How Screwed is the GOP Thanks to Elon Musk’s New Party?

Insights from history, business, campaigning, and modern reality give us a roadmap for what lies ahead with the America Party.

Israel-Iran? Old news.

The passage of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act? On its way to being old news, likely by midweek.

The latest? Elon Musk has started the America Party (AMEP). It’s what everyone wanted to know about in my Live yesterday (weekly, normally on Sundays, for paid subscribers), particularly the implications for our well-worn two-party system. Naturally, this endeavor has drawn a lot of attention because, at least on paper, it is a threat to the emerging dominance of the Republican Party.

Our electoral system is naturally set up to facilitate two major parties swapping power. I do think future historians will reference this fact as a major deficiency of the American Republic because countless ideologies are effectively stuffed into two shoeboxes, which is exactly why you see so much dissent and fighting going on within the parties in a country much bigger, diverse, and more populated than it was when the GOP popped up in the 1850s. If you want an example of how presidential elections have worked with several top-flight presidential candidates in the same race, check out 1824 or 1860.

Musk has melted down over Trump’s signature legislation passing, and kept his word to start a new party in anticipation of there being major fallout in the GOP ranks (there won’t be), and sadly enough, may be taking the wrong way to fulfilling a prediction I made when I thought he was going to be the watchman on the wall when it came to running off the Murkowskis of the anti-Trump right:

Many conservatives still can’t break out of their thought bubbles enough to realize that just because Elon Musk backed Donald Trump in the 2024 election, it doesn’t mean he’s a tried and true, rock-ribbed, conservative Republican who slings an AR-15 over his back when he goes out to survey his acreage. The new America First coalition is filled with populists who have an axe to grind against the government, which also overreaches against liberals, who sometimes wake up and figure it out, too. This is why we have a divide over H-1B visas forming, which is taking up far too much energy from discussions that will determine whether the next four years are a success…

My prediction is that Musk will single out and commit to ending the political careers of multiple lifelong bureaucrats. 2026 will show us just how successful he is in targeting these soulless hacks.

But how bad is this, really? That is what I’m here to discuss today to kick off your work week. Some who’ve been following politics for a long time are echoing the name H. Ross Perot, who famously took almost 19% of the vote in 1992 and cost George H.W. Bush, by my estimate, seven states – although not the election itself.

Ultimately, I have three main reasons that suggest to me Musk’s political aspirations will come up short. Without further ado:

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I. It’s Already Attracting Dirtbags

Americans may be exhausted at times by the two-party system, but that doesn’t mean you can put a fresh coat of paint on the same cast of characters and sell it as a cure-all for political malaise. Mark Cuban, the businessman billionaire with hurt pride over Trump’s political successes, was right out of the gate boosting the new party:

Anthony Scaramucci, a backstabber if there ever was one, was also in line to kiss Musk’s ass:

Musk may have his own agendas to drive, but he’s not where he is because he’s unintelligent; Anthony, I am 100% confident he knows that your last political act was to stab the President who appointed you square between the shoulder blades. You should sit this one out.

Celebrities aside, who does the new party really cater to? It’s not going to get the grassroots left, the ones that live in the big cities I profiled on Saturday, and Musk has enough colorful opinions about mass migration (although he supports H-1B Visas) to turn away even most mainline Democrats. The most he will peel off from the left are a few corporate Democrat influencers and their limited political followings here and there.

Musk’s main pitch is to the center-right and comes with the hopes that a Never Trump faction is alive and well and willing to throw in with an upstart party. On paper, this seems risky for the GOP, but in reality, the America First agenda is a winner and most of the Republican defectors Musk will need to make AMEP successful are unpopular within the party, as proven by their performances in GOP primaries and also their occasional dismissals from the party itself.

In short, Musk’s coalition will consist of tired corporate Democrats, fiscal hawks who no longer fit into the GOP and won’t support the most popular concepts of the America First agenda, and Trump hating bureaucrats who know they are otherwise ostracized from meaningful political careers without someone of Musk’s profile turning them into overnight online sensations. Where AMEP would appeal to people disenchanted with the two-party system, it will come up short based on its standard bearers.