I saw a lot of chortling after Elon Musk’s announcement last week that he intends to start a third party, the America Party. Chortle away if you like. But this effort, at least according to what Musk said his goals are, is completely different from other third-party bids in recent U.S. history, and I’ve been amazed these last couple of days at how few people seem to understand that.

Third parties in the United States are jokes for one simple reason: They are built around presidential candidacies. That is a ridiculous goal, and it always has been. The reason? At the presidential level, we are indeed locked in a two-party duopoly, and it’s nearly impossible for a third-party candidate to garner enough support to win 270 electoral votes.

Let’s look at the most successful third-party presidential candidate in modern American history: Ross Perot in 1992. He struck a nerve among folks who were then referred to collectively as “the radical center.” He even led in the polls for a short time. Then he withdrew from the race for 10 crucial weeks (mid-July to October 1). But he ended up winning 19 percent of the vote. Impressive!

However: In electoral terms, Perot was a joke. He won zero Electoral College votes. In fact, he didn’t come remotely close to winning a single electoral vote. He finished third in every state. He almost finished second in Idaho, where he came within about 7,000 votes of besting Bill Clinton. But the Electoral College count was Clinton 370, George H.W. Bush 158, and Perot, all too predictably, 0.

This is why that overhyped No Labels nonsense from 2024, which got a lot of silly press, was ridiculous (and run by hustlers, picking the pockets of gullible, ill-informed rich people). Joe........

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