Elon Musk’s Revenge Campaign

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0:16David French:This is The Opinions, a show that brings you a mix of voices from New York Times opinion. You've heard the news. Here's what to make of it.

0:32David French:I'm Michelle Cottle, and I cover national politics for New York Times Opinion. And I am here with opinion columnist David French today. David, hello.

0:43Michelle Cottle:Michelle, it's great to be with you, and it's just the two of us.

0:46David French:I know, which means we get to get extra juicy digging into Elon Musk. This week, he announced he wants to launch a new national political party. Woo! Now, there is a long history of, how do I put this gently, underwhelming third party attempts in this country. Does anybody even remember that there is a forward party at this point?

1:13Michelle Cottle:I had forgotten, Michelle, until just now. Thank you. You're welcome, David.

1:19David French:That's another service I'm providing here today. But I just acknowledging the fact that Musk has more money than God was the nation's biggest known political donor last year. I want to talk about why even with that, it's so hard to get a third party off the ground. And a little bit broader, I want to get into if there might be something different about this particular moment. I mean, certainly for a lot of people, this feels like a fraught and fragile period. in the republic's history. So let's just dig in. I want to know, start us off by kind of orienting us. You're a guy who's open to the idea of a third party, right?

2:03David French:I mean, you're third party

2:04Michelle Cottle:curious. Michelle, not only am I open to the idea of a third party, but I almost mounted a third party campaign in 2016, which is its whole other story, but gives me a lot of insight as to the practical problems and practical realities. But to make a long story short, back in 2016, Bill Kristol was trying to recruit a third-party candidate, Bill Kristol, who founded the Weekly Standard, now runs the Bulwark. He asked Mitt Romney, Mitt Romney said no, asked some other folks, they all said no. And then came like nine millionth down the list and came to me, and I said, I'll think about it. And I did actually think about it for about 72 hours, which was about 71 hours and 59 seconds too long.

2:50Michelle Cottle:Oh, come on. But I did absolutely think about it, no question. So yeah, I think that as a concept, what we're dealing with is a lot of theoretical demand. In other words, there's a lot of people who will say that they want it. The problem is when you get to the actual person and the actual position, what are the positions? Who is the individual? And that's where it gets so, so, so tricky, of course, because you're moving from the notional where you can sort of fill in all of your ideals. And this is what I imagine a third party would be. And it can just be the perfect utopian little alternative in your mind.

3:29Michelle Cottle:Then when actual living human beings step up and say, hey, we've got an idea. We could do that. Then it starts to fracture almost instantaneously.

3:41David French:Okay, the idea of you running a third-party candidacy is so delicious. But given your experience, let's go ahead and give me a temperature check on this latest Musk venture. It's calling it the America Party. Is it remotely viable? My immediate thought is hell no. But let me get you to go in here first.

4:05Michelle Cottle:I mean, how can I say this? I think of the third party. Say it not gently. Yeah, okay. Of the third party ideas, one part of the concept of the American Party is actually smarter than a lot of the other third party ideas. I would then say Elon Musk is exactly the wrong person to implement it because unlike a lot of people who have a kind of a bipartisan appeal, He has a bipartisan kind of sense of revulsion now. So because he has taken on Donald Trump and taken on MAGA. So a lot of Republicans really, really, really hate him. When he switched from sort of being a green techno-futurist to being like Donald Trump's wealthiest acolyte, the left and everyone leftist center turned on him.

4:54Michelle Cottle:So he's, in many ways, the least appealing person possible to start a third party because he's alienated both wings. He's been driven out of both wings.

5:04David French:He's a uniter, David. He's united everyone against him.

5:07Michelle Cottle:Yes, it's uniting against is the problem. However, this sort of idea that, no, no, no, we're not trying to sweep away everything, but win targeted races so that there is a third party to contend with in the Senate so that you can't have atrocities like the big, beautiful bill that were just passed, where you can have some independent voices. I think there's actually some real promise to that idea, in part because it doesn't depend on, as many third parties do, with sort of the man on the white horse coming in with all the fame and all the resources and triggering kind of the last thing we need, which is yet another kind of populist revolution.

5:50David French:Yeah, I do agree with you that I think the targeted approach is better. I mean, in part because one of the big problems in getting a third party off the ground is that elections are run by the states and you have 50 different states with a gajillion different rules than trying to get on the ballot. And all those states can be gobsmackingly complicated. and it's not like Musk has some grand vision for the country, is my sense. I mean, in part, he's just irritated that he didn't get his way and he wants to have a lever in which to make everybody's life unpleasant. Yeah.

6:29Michelle Cottle:I mean, there's a lot about this that just sort of radiates, I'm angry, I'm mad, and I'm wealthy. So what happens when you or I are angry, Michelle, We do have the pin. We can turn to the pin, right? We can explain our position. Elon Musk has one of the world's largest social media outlets that he can use, but that's not enough. That's not enough. He can go further. He can start a party. But look, he is very angry at what's happened, and he's very impulsive, and all of this is going to undermine him. You know, and on the one hand, And he has helmed multiple very, very successful companies. He actually does have a knack for accomplishing things in the real world.

7:12Michelle Cottle:That was pre-politics and pre-Doge. Doge was a debacle. It was an absolute debacle. It was a humbling moment for him. Very humbling moment. And unlike what many people do when they have humbling moments where you sort of retreat for a minute, he's just gone ahead and leaned in.

7:28David French:Yeah. Yeah. I mean, this feels like a revenge campaign because he's had a falling out with his presidential BFF and he didn't get his way on the bill. Is there a coalition, though, that could be rallied around a third party at this moment? And what do you think that would look like?

7:48Michelle Cottle:You know, that's the big question. There's a quick answer to this, which is very optimistic. And there's a longer answer to this that gets super pessimistic fast.

7:58David French:You never bring me anything optimistic, David.

8:01Michelle Cottle:So I want to - No, no, I'll start, I'll start. So there is something called the exhausted majority in the US. This is a documented phenomenon that does exist. And this isn't, this is about two thirds of Americans, actually, about two thirds of Americans who believe that neither party listens to them. So they feel unseen and unheard in public discourse. They're sick of the partisan vitriol. They're very angry at the tone of politics. In other words, the tone is exhausting. And they actually want compromise. They actually want people to come to the table and come to agreements. And so if you're starting a third party and it says, you're not being heard, everyone's going to yell, yay, two thirds of the people.

8:45Michelle Cottle:There is no compromise, thunderous roar. We need to sit down and listen to each other, thunderous roar. and then you move on to one concrete policy position. And then all of a sudden this coalition is going to start to just crumble. Because -

9:00David French:I was waiting for the butt.

9:03Michelle Cottle:Because this exhausted majority isn't the same thing as the moderate middle. Okay, it's not a synonym. The exhausted majority actually spans across the political spectrum. So you'll have people who are pretty far on the left who are part of the exhausted majority. You'll have people who are pretty far on the right who are the exhausted majority. But they don't agree with each other, say, on tax rates or health care policy and the nuts and bolts things that sort of put together a party. And so, you know, when the Republican Party, which is really our last successful emergent third party movement, they had an idea.

9:37Michelle Cottle:You know, they were against slavery, the expansion of slavery. They were against polygamy, for example. They had an idea. And so if you're organizing a third party around sort of a tone or a vibe, that's a lot harder than organizing a third party around an issue or an idea. So yes, there does seem like a demand. But no, when you dive into it, it doesn't seem very easy to fill that demand.

10:04David French:So I was poking fun at the forward party, which is the centrist party that Andrew Yang and a bunch of people got together and launched. recently. And I think Elon Musk has, in fact, been talking to Yang, whose candidacy in 2020 Musk endorsed. For me, the forward party's problem is exactly what you're talking about. They are a lot about, you're tired of polarization, and we're going to be anti-polarization. And they'll throw in some electoral reform to help the process. But beyond that, it's not entirely clear what their kind of mobilizing, galvanizing idea would be. So I want to be a little less ambitious in my sweeping view of parties emerging.

10:55David French:And look at the Reform Party in 92. Ross Perot popped up, this quirky business guy, with a populist view of the American economy and how both parties were driving up the debt and threatening the American prosperity. And he pulled like 19 percent of the electorate, which was basically enough to tip the scales in Bill Clinton's favor. so it's not that he went anywhere and the reform party hung on for several years but they did get people talking about the debt and america's you know profligate spending to the degree that that became a real issue during the clinton years so they did something yeah is there at least the room for a third party to get enough traction that they could impact.

11:55David French:And it sounds like that might be what Musk is looking to do, although it's not entirely clear in which directions.

12:02Michelle Cottle:You know, I do think there is, and there is a term, I believe David Shore coined this term called popularism instead of populism, popularism. So in essence, you know, I don't want to do violence to the definition, but just orient yourself around popular policies that are consistent with your worldview. And are there a set of popular policies that could cement or create, if not a majority, at least a plurality in certain parts of America? I think, yeah. I think there are a lot of popular ideas that are sidelined because the basis of the party won't allow them to be put forth. They wield an absolute veto.

12:46Michelle Cottle:So, for example, in immigration, this is almost the paradigmatic issue where there is a kind of a broad popular policy that is stymied often by extremes. And that broad popular policy, just to state it in the broadest brush, is more secure borders, relief for dreamers and others who are contributing well in America right now. And you have that kind give and take, and you actually can build a coalition there. But certainly on the right, the Stephen Miller side of the world is absolutely positively no to that. And so it just keeps getting cut off. It just keeps getting stymied. And you can do this in other issues as well.

13:30Michelle Cottle:But I'll tell you, Michelle, the area where it's the most difficult to do this is also the area where third parties often circle back to, and that is the deficit. This was a big thing for Ross Pro, and a lot of people are against the deficit. A lot of people are very concerned. I'm one of them. But here's where the problem, it gets really unpopular really fast if you want to talk about how to narrow that deficit because you've got to have some tax increases or you're going to have to have some spending cuts that aren't just this foreign aid budget that everyone sort of thinks is like this, you know, infinite pool of money that's just being thrown, you know, overboard overseas when it's really a tiny fraction.

14:12Michelle Cottle:Tiny, tiny percentage. It's just very hard to deal with the deficit without doing unpopular things. Yet that is often the siren song that tries to get people to form a third party.

14:23David French:Yeah, the devil in the details again, and how do you rally people around that? But is this a moment for a third party to rise up, or is this simply an opportunity for one of the existing major parties to rethink what they've got to do and to grab this group in the middle?

14:46Michelle Cottle:It feels, Michelle, like the easiest path here is to just have the major parties shape up a bit. You know, so for example, there's this, you know, there's been a lot of commentary and a lot of discussion about the insurgent Mamdani campaign in New York. And I find that much less interesting, I have to confess, than a lot of people, because I feel like it's kind of an artifact not of the appeal of socialism, but of the fact that the establishment candidate was a guy who was just run out of office after a sexual harassment scandal. And so if that's what you're doing here, like if you've got these big establishment parties and look in the drama we just went through with Joe Biden and his obvious cognitive decline and how much there was one part of the establishment that was trying to shield all of that from us and actually trying to put somebody forward to the American public who wasn't fully up to the job.

15:44Michelle Cottle:I mean, this is the kind of establishment work that's being done in some of these parties. And then don't get me started on the total capitulation of the Republican establishment to Donald Trump. So part of this thinks that, well, maybe the simplest, most direct route to better politics is just the party establishments of the parties that we have getting better at what they do. But their inability to do that for a very long time is one of the reasons why this third party demand keeps bubbling up. It's a persistent absence of the best and most obvious solution that leads us to longer shot alternatives.

16:20David French:So does the fact that what we seem to have now is an insider outsider split. So in order to, as an outsider, bubble up and get people mobilized, it seems to take a particular kind of person. I mean, so this is what Donald Trump started as, right? He started as an outsider who not politics as usual. Now, he happened to be able to take over the Republican Party and completely consume it. But it seems like you're almost by definition looking at a kind of politics that's personality or charisma driven by these figures. Which lends itself to demagoguery. And that just that makes me very nervous. I mean, what is your thought on the dangers of that?

17:05Michelle Cottle:Oh, I'm so glad you raised that because this is not just relevant to third parties. It's actually relevant to the Republican Party right now, which is demagogues can build personal movements. They're generally not great at building institutions or maintaining institutions. And so one of the things I think you're seeing right now with MAGA is you're actually beginning to see the sneak peek of the demolition of the movement after Trump leaves, because he's assembled this coalition of cranks and outsiders. And the only thing they have in common, really, is they've agreed to support Donald Trump. So you've got a lot, this very fractious coalition that's united under the charismatic leader.

17:51Michelle Cottle:And then when the charismatic leader is gone, what is it any longer? I know that there are a lot of people who say, well, it is an America first, neo-isolationist or spheres of influence kind of approach. That'll be news to an awful lot of Republicans who literally, Michelle, believe it or not, still think that, and I've heard this as recently as this year, Donald Trump is more like Ronald Reagan than any Republican president in my lifetime. wait what what so there are still people who are thinking when they're voting for trump they're voting for something that's a it's still normal republicanism then you've got millions of others who are saying nope we're blowing up everything that was normal republicanism and so i think the republican party is going to pretty quickly see what it's like when it's organized around a cult of personality and the personality is gone.