Millennials are shattering the oldest rule in politics. Western conservatives are at risk from generations of voters who are no longer moving to the right as they age

It would take some major shifts in laws or one person to go nuts.

For the shift in laws, there would need to be most states moving to ranked choice voting. This would enable third parties to thrive as people wouldn’t feel like they were “throwing their votes away” when they vote for a third party. Consequently, you get more moderate candidates and more third party representation with this method of election.

For the one crazy person, all it would take is Trump forming his own MAGA party. For everyone who keeps wondering why Republicans continue to defend him (albeit begrudgingly) this is why. If he feels they’ve turned on him, he’ll start his own party. There aren’t enough words to describe how disastrous this would be for Republicans.

For an example of what would happen, look at what happened in 1912 when FDR formed his own party to run against Taft and Wilson. FDR and Taft split the vote and Wilson won an election he otherwise wouldn’t have won.

If Trump forms his own party, he and the republican presidential candidate will split the conservative vote enough that purple states will easily go blue and most red states will go purple at best. In fact, even states like Texas and Florida would be in play for dems if Trump began his own party. It wouldn’t be a question of who would win, it would be how much the democrat candidate would win by. The only states that may stay red are the deeply, deeply red states.

And that’s not taking into account if house remembers leave to join Trump’s party (people like MTG or Boebert). Even if they caucus with republicans, it still fucks them up for things like leadership votes and speaker of the house votes. What’s to stop the 20 or whatever MAGA members from refusing to back the republican choice for speaker? They could essentially hand pick who they want because the alternative would be a democrat speaker. It would become a game of chicken between republicans and MAGA reps.

Plus any district that is running a republican, MAGA, and democrat will see the democrat suddenly have a much better chance. Red state senators running against MAGA and Democrats would lose reelection in all but the deepest of red states.

If a MAGA party ran a nominee in every national election for 2-4 election cycles, democrats wouldn’t just win, there is a chance they’d pick up enough seats in the house and senate to straight up amend the constitution. Red states would be clamoring for ranked choice voting because it would be their best shot at winning seats.

The only bright side for republicans is that such a majority for democrats would inevitably lead to infighting and the Democratic Party splitting into moderates and far left. This wouldn’t be instantaneous, though, it would take a solid decade or so to happen.

Still, I cannot overemphasize how disastrous it would be for republicans if Trump formed his own party. It will kill the republican party dead. Every single top republican knows that. Trump knows that. It is why he knows he’s basically immune and republicans will defend him, even if they’re holding their nose and doing so begrudgingly.

Republican leaders have no choice but to hold their nose and keep defending the guy. They’ll just do as little as they think they can to keep him from forming his own party.

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