America’s Third Party

Republican divisions have created a third party challenging the slim House majority.

If a small third party had enough seats in the House of Representatives, there would be no clear majority. That would mean that in order to get any legislation passed either Republicans and Democrats would need to work together, or one of them would need to work with the third party.

That is exactly what is happening in the House right now.

In 2009 there was a new movement within the Republican party known as the Tea Party. It was a group who felt Republicans weren’t conservative enough.

The Tea Party’s main talking points were the call for smaller government, reigning in the deficit, reduction in federal spending, and lower taxes (although mainly for the wealthy). If this sounds awfully familiar it is because that is what the MAGA members of Congress are discussing right now, and why they shut down the House of Representatives for five straight days.

We’ll get back to that in a moment.

Eighty seven Tea Party Republicans won office in 2010. Instead of generally supporting the leadership while trying to steer legislation, Tea Party members were often critical of leadership, particularly John Boehner.

In 2015 a group of Republicans, including Tea Party members, formed the House Freedom Caucus. The Freedom Caucus filed a motion to vacate the Speakership in July. The motion never moved forward, but John Boehner resigned two months later in September. 

Interestingly, at the same time that the Tea Party was realizing how to flex its muscles, the movement was shrinking. By 2016, one quarter of the Tea Party Representatives had moved on from office. Despite this, the Tea Party’s time in Congress had helped them discover how best to leverage their small minority in order to have an outsized impact on politics.

The Tea Party had discovered how powerful a third party can be while holding only a small percentage of seats.

When Trump became the frontrunner of the Republican party for the 2016 Presidential election, he ran on a populist, anti-establishment platform which not only attracted a lot of disillusioned Americans who typically didn’t vote, it attracted the same voters who voted for Tea Party members.

This created a dilemma for the Tea Party representatives; either join MAGA or be attacked and forced out. It was the end of the Tea Party, but their lessons learned were passed on to the new movement.

When Republicans took a slim majority in the House after the 2022 midterm elections, MAGA Republicans were quick to remind the GOP how much leverage a small group could hold in such a situation.

It took 15 separate attempts to vote in Kevin McCarthy as speaker of the House, the most votes needed since before the Civil War. More than simply a show of force, the holdouts were negotiating behind the scenes for committee positions as well as what legislation would be a priority.

That brings us back to the House of Representatives being shut down for five days. The issue at hand was the result of the debt ceiling negotiation. Whereas McCarthy and most of the Republicans were using the debt ceiling for posturing and political messaging, the Freedom Caucus and MAGA Representatives saw it as their best opportunity to make fundamental changes and push forward far right conservative issues such as deeply cutting social assistance programs, reducing taxes for the wealthy, a much stricter border policy, and increasing military spending.

These demands pushed the debt ceiling up to the edge of the cliff, risking the economy, American jobs, and the United States credit rating. This was a situation all Democrats and most Republicans wished to avoid. A default was not in the best interest of anyone’s constituents.

After many Republicans voted with Democrats to pass legislation to raise the debt ceiling, the Freedom Caucus wanted to remind Speaker McCarthy about the trouble they could create by stopping Republican legislation.

While the House is back to voting once again, it is on shaky ground. A behind the scenes agreement was reached to keep working on a “power sharing” agreement as Matt Gaetz (R) phrased it. Before that tentative agreement was reached, Gaetz had said the issue at hand was either Republicans were going to work with the Freedom Caucus or they were going to work with Democrats, but they couldn’t work with both.

Gaetz essentially referred to the Freedom Caucus/MAGA coalition as their own party.

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Two interesting questions:

The first is if MAGA faces its worst possible outcome in 2024 where Trump goes to prison and Republicans lose the Presidency and possibly even the House majority, will MAGA make the split official? Will they become a true third party with Trump as their leader?

Their base already refers to all non-MAGA Republicans as RINOs, Republicans In Name Only. Their base is also increasingly using the term “uniparty” to describe the established Republican and Democrat parties as one big corrupt system. The only politicians they believe in are those loyal to Trump and MAGA.

Historically there has routinely been a coalition within the Republican party that is further right and more populist in nature. Even back in the 1930s Republicans had an America First group, a term that MAGA has started to use once again.

But this time is different. The movement is stronger and has lasted longer. Despite all of the corruption, gaffes, and lack of success of Donald Trump, millions are still fully loyal to him and the movement.

The other question is: Will Progressives see the influence the Freedom Caucus has and push their own agenda harder against Democrats?

When the new progressives were first getting into office there was friction. Most notably between the members of The Squad, such as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Progressives wanted to push harder for fundamental change whereas Pelosi was a seasoned politician who had a proven grasp on how to keep Democrats in power and get their legislation passed.

That friction, along with Progressive slogans such as Defund the Police, preceded a disappointing election cycle for Democrats where they lost more seats than they should have.

The underperformance increased the friction. There was more public bickering and accusations between moderate Democrats and the new Progressives, but the situation had a fundamental difference from the MAGA movement; Democrats didn’t have the Presidency at that time. Both Progressive and Liberals alike saw Trump and MAGA as the main opposition to their agendas.

The two groups seemed to have worked out their differences behind the scenes and began presenting a united front in an effort to unseat Trump.

Their efforts were successful and even with Joe Biden in office, the groups continue to be united, at least publicly. With Trump and MAGA still able to take back power in 2024, Democrats continue to have a focus larger than their own internal disagreements.

If Trump is imprisoned and Republicans lose the Presidency once again, will Progressives feel they can begin pushing harder for bigger changes? And this time will they follow the lead of the Freedom Caucus in using their votes against the moderate Democrats in order to push forward their progressive agenda?

Or is this simply a passing phase in American politics and the traditional party structure will return to normal after the 2024 election?

The outcome could simply be that moderate Conservatives mostly take back the Republican party, while the Progressive issues become the mainstream issues for the whole Democrat party.

We will find out in time.