When the Republican Party ousted Liz Cheney from a leadership position, it exposed a major ideological divide within the current GOP. That caused some people, including prominent Republicans, to suggest there might be a third party in the making.

Most commentators and political scientists have dismissed that idea, observing the inevitability of U.S. politics remaining a two-party system.

But my research finds circumstances are better now for a third-party insurgency than at any time over the past century. Though there is no way to predict precisely when a third party will emerge, the situation is in fact ripe for a third party to challenge what has become a Donald Trump-controlled Republican Party.

My research also finds that the most successful third parties in U.S. politics don’t typically rise to dominance but instead challenge the major parties enough to force them to change course.

A brief history of US third parties

In my 2018 book, “The Demise and Rebirth of American Third Parties,” I explain that the strength of third parties since the American Civil War has been closely related to how polarized the two major parties have been. When the major parties are highly polarized, larger groups of voters end up being not represented by either one, and the intense contention between them also increases political dissatisfaction.

The Democratic and Republican parties were extremely polarized for a half-century after the Civil War. During this period, third parties were aggressive and strong.

Their goal, however, was not to attempt multiparty democracy, as some hope for today.

Supporting poor farmers and opposing business monopolies, the Greenback Party shook up electoral politics in the 1870s and 1880s, winning widespread support, especially across the Midwest. The Populist Party, which was also a party supporting poor farmers, was even more successful in the 1890s. It collapsed by 1900, but during its brief existence it threatened the Democratic Party to the degree that the Democrats eventually adopted many Populist stands and made leading Populist William Jennings Bryan their presidential candidate.

Read:
https://theconversation.com/us-third-parties-can-rein-in-the-extremism-of-the-two-party-system-162403