Dear Elmo -
You have announced that you’ve formed “The America Party”, dedicated to eliminating the National Debt.
This is outstanding. I support your efforts from top to bottom.
To cut to the chase, what I love about this is the fact that this party, if it ever actually comes to be, is the greatest thing you could possibly do for the Democratic Party. It’s not just that we viscerally loathe you so much that once you get involved, we turn out in droves (remember Wisconsin?), but wow! a third party.
Now, Elmo, you and I are both well aware that you know virtually nothing about the political system. Sure, you know how to rally up the MAGA masses, and get out all sorts of lies and nonsense on what used to be the great platform called Twitter, but the system? Nope.
First, there’s something called ballot access. I could easily write 10,000 words on the history of those who have tried and failed to successfully launch a third party in the modern era, those who came close, and the substantive issues of actually getting a new party on a state’s ballot, and let’s face it, it’s the states that, CONSTITUTIONALLY, control most aspects of elections. So, good luck with that. Can you get a non-aligned independent on a ballot? Sure. But a party? It’s not easy.
Now, I’ve heard that you want to start with fielding Congressional candidates, and perhaps a Senate candidate or two, and so let’s play pretend that you can actually run a candidate and have him (and it’s highly improbable that you’d run anyone other than a straight, Christian, guy1) win. When he gets to the House, unless he joins either the Democratic or Rethuglican caucus, he can do nothing. No committees, no legislation creation, nada. Remember the role of a member of Congress is two-fold: legislative, as well as providing constituent services. Your guy wouldn’t need the latter because he wouldn’t BELIEVE in constituent services. So even if you can win a race, he’ll be a one-termer because constituents love their services.
Then, there is the issue of your potential voters. People seem to love the idea of decreasing the National Debt, until you drill down to figure out what the options are to actually accomplish that. Remember, the National Debt dates back to Alexander Hamilton, who set up an incredibly creative (at the time) plan for decreasing the debt. Some background. The debt he needed to deal with was in the millions, now we’re looking at trillions.
To decrease the debt, you will need to either raise taxes or cut spending. Even you should understand that. And when you talk to voters, most don’t want to pay more taxes, but they really hate that to cut services, you’d cut everything on which they depend. We know people want Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, SNAP and the rest of the social safety net, but they also like things like the electric grid, roads, bridges, tunnels, schools, libraries, police and fire protection, printing money, actual defense, you know, necessary stuff.
Who will your voters be? I could list the 85% of Americans who would never sign up for your insanity, but there are those 15% of people who used to be the “TEA” (“Taxed Enough Already”) Party of several cycles ago. They kinda sorta morphed into the “House Freedom Caucus”, and finally the majority of the elected ones caved and bent a knee in fealty to VonShitzenpants. These voters are people who honestly believe that FDR was the worst president of all time because of the programs he enacted to save America from the Great Depression, followed by LBJ for the legislation in the early 60’s. They love the Horatio Alger myth, and celebrate homelessness and starvation because those people are “undeserving”. Those be your people, Elmo.
Your candidates won’t be competing against Rethuglicans in primaries since you wanted a new party, not the chance to find the Dave Brat of 2026. (Don’t know Dave? Click here.)
So here’s the thing (and I’ll spare you the math, because we both know it’s not your strong suit, Elmo) it wouldn’t take a lot of those voters to take a close general election, split off just 2% of the Rethuglican vote, and wowza, Democratic majorities in the House, Senate, and a ton of statehouses.
So, THANKS!
With Gratitude,
Jessica
The probability of Elmo running a woman, a trans person, or, say, a Muslim, is equal to the probability that I will fulfill my bucket list wish of weighing 93 pounds, so I HAVE to gain 30 pounds, and that I would do that as a part-time buttercream frosting taste tester at Clay’s Creative Bakery of Berwyn, Pennsylvania.
hahaha! I wish he could read this.
Hate what’s going on but so impressed with your cleverness!