A third party to impose some pain on the Trumpified GOP

msn.com ^ | 10/12/21 | Jonah Goldberg

[cotton1706]

I have always been — and remain — a skeptic of third parties, because they punish the party they have the most in common with. The historian Richard Hofstadter famously quipped that “Third parties are like bees: once they have stung, they die.”

But in this scenario, that’s a feature, not a bug. The point is to cause the GOP some pain for its descent into asininity. Giving conservatives turned off by both the Democrats and the Trumpified GOP a way to vote their conscience in the general election would put political pressure on Republican candidates to curtail their Trump sycophancy. It would also serve to remind the GOP that if you abandon conservative principles, conservatives might abandon you.

[virginia9000]

Jonah Goldberg hasn’t a single clue just how irrelevant he is!

[x]

Jonah doesn't remember that his conservative movement was always a coalition of factions that needed to stay together in order to win elections. And he doesn't want to remember that politicians have been compromising their principles since time immemorial, and just what conservative principles are has changed with time.

Also, he wants to make out that Trump is some kind of evil radical interloper, when in fact Trump was able to keep most of those conservative factions together and bring in millions of voters without any factional loyalties, while he and his own group have been the ones unwilling to compromise and cooperate.

But his bunch is The Dispatch. The Bulwark is another bunch. They're similar, but they probably don't get along too well.