When does the new America First party start?

[renard_ruse]

In July if Trump doesn't get the nomination? In December or early next year (assuming Trump doesn't win the Presidency)? Or does it fizzle out again like it did after the Buchanan movement in the 90s?

I think its inevitable this time there will be a new nationalist party similar to the National Front in France or some of the other European nationalist parties, unless Trump wins in November.

If no other reason, there's clearly a large market for it and someone or some group can make a living running it.

 

[renard_ruse]

The America First movement will probably need time to grow organically like the National Front did in France. The National Front was founded in 1972 and didn't win its first council member until 1983. It didn't make a Presidential runoff until 2002, 30 years after it started, and its taken another decade to really threaten for power.

Trump did all that in less than a year. And I have yet to see a single Trump sticker or yard sign. Not one. France is plastered with Front National posters, at least it was when I lived there in the 90s. Every neighborhood, town, and village was plastered with FN posters. Trump did all this in less than a year with no posters.

Imagine after 40 years of posters everywhere what could be accomplished.

 

[sr71plt]

Possibly. But as I've noted elsewhere, I don't think Trump wants to be president--too much work, too many opportunities to reveal that he can't deliver on boasts. He wants to be god and to be able to claim he never has had a legitimate loss in anything. I think he wants to claim that he would have been president (and the world's best president of all time) if it hadn't been stolen from him. That said, I think what we're moving toward serves him and running for a different party wouldn't work for him. He knows he couldn't win that way, and he never loses. Just ask him; he'll confirm that he never loses.

 

[phrodeau]

What happened to the Tea Party?

 

[BoyNextDoor]

What happened to the Tea Party?

They were TEAbagged enough already.

 

[Sean Renaud]

France's political system allows for third parties to grow. In America this party would be squashed outright.

 

[patient1]

What happened to the Tea Party?

It got hijacked by TheoCons like Cruz.

 

[jimd556]

We've always had a nativist party. It's always whichever party has the most conservatives.

 

[Wrong Element]

France's political system allows for third parties to grow. In America this party would be squashed outright.

Third parties don't get "squashed" so much as they're co-opted.

I do think that the Trump campaign has signaled that the Republicans have a long-term problem, in that they have a leadership and professed ideology (free markets/free trade/open borders/supply side) that most of the traditional GOP foot soldiers don't actually support. But it's too early to say that this will lead to a permanent split.

The lesson here might be that the white South (and that's really what we're talking about -- look at what Trump's best states have been) is so different from the rest of the country that it's not easy to fit it into a national majority party structure. FDR and his successors did it, and so did Reagan, but the tensions began showing up not long after in both cases. The South left the FDR coalition once northern liberals and blacks gained a dominant position in the Democratic Party; and once the South became the center of the gravity in the GOP, it became much harder for them to win national elections (since the Republicans first took over the House again in 1994, they've won the presidential popular vote just once -- and that was with an incumbent, in wartime, with John Kerry as the opponent).

 

[Sean Renaud]

They either get coopted or simply end up on the wayside because we have first past the finish line winner take all systems. I mean it is what it is but if people HONESTLY want a multiparty system we have to change how voting happens.

 

[patient1]

Third parties don't get "squashed" so much as they're co-opted.

I do think that the Trump campaign has signaled that the Republicans have a long-term problem, in that they have a leadership and professed ideology (free markets/free trade/open borders/supply side) that most of the traditional GOP foot soldiers don't actually support. But it's too early to say that this will lead to a permanent split.

The lesson here might be that the white South (and that's really what we're talking about -- look at what Trump's best states have been) is so different from the rest of the country that it's not easy to fit it into a national majority party structure. FDR and his successors did it, and so did Reagan, but the tensions began showing up not long after in both cases. The South left the FDR coalition once northern liberals and blacks gained a dominant position in the Democratic Party; and once the South became the center of the gravity in the GOP, it became much harder for them to win national elections (since the Republicans first took over the House again in 1994, they've won the presidential popular vote just once -- and that was with an incumbent, in wartime, with John Kerry as the opponent).

They either get coopted or simply end up on the wayside because we have first past the finish line winner take all systems. I mean it is what it is but if people HONESTLY want a multiparty system we have to change how voting happens.

True and True, but it goes deeper than that. The Republicans and Democrats have managed to institutionalize themselves, getting the government to sponsor their internal elections, getting money from the Federal government, etc. There is a bias towards a two party system, and the two present parties in spite of the intentions of the founders- rooms in the capital for them, office buildings, etc.

 

[Sean Renaud]

I don't disagree with your assment. I think both parties have long ago grown to sufficient size that while they obviously don't WANT to give up those perks if you snatched them away they'd simply shrug.

And we'd still have a 2 party system the only possible change would be maybe they'd rotate out instead of absorbing various third parties.