Forward Party Targets Trump by Stealth

The political action committee Forward is making noises about challenging the Democratic and Republican Parties from the center, but its backers prove that its real goal is to create another obstacle to President Trump’s anticipated comeback campaign. Although Americans routinely tell pollsters they want more choices on the political diner menu, almost all third parties fail because the Democrats and Republicans adopt their policies, rendering their existence moot, or because they rely on big personalities.President Theodore Roosevelt’s Progressive and Ross Perot’s Reform Party proved unable to sustain themselves in their absence, and their supporters dissolved back into the status quo.Forward has no candidates at all right now — much less innovations worth stealing. Its closest historical antecedent is the Whig Party, formed in opposition to President Jackson, whose portrait Mr. Trump hung in the Oval Office after being compared to Old Hickory.But unlike the forgettable Whigs — who elected two celebrity presidents in the Roosevelt-Perot mold — Forward is concealing its anti-Trump bent, listing three priorities that are so generic as to be meaningless: “free people,” “thriving communities” and “vibrant democracy.”You’d be hard pressed to find an American left or right who opposes such inoffensive positions. Compare these platitudes to the last successful third party in America, the Republicans, which elected President Lincoln in 1860, just their second try for the White House.They did so not on reactionary anti-Jacksonian attacks or bromides, but with a platform declaring, “we deny the authority of Congress, of a territorial legislation, of any individual, or association of individuals, to give legal existence to slavery in any territory of the United States…”Instead of such boldness — which resulted in thirteen slave-holding Democratic states seceding and sparked the Civil War — Forward is walking the Whig road: Opposing an outsized personality.Known as the Forward Party until July, the PAC’s founder is millionaire former 2020 Democratic presidential and 2021 New York City mayoral candidate Andrew Yang, who is firmly left of center.Forward’s website even uses a recycled photograph from a 2019 rally for Mr. Yang’s White House campaign, the first clue that Forward is looking backwards. Further proof that Forward is just Democratic Party lite is that Mr. Yang said that he wanted them to adopt what’s now the new group’s platform, including three bland proposals: Ranked-choice voting, nonpartisan primaries, and independent redistricting commissions.This competition for leftist votes, according to Reuters, already has Democratic Party faithful worried about a redux of Ralph Nader’s 2000 Green Party candidacy, which they believe delivered the White House to President George W. Bush.The second clue about Forward’s Whig outlook is its highest-profile disaffected Republican — the former New Jersey governor, Christine Todd Whitman, who last made headlines for a tweet comparing Mr. Trump to Adolf Hitler, which she was forced to delete.That’s not centrist rhetoric, seeing as it’s condemned by the Anti-Defamation League every time it rears its ugly head, and two other groups that have merged with Forward boast backers of the same political breed.They are A Call for American Renewal, whose manifesto — written by Congresswoman Elizabeth Cheney, the most prominent Never Trumper in Congress — was signed by 150 disaffected Republicans.Also melted into Forward is the Serve America Movement, founded by Democrats and officials from Bush the Younger’s administration who are in the Cheney-Whitman anti-Trump mold.With its team in place, Reuters reports that Forward “aims to gain party registration and ballot access in 30 states by the end of 2023 and in all 50 states by late 2024.”Will opposing the MAGA movement be enough to attract campaigners to collect signatures, candidates to run, and then convince voters to pull the lever for Forward?More likely, a citizen who wishes to prevent a non-consecutive second term for Mr. Trump would choose the Democratic candidate, rather than — as is often the silver bullet for third-parties — “throw their vote away.” To become a serious political force, Forward would need big ideas or big personalities. So far, they’re offering nothing new on the menu, just warmed-over political pandering — and America already has two political parties serving plenty of that.___________Correction: President Lincoln was elected in 1860. An earlier version misstated the year.

Forward Party Targets Trump by Stealth

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