What’s the likelihood that a Trumpist third party forms or gains any traction going forward? I am seeing rumblings about it on rightwing social media but the historical record of American far-right parties over the last 80 years or so is spotty. Previous 3rd parties all /1

failed to build a mass movement or to elect their candidates. They served more as ideological hubs for segregationists, nativists & other political untouchables than as parties in any traditional sense of the word. The most successful was the George Wallace-affiliated /2

American Independent Party, whose presidential candidate John Schmitz won a million votes in 1972. Schmitz was a Republican Congressman from California. He supported by the JBS & others as a conservative alternative to Nixon. Another notable rightwing third party was 3/

Willis Carto’s Populist Party. Formed in 1984 by Carto and other rightwing extremists, the Populist Party ran candidates unsuccessfully in a number of statewide races in the 1980s and 1990s. Publications associated with the Populist Party served to connect disparate elements 4/

of the extra parliamentary American far right in the 1990s: militia movement, paleoconservative intellectuals, Buchananite populists, neo-Nazis and far right conspiracists. I would wager that any new Populist Party would play a similar role: rhetorically oppose the 5/

Republican Party from the right and threaten to run against moderate Republicans, but focus primarily on connecting rightwing activists and producing/disseminating ideological media. Would such a party be allowed to organize & proselytize on mainstream social media? 6/

Would electorally-minded party leader try to moderate the extremism & violence found in earlier radical right third parties, or do they buy in?Curious to hear the thoughts of others working on these & related topics @SethCotlar @DavidAstinWalsh @Joshua_A_Tait @CasMudde @beccalew