Might U.S. federal politics evolve — or perhaps devolve, depending on your point of view — into the type of multiparty scene that dominates Canadian elections?
Reports circulate that while recently departed U.S. president Donald Trump grapples with a second impeachment trial, more than 100 influential former Republican officials are actively engaged in discussions concerning the possible formation of a new centre-right American political party.
U.S. elections have, through all of our lifetimes, essentially been contested by the Democratic and Republican parties with an occasional disturbance caused by a third-party. The most memorable and impactful challenge came from Texas billionaire Ross Perot. In the 1992 quest for the White House, Perot garnered nearly 20 million votes through a highly populist agenda waged primarily on U.S. cable television, according to an analysis on CNN.
Did Perot’s presence cost George H.W. Bush the presidency? Opinions are many and opposing. Try a Google search asking “did Ross Perot cost Bush the 1992 election?” (You’ll get about 128,000 results — or at least I did on Friday.)
Almost one of five Americans — 19 per cent — chose to cast their fate with the upstart Perot and his stop NAFTA campaign
Today, a question frequently posed is this: is the United States of 2021 more divided than at any time since that nation’s civil war?
Perhaps.
The impeachment effort against Trump, no matter how much the repeat is cheered by his detractors, is sure to infuriate Trump loyalists among the 74.2 million Americans who declared their desire for a second Trump mandate as POTUS during the Nov. 3, 2020 election.
Do Americans who voted for Trump believe they have a political score to settle?
An opportunity will present itself in less than two years during the midterm elections of 2022. Some forecasts project Republicans are on track to regain control of the House of Representatives.
Sure, it may be fashionable and even desirable for some today to support the emergence of a third more centrist political party in America, but to dyed-in-the-wool Republicans still influenced by each Trumpian finger-wag, former government officials turning their backs on the GOP flag will be seen as deserters.
Democratic party voters, in appreciable numbers, will hardly consider a new right-of-centre option to be worthy of their attention, let alone electoral support.
Even a frequently rumoured Donald Trump-created political party would stumble out of contention at voting time, I would suspect.
Added to the goulash of American uncertainty is the increasingly debated question of whether the U.S. may be headed toward dissolution.
Bottom line?
There are scores to be settled in the United States. Major scores.
The presence of a new occupant in the Oval Office — one with five decades of political baggage — is not likely to significantly affect that reality.
Stand by.
Roy Green is the host of the Roy Green Show on the Global News Radio network.
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