deeply divided. At that time, the debate was about slavery, as well as tariffs and growing corporate power. Yet the force of modernity, as Karl Marx recognised at the time, was with the industrialised North, which would go on to crush the agrarian South.

The coalition of the ascendant first came together in 1854 to form the new Republican Party. The Republicans sought to revive the Hamiltonian tradition that had died with the Whigs, who had inherited it from the Federalists. They opposed the Democrats as they became ever more dominated by the interests of plantation owners. In contrast, the Republicans drew support from the industrialists, financiers, mechanics, artisans and independent farmers. Advocates of high protective tariffs and free homesteads for mechanics and farmers, wrote historians Charles and Mary Beard, ‘now mingled with ardent opponents of slavery in the territories’.

At their historic convening in Ripon, Wisconsin, the Republicans adopted a programme that could appeal to a broad spectrum of Americans. They took bold steps to limit slavery’s expansion and also to open new land for small farmers. They supported the growing ranks of American manufacturers and the building of infrastructure to expand the national economy. Abraham Lincoln, before becoming president, had represented railroads in the Midwest.


TOPICS: Editorial; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: 00000001craparticle; absurdpremise; donatedonaldtrump; donatetrump; joelkotkin; rinosedition
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1 posted on 09/29/2023 8:09:11 PM PDT by FarCenter
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To: FarCenter

No.

Perot failed, thought TR didn’t wreck America.


2 posted on 09/29/2023 8:10:31 PM PDT by Paladin2
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To: FarCenter

LOL. You TDS fools are groping for straws.


3 posted on 09/29/2023 8:10:45 PM PDT by central_va (I won't be reconstructed and I do not give a damn...)
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To: FarCenter

There is a credible Third Party, it’s called TRUMP.

(which is what I suspect the reason to be that so many Neocon supporters hate him)


4 posted on 09/29/2023 8:12:00 PM PDT by BobL (I own an F150 so that I can tow my boat all day Saturday and look Manly)
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To: FarCenter

Yes ... if it siphoned off Democrat voters.


5 posted on 09/29/2023 8:14:02 PM PDT by TigersEye (Our Republic is under seige by globalist Marxists. Hold fast!)
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To: FarCenter

If it helps Trump to beat the margin of fraud, I’m all for it.


6 posted on 09/29/2023 8:15:08 PM PDT by Chad C. Mulligan
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To: FarCenter
Given that the vast majority do not want either of these foolish, dangerous old men to be in power, why not create an alternative party?

Because since 1854, the Democrats and Republicans have made more rules, laws and customs favoring the enshrined parties, making it much more difficult to place a replacement. If you wanted to do it, you would have to start at the state level and caucus with one of the parties. It makes a lot more sense to take over one of the parties. Trump showed it can be done. It will take at least a generation, not six years like it did in the 1850s. CHase out ROmneys and Ryans, replace, rinse, repeat.
7 posted on 09/29/2023 8:15:16 PM PDT by Dr. Sivana ("If you can’t say something nice . . . say the Rosary." [Red Badger])
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To: BobL
Trump was third party the only way it could be done: by using one of the two major parties in spite of itself.

Republicans who set themselves up against him are hastening the end of the GOP as we know it.

Which would absolutely be a good thing.

8 posted on 09/29/2023 8:15:20 PM PDT by Ciaphas Cain (America will need de-liberalization just as Germany had de-nazification.)
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To: Ciaphas Cain

“Which would absolutely be a good thing.”

Absolutely!


9 posted on 09/29/2023 8:15:56 PM PDT by BobL (I own an F150 so that I can tow my boat all day Saturday and look Manly)
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To: BobL

EXACTLY!!! Trump sure as toot’n doesn’t fit the Republican establishment mold!!


10 posted on 09/29/2023 8:16:09 PM PDT by pollywog (" O thou who changest not....ABIDE with me")
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To: FarCenter

If it undercuts Biden plus fraud and results in Trump’s reelection, yes.


11 posted on 09/29/2023 8:17:35 PM PDT by gundog (It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen. )
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To: FarCenter

There are already 50 plus third parties.


12 posted on 09/29/2023 8:17:42 PM PDT by Pikachu_Dad ("the media are selling you a line of soap)
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To: pollywog

That’s one of the things I love about Donald Trump!


13 posted on 09/29/2023 8:18:03 PM PDT by No name given (Anonymous is who you’ll know me as)
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To: FarCenter

Trump and MAGA infiltrated the Swamp R team that co owns the swamp with the Swamp D Team..

He is the third party middle finger to the D’s and the R Swamp royalty of Bush,Cheney, McCain,Romney..

Just used one of the Swamp parties to do it..


14 posted on 09/29/2023 8:18:14 PM PDT by delchiante
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To: TigersEye

I agree.


15 posted on 09/29/2023 8:18:19 PM PDT by No name given (Anonymous is who you’ll know me as)
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To: FarCenter

We essentially have three parties...Dems, Rinos, and MAGA


16 posted on 09/29/2023 8:18:28 PM PDT by goodnesswins ( We pretend to vote and they pretend to count the votes.)
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To: FarCenter

There already is a turd party - they’re called Democrats.


17 posted on 09/29/2023 8:20:48 PM PDT by Stosh
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To: FarCenter

What’s best for the country, is no politics.

And to get no politics, we need to have no political parties.

Political parties develop into a group with special interests, and not the interests of the country, for the most part.

So, get rid of the “Ds” and the “Rs” and the communists and progressives and the liberals and the libertarians, and even the ‘independents’.

Let’s just have the “NP” (no parties).


18 posted on 09/29/2023 8:20:56 PM PDT by adorno
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To: FarCenter

“contest between Donald Trump – an unstable narcissist “

Please give us one example where Donald Trump as ever shown himself to be unstable. I’ve not once ever seen him lose control of himself or lose his temper unlike Biden who blows his top at the drop of a hat and shakes hands with invisible people.


19 posted on 09/29/2023 8:21:54 PM PDT by GrandJediMasterYoda (As long as Hillary Clinton remains free, the USA will never have equal justice under the law)
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To: Pikachu_Dad

“””There are already 50 plus third parties.”””

True, I haven’t looked up the numbers since the old battles here about 3rd parties and the Libertarian party, but it is around 50 of them.

What would be great would be for one of the left’s 3rd parties to start taking some votes from the Democrats.


20 posted on 09/29/2023 8:22:02 PM PDT by ansel12 ((NATO warrior under Reagan, and RA under Nixon, bemoaning the pro-Russians from Vietnam to Ukraine.))
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