No Labels
A new “political movement”, stocked with millions of dollars from anonymous donors is contemplating a run for President in 2024. It’s the “No Labels” party, hoping to find a “middle lane” in the American political spectrum. Notable leaders of “No Labels”: Joe Lieberman former Democratic (and Independent) US Senator from Connecticut, and former Maryland Republican Governor Larry Hogan.
The ”No Labelers” offer three things to American voters. First, they avoid the extremes of Democratic Progressivism or Republican MAGA-ism. They are “centrists”. In the old days we called them moderate-right, where the two political parties used to “intersect”: Rockefeller Republicans and Manchin “Blue Dog” Democrats. Second, they claim “common sense” solutions, and even take credit for creating the bipartisan “Problem Solver’s Caucus” in the House of Representatives. And third, they hope to offer an alternative for voters who held their noses to vote in the “Biden v. Trump” dilemma of 2020.
In short, they hope to claim the “middle ground” of American politics. And they have enough money to get on the ballot in most of the fifty states.
The Middle Ground
It’s a seductive idea. America is polarized to the extremes, and has been for over a decade. A “No Labels” party running centrist candidates like John Kasich, Larry Hogan, Liz Cheney, Joe Manchin, or John Hickenlooper might appeal to Americans “in the middle”. Leave Trump his 33% of MAGA crazies, and give Biden his 40%, and that means that – the math doesn’t work. It adds up to 27% of the vote left – not a winning number.
And that’s the assumption we need to think about. Is there really a “middle-ground” of American thought, or is today’s polarization so extreme that, simply, no one is left in the middle? Does a “No Labels” ticket offer a way out of our crisis, or would it just assure a minority candidate victory either in the Electoral College or in a House of Representatives tie-breaking vote?
1860
Here’s an imperfect historic example. The last time the United States was so heavily divided was prior to the Civil War in 1860. In that election there were actually four national candidates running for President. One “extreme” was the new Republican Party led by Abraham Lincoln of Illinois. Lincoln was considered “anti-enslavment”, though he was really against the expansion of enslavement into the new US territories. The alternative extreme was the break-away Southern Democratic Party led by John Breckenridge of Kentucky. Breckenridge wanted legal enslavement for the entire United States, North, South and terriories.
In the middle was Stephen Douglas of Illinois, the nominee of the “rest” of the Democratic Party, who favored “popular sovereignty”; allowing individual states and territories to determine the enslavement question by vote. And finally, there was Constitution Union Party nominee John Bell of Tennessee. Bell took no stand on enslavement, only stating that he would follow the existing Constitution and the laws.
Minority President
The number of candidates shaped the outcome of the election. No one candidate received a majority of the popular vote. Lincoln got 39% while Douglas received just over 30%. And while Douglas was a strong second in several Northern states, Lincoln was able to win every one, and gain enough electoral votes to win the Presidency. Breckenridge had 18% of the popular vote, but with a strong showing in the South, ended up second in the Electoral College. And John Bell won three states and came in third in the Electoral Vote with only 12% of the popular vote. Douglas ended up fourth in the Electoral College.
Add Douglas and Bell together, the “middle ground” votes, and while together they might have a plurality of the popular vote, they still wouldn’t do much better in the Electoral College. America in 1860 was locked into two camps, enslavement and anti-enslavement; there was little left in the middle. Had the Democrats somehow avoided splitting into two camps, they likely would have won. But the point was, that even a “popular sovereignty” guy from Illinois was too “extreme” for the enslavement South.
2024
So where are we today? If the nominees of 2024 are a repeat of 2020, we know that the election will be a knife-edge choice. While Biden won the electoral vote by seventy-four in 2020, the popular vote in the swing states was incredibly narrow. Less than 100,000 votes out of the 152 million determined the election winner, just like in 2016, where Clinton won by three million, but lost the crucial electoral states by a total of 74,744 votes.
How did Joe Biden succeed in Georgia, Arizona and Wisconsin in 2020? He picked up the “Never Trump” voters, those Republicans who couldn’t stomach MAGA-ism. And they are the voters most likely to go to a “No Labels” candidate, along with those few independents and moderate Democrats convinced that Biden is under the thrall of the “radical” left.
Those voters cross age groups and genders. We know that the MAGA “Red Wall” won’t crumble to what they view as a “RINO” movement. But we do know that those few voters still “in the middle” can’t win an election, but do control the outcome.
Our Republic
Our politics today aren’t like a multi-lane interstate highway. We are driving on a two- lane “Red and Blue” country road, and the “No Label” movement is trying to take it’s half out of the middle. There’s only one result from that; a head-on collision with one Party or the other.
The Republicans of 2016 didn’t split into two parties like the Democrats of 1860. Instead, they signed onto the MAGA “pledge”. Even the so-called “establishment Party” of the time, Paul Ryan, Reince Prebis, Mitch McConnell, Dan Quayle and Dick Cheney; jumped on board the MAGA train. By staying together, they orchestrated the Trump win in 2016. And while all of those leaders have disavowed Trump now, they created a new MAGA Republican Party that they can’t control.
Many Americans are uncomfortable with that, just as many were uncomfortable with the choices of 1860. But, at least for now, there isn’t a “moderate” movement that can create a majority to win the Presidency. Which leaves us with that same “binary choice”, the one we made in 2016 and 2020. What the “No Labelers” can do, intentionally or not, is guarantee an extremist victory, of the side with the most loyal followers. In short, the well-meaning “moderates” of No Labels, will end up giving America another four years of Donald Trump. They’re driving down the middle of the road, and they’ll take-out the Democratic Party in the Blue lane.
I’m not sure the Republic can survive that.
