Maybe It's Finally Time

Watching the beginning of the 118th Congress, three thoughts immediately came to mind: First, democracy doesn’t come naturally to authoritarians. Second, addiction to power and an allergy to governing is a toxic mixture. And third, how pathetic is the opposition when so many voters across the country thought it best to take the keys from them and put the political equivalent of drunk drivers behind the wheel?

After pondering the madness for a while, a fourth thought occurred to me: Might we have conditions on our hands that allow or even necessitate the emergence of something that’s visited our country only once before, namely a new political party in America capable of supplanting one or both of the existing major parties?

Such a party can’t think or act like a third party. It has to behave as if it aims to be the nation’s first party, a majority party.

Such a party can’t be built to the left of the Democrats or to the right of the Republicans. Fringe parties are nearly always in the pr…