What is No Labels doing?

Photo credit: Spencer Platt/Getty Images

There was a curious aspect to the Russian military buildup that prefaced the escalation of Putin’s war of aggression in Ukraine in 2014. Mostly, the TV generals, media analysts and foreign policy experts all said there was no chance that the Russians would invade. After the invasion, they unanimously declared Ukraine could not survive. They were mostly all wrong.

At any rate, the buildup and subsequent logistics deployments indicated that Putin was doing far more than posturing. Long before most pundits understood it was an invasion force, it was clear that it was. There could be no other rationale for the sustainment of the Russian Army on the Ukrainian border at such levels other than as an aggressive force. Basic common sense and an elementary level of understanding around the Russian economy would have made clear that the Russians didn’t have the GDP to deploy their army for show. In other words, the Army assembled did exactly what it was designed to do, and more importantly, exactly what it looked like it was doing.

Let’s apply the Russian scenario to American politics.

What is No Labels doing?

Clearly, the Washington, DC-based and insider-run “reform” organization, funded by undisclosed right-wing billionaire donors with undisclosed policy and political agendas, is preparing to mount a presidential campaign. Pretending they aren’t doesn’t mean they aren’t.

There are a spate of stories that describe rising Democratic Party alarm over the prospect of No Labels fielding what Democrats describe as a “spoiler” candidate, and No Labels describes as an “emergency candidate.”

No labels lacks basic transparency around its donors, motives and strategy. They are purposely opaque. For example, they decry the imminence of a Biden-Trump rematch as unacceptable without ever being clear whether they measure Biden as similarly unacceptable as Trump. Why the mystery?  Would they abandon their plans if Gretchen Whitmer or Gavin Newsom were the Democratic nominee?

What exactly is the basis of the emergency? Is it Trump running again?  Is it Trump winning again? Is the effort built around the belief that Biden can’t beat Trump? Perhaps the premise is that Biden is fueling demand for Trump?  Does No Labels view Biden and Trump as equivalent figures, men, leaders and threats? Shouldn’t they say, or perhaps more importantly, shouldn’t someone ask?

The reason I ask is because they appear much like the Russian Army to me in the uncertain days before the war crimes commenced. They seem ready for action — well-provisioned, equipped and able to achieve their objectives, which is to gain ballot access in all 50 states for a third-party candidacy.  This matters because it renders almost every conversation about what will happen over the next 14 months as completely delusional. The straight truth is nobody knows what will happen, but the biggest impact will be the dramatic expansion of the electoral map from 17 battleground states to more than 40, with most having no national political infrastructure whatsoever.

The question at hand for No Labels is: what are their intentions? Anyone who believes that they are going to shut this down in June of 2024 has a real lack of imagination for the political id.

The question at hand for Democrats isn’t whether No Labels will, or won’t, or should. The question is how to win a three-party race, and prevent Donald Trump from returning to office. Neither party has an entitlement to some consideration. Both have alienated millions of Americans, and both are vulnerable to disruption. The disruption is as likely to come from truth-telling idealists as it is from opportunistic demagogues.

What is No Labels? Increasingly, the idea of a two-party election seems to be a casualty of the Trump era. Multitudes of Americans are fed up, disgusted, disillusioned and can’t stand the MAGA nuts any more than their left-wing doppelgängers. Overwhelmingly, the American people despise the media, politics and big institutions. They have little trust and no faith. Every single poll indicates that Americans do not want a Trump-Biden rematch, but that is exactly what the two-party system is producing.

What will the result of that be? Likely, it will be the beginning of America’s long overdue political crackup. Failed institutions are everywhere, and they are not unnoticed by the American people even if they remain invisible to the nation’s elites. Chief Justice John Roberts is a perfect archetype for this phenomenon. He believes the court he leads is capable of self-policing and retains credibility in the country. He doesn’t understand that the reputation of the court has been shattered by his colleagues from within, and that now it teeters on the edge of legitimacy on a good day.

No Labels claims to be bipartisan, but it is steered by a growing number of MAGA alumni and luminaries, such as the former Governor of North Carolina Pat McCrory, who cost his state $600 million in economic development, and lost re-election over his culture war crusades over bathrooms. He is the type of fireman that looks an awful lot like the arsonists who scorched America over these last seven awful years.

Why is Harlan Crow giving No Labels so much money? Centrism?

Much of the conversation around No Labels involves Democratic Party and media speculation around whether the effort is a “wolf in sheep’s clothing” designed to aid MAGA ambitions. I’ll answer the question and react to it. Probably, and it doesn’t matter. Again, winning is the only thing that matters. What is the Democratic plan to beat back a No Labels candidacy? Stopping it from happening seems increasingly unlikely.

What if the No Labels candidate is Senator Joe Manchin? What if his vice presidential running mate is Liz Cheney? Let’s say that the November 2024 ballot is Biden-Harris, Trump-Lake and Manchin-Cheney. Will the position of the Democratic Party be that this ballot alignment delivers the race to Trump? Are they arguing that Biden-Harris can’t secure 270 electoral votes, or that Manchin-Cheney can’t?

I laughed at a quote from Ryan Clancy, No Labels chief strategist, about his data model, which shows Trump as a unique variable:

There’s about 20 million voters in the model that in effect say, ‘I like Donald Trump’s policies, but I don’t like or want to vote for Trump,” That suggests a third-party candidate could cut into Trump’s numbers as well as Biden’s. But it also means that if Trump is not the standard bearer of the Republican Party, it’s much less likely that No Labels will launch a presidential candidate. At the moment, the organization doesn’t believe there’s much of a path to victory for a third-party candidate without Trump in the mix.

Twenty million people here. Twenty million people there. Everyone counted. Everyone measured. Everything is all sorted once again by the data scientists long before a single vote is cast.

Trust me when I tell you this: it’s all bullshit. His model is as accurate as chicken entrails. Let me say it again: no one knows what will happen in a three-way race.

Whatever it is that No Labels is doing, the American people deserve some transparency.  There are two operating theories about American politics that co-exist in our toxic era. The first is incorrect, and it is the belief that Donald Trump caused America’s political system to break. The second, which is correct, is that Donald Trump is a symptom of a decaying and rotten system. No Labels has advanced the premise that American politics is broken because of Trump, and the answer is an ideological balancing that will be restorative of the American system, simply by placing a Republican and a Democrat on the ballot together. It’s delusional.

Even worse, they are practitioners of the tactics that have broken the system that they claim they want to fix. Dark money, a lack of transparency, and opportunism created Trump. They aren’t the elixir that will beat him. In fact, it is the perfect potion to re-elect him, and when that happens America will have lost its democracy, and Americans will have lost their liberty. Likely forever.

The good news is that can’t be certain. Maybe a future generation will have more character, grit and courage than the generations that lost America because of indifference and apathy. They will certainly need it. Talking back freedom is much harder than defending it.

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