By: Bill King
With No Labels abandoning its bid to run its “unity ticket” in 2024, the last hope for a moderate alternative to the duopoly of our incumbent parties for this election cycle vanished. This cycle began with great excitement in the middle of the political spectrum. e parties had careened so far toward the edges that it seemed a moderate alternative would finally emerge. In addition, to the No Labels e ort, Andrew Yang’s Forward Party merged with the SAM Party and the Renew America Movement to form a new party that could have been that moderate alternative.
But it was not to be. After spending millions on ballot access, No Labels was unable to nd a credible candidate willing to run under its banner and the Forward Party has shrunk into irrelevance. With an election cycle that began with so much hope and enthusiasm for upsetting the duopoly, what went wrong? Fundamentally, these movements ignored history. We have only had one successful third party in our country’s history. That was the founding of today’s Republican Party in the 1850s. At that time, the Democrat and Whig parties were the dominant parties. However, as the country grappled with the issue of slavery, both shirked from addressing the most important issue of that generation. So, a group of principled Americans decided to band together in a new political party that would take the issue head-on.
After the passage of the Kansas Nebraska Act in 1854, that opened those two states to slavery, many in the Whig and Free Soil parties broke with their parties and began to form state Republican parties, mostly across the Mid-West. More support quickly followed in New England and among Christian denominations opposed to slavery, the Methodists and Quakers, in particular. The first convention was held in September of that year in Illinois, where the name “Republican” was officially adopted. That year the Republican party won the governorship of Michigan and a number of incumbents in Congress joined the party. There were seven senators who identified as Republicans in the 34th Congress (1855-1857) and about 30 Republicans participated in a united opposition caucus in the House. Interestingly, Lincoln was not involved in the early days of the party, opting instead to attempt to revive the collapsing Whig party. His early misguided e orts remind me of some of my moderate Republican friends who believe the Reagan Bush golden years will someday return.
