Elon Musk’s America Party: A Strategic Move or Wishful Thinking and Delusion?

By Anil Madan

Elon Musk, erstwhile supporter and then sidekick of candidate Trump, and for a not so ELONgated time, of President Trump, has announced the launch of a new political party in the US, the America Party. The announcement in America of a new political party is neither a novel, nor a surprising occurrence. The biggest surprise is that someone has previously used the name Musk chose, the America Party.

As is well know, there are two major political parties in the US, the Republican and Democratic. But there are many other parties. In the 2024 presidential election, the Republican candidate (Trump) received 77 million plus votes and the Democratic candidate (Harris) received 75 million plus. The Libertarian party with presidential ballot access in 47 of 51 voting jurisdictions received 646,000 plus votes for its candidate, the Green party with access to 37 of 51, received 813,000 votes. The Alliance Party’s and Natural Law Party’s candidates each received 750,000 plus votes. Many other parties had candidates who received small numbers of votes.

Nor should it be a surprise that Musk is having a fit of pique. Having spent some $290 million supporting Trump’s re-election, he had the experience that many have shared: being used by and discarded by Trump. Not that he didn’t bring it on himself. We can hark back to the one-to-one chat Musk had with Trump on his X platform before the election during which he all but begged to be allowed to create the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) and head it. Musk convinced Trump that DOGE was Trump’s idea. Readers may recall that initially Trump designated Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy to be joint leaders of DOGE. This didn’t sit well with Musk who seemed not to want to share the spotlight with anyone including the President.

In a wry bit of irony, Musk’s first hatchet-wielding in the government, was to cut Vivek out of DOGE. But then, Musk himself ended up on the outs with Trump. His first petulant response was to threaten to “primary” Republicans who voted for Trump’s mega spending bill, euphemistically called the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA). Musk’s plan was to use his wealth to fund the campaigns of candidates challenging Republicans in the primary elections that will precede the mid-term elections for House and Senate in November 2026.

So, if the option to “primary” a pro Trump Republican is available, why start a new party? For all his impetuosity and social ineptitude and immaturity, Musk is not a stupid man. So, it rapidly came to him that funding one Republican over another in a Republican primary may not be a viable anti-Trump strategy. In fact, it is probably not a sensible strategy either. After all, Republicans have shown that they are essentially fungible when it comes to kowtowing to Trump, so supporting one over the other accomplishes nothing for Musk.

Trump shot back and threatened to review and cancel the billions of dollars’ worth of contracts that Musk’s companies have with the federal government and added that Musk could be deported.

In this morass, Musk’s idea to start a new political party was born. Ever the showman, he posted on X: “Independence Day is the perfect time to ask if you want independence from the two-party (some would say uniparty) system! Should we create the America Party?” Musk conducted his own unscientific poll of readers of his and then announced: 1,248,856 votes – “Final results” 65.4% Yes, 34.6 No. The responders were self-selected and not necessarily Americans. 

The announcement was simple enough on X: “By a factor of 2 to 1, you want a new political party, and you shall have it! When it comes to bankrupting our country with waste & graft, we live in a one-party system, not a democracy. Today, the America Party is formed to give you back your freedom.”

The America Party has filed a Statement of Organization with the Federal Election Commission.

Reality set in. Or was it delusion? Musk like the proverbial dog chasing a car, had caught it and now wondered what to do. So, he fantasized:

The way we’re going to crack the uniparty system is by using a variant of how Epaminondas shattered the myth of Spartan invincibility at Leuctra: Extremely concentrated force at a precise location on the battlefield.

There is precedent for setting up a viable political party. In 1854, the party that has become the modern-day Republican Party was formed. Over the years, the Democratic Party and the Republican Party have changed their political philosophies, the one becoming more liberal and progressive, and the other more conservative. The Republican Party was formed to oppose expansion of slavery to the west after the Kansas-Nebraska Act was passed. That Act left it to states to decide the question. With its anti-slavery position and consequent opposition to the Confederate States of America, the party gained support from anti-slavery northerners.

Abraham Lincoln was elected President under the banner of the Republican Party in 1860 and led the Union to victory in the Civil War against the Confederacy. This led to the formal abolition of slavery.

Third-party candidates for President have been involved in presidential politics forever but without success. In 1992, Ross Perot won almost 19% of the popular vote in the best most recent showing by a third-party candidate. However, he did not win a single electoral vote in the presidential election. Much has been written about whether Perot caused President George H.W. Bush (the elder Bush) to lose the election. Let us leave it that proof of such a proposition is nigh impossible to demonstrate, and there is plenty of evidence that Perot pulled votes from both Clinton and Bush.

But what of Musk’s America Party? Importantly, Musk’s initial target is the mid-term elections. To the extent that there is a strategy, here is Musk’s plan:

One way to execute on this would be to laser-focus on just 2 or 3 Senate seats and 8 to 10 House districts. Given the razor-thin legislative margins, that would be enough to serve as the deciding vote on contentious laws, ensuring that they serve the true will of the people.

Polls have consistently shown that over decades, some 56-58% of Americans are either in favor of a third party or feel that one is needed. What is not clear is whether Democrats and Republicans alike think that a third party is necessary to dilute the support of the party to which they do not belong. And it is also not clear whether independent voters find both Democrats and Republicans unsatisfactory choices and long for another option.

So, where is Musk likely to find support and membership for his new party? Obviously, since he is not eligible to run for President (he is not a natural born citizen) neither approval nor disapproval of his persona and style are likely to be major factors. But there is a cohort of Republicans fed up with Trumpism and the MAGA ethos. And there is a significant contingent of Democrats fed up with the ultra-liberal, progressive, and woke mindset of their party.

Trump is a lame duck president. He cannot run again for the office. Republicans aspiring to the highest office will have to break free of his tentacles which for now maintain a tight grip on Republican Party politics.

Will dissatisfied Democrats and ambitious Republicans flock to a new America party? To answer that question, we will have to see how Musk’s vision transmutes America’s discontent to America’s aspirations in its platform. No such platform exists yet.

But as a purely mathematical proposition, there seems to be enough disaffection among American voters that a well-financed third party could make a difference. After all, the Green Party and Libertarian Party with their paltry showing in terms of overall votes received, are still credited or blamed for Trump’s win in 2016 and Hillary Clinton’s loss.

And even if Musk’s can win only a few seats in either the House or Senate, the opportunity to leverage power through forging a coalition government will be tantalizing.

Cheerz…
Bwana

Mauritius Times ePaper Friday 11 July 2025