← The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show
The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show
Could Elon Musk's Third Party Ever Win In America? | Ep. 39
00:51:47
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- [00:00]
David Rutherford
This is an iHeart podcast.
- [00:04]
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- [00:35]
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- [01:06]
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- [01:32]
David Rutherford
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- [02:30]
David Rutherford
Should America have more than a two party system? Well, Elon Musk and 5,630,000 people believe we should today on the David Rutherford show. What's up everybody? I am super fired up to be back with you. And today is a question that I think most people have been on and off about since the history of political parties in the United States. And that's whether or not we are done with a two party system. Now all of this is coming to fruition after Elon Musk posted on June 5 after his little, what would you call that, Jordy? What would you call that? A little spat he had with the President which came. A little freak out, A little crash out.
- [03:19]
Jordy
That's what they said.
- [03:20]
David Rutherford
Yeah, yeah, a little crash out spat that took place on Twitter after the one big beautiful bill numbers came out. And what happened as a result is Elon Musk presented a poll on X, which by far is the number one news site in the world and the number one site in many, I don't even know, a hundred plus countries around the world. And he asked this is it time to create a new political party in America that actually represents the 80% in the middle? And he had everybody vote and guess what? 5,630,775 people voted now guaranteed. Probably these were people from around the world. These were not all Americans. These were, you know, probably who knows who was voting. Many people maybe tried to vote multiple times or bot farms voted, who knows what voted. But that's the biggest sample size that I think I've pretty much ever seen in this. And the result was on July 4th, 4th, Elon Musk announced that he was going to start a new political party and call it the American Party now. Right. I mean I think it's really creative. I, you know, now why, why do we need this? Well, I mean for since our inception back in the day, Americans have always gotten frustrated in some way, shape or form with the people that are leading them. And I think nowadays there are multiple things that have provok the American public. I mean obviously we saw an absolute collapse of the Democratic Party in the last three presidential election cycles. Why I think the most obvious was that the Democratic, the DNC had the whole thing rigged. I think, you know, once we saw Bernie Sanders get the shaft in 16 basically, you know, pushed out and Hillary Clinton coming in. Then in 2020 we saw just a radical display of voter fraud, negligence, control. I mean the presidential candidate won, supposedly won, you know, 81 million votes, the most more votes in human history. And the dude never left his basement. And his cognitive disabilities were prevalent even back then. Everyone could see it, but somehow 81 million votes, and I can't wait till we get into that. And then, obviously.
- [06:06]
Jordy
Sharp as attack, though.
- [06:07]
David Rutherford
Yeah, Sharp, sharp attack. He's the best Joe Biden I've ever seen. Right? Joe Scarborough and Clan. Right. And I love the mashups they have right now of, of all of that. Right.
- [06:17]
Jordy
And then the matchups of the meltdown when they realize that Trump is winning.
- [06:21]
David Rutherford
Oh, my God, I've watched that more.
- [06:23]
Jordy
Than, more times than I want to admit.
- [06:25]
David Rutherford
And then, and then what happened, man? Then what happened to all those swing states. But that's a whole nother show. And we're going to get into that soon because that's beginning to come out. And it's going to come out with a vengeance here. My guess, it's going to come with a vengeance probably six to eight months prior to the 2026 election. And anyway, so, you know, you have. And then he gets in office and now we see the industrial censorship complex just explode. I was a result of that. Right. I got censored. You know, you had government working in conjunction with social media companies. Then you had the craziness of the dei, the ESG stuff. I mean, just everything went bonkers. And, and even people within that political party were like, wait a minute, this is not the old school Democratic Party that I support. They actually even became the Warhawks Party, which is bizarre to me.
- [07:20]
Jordy
The crazy thing is all of those were conspiracies that have now hardened into facts.
- [07:24]
David Rutherford
Oh, my God.
- [07:25]
Jordy
Yeah, well, they start with like, oh, they're crazy people online just saying that they're just, you know, making things up, all the right wing extremists. And then just slowly, time after time, all the way up, culminating, I believe, when Tulsi Gabber just dropped on us. You just get the evidence. It just eventually it comes out. And those conspiracy theories are just early facts.
- [07:44]
David Rutherford
Well, that's what I'm saying. And I think that's ultimately what begins to provoke the idea of a new party. Because within, within the party system, you know, they're, they're basically loose coalitions within those within the system, within the, the two main systems themselves. And then people become disgruntled and begin to emerge. Like what we've seen. I, you know, we just did a show recently, I hope you all listened int to the MAGA split and what's taking place primarily as a result of what we're seeing with, with Elon Musk, the Doge cuts becoming cert, you know, solidified cuts in spending all this stuff. And now you're seeing a disenfranchisement within those systems. Some, some of our foreign policy stuff lately. And that's what takes place throughout history. Now, you know, the question is, always becomes, you know, can a third party emerge and have success within this juggernaut system that we have? And so today what I really wanted to do was just kind of dig in, you know, in a, in a, in a way that can give some context to the historical nature of it. And then also, you know, within the system we have, what are some, you know, decent options.
- [09:03]
Jordy
This will be a good episode because I need this episode because admittedly I'm pessimistic. I'm one of those people that goes, man, I would love another party. I see the problems with the two party system. I get it. I get the whole argument. I don't. I haven't been convinced yet that we can have a third party because of the way, you know, the, the majority of votes, the way we vote versus the way Europe votes. And I just think that a third party, is it just gonna, you know, coalesce into one of the two existing ones to, you know, have that super majority or whatever it's called? I need it. You need to con. So I need this, I need this episode.
- [09:41]
David Rutherford
Well, it's not only you, Jordy. It's also, you know, you in your car right now, you know, and, and driving in and going, yeah, what's going on? And I'm getting tired of both things. You know, why aren't we getting more government accountability? Why can't we see. Why can't we prosecute the people within involved in Epstein? Why can't we know, you know, the corruption that went on with the Clinton Foundation? Why. Why are we not seeing all this? And you know, I think a tremendous amount of people, including myself and you listening right now, you, you feel something's off. And, you know, that's for a multitude of reasons, but I think most, most notably, we have more access to information now than we ever have. And we've got a better way to analyze the probability of whether or not things can work or not. And so, you know, first, before we get into it, you know, you have to realize that not the Constitution of the United States precludes there from being just a two party system. There's nothing that says, oh no, it only works with two parties. That's it. It just doesn't exist. Now, obviously, through different, what are they, Federal Election Commission, FEC laws? You know, different states have different processes to become eligible to be on a ballot. Right. We saw that significant significantly with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Who ultimately, because the DNC was suing him, was actually suing him, led by Mark Elias in his activities, basically saying we're going to sue you into submission and not allow you to get enough signatures in order to be able to get on the ballot. Now what's crazy is in some places those signatures are as low as 1,000 signatures. Right. And then in some places is like, like California, it's 100,000 signatures. And then obviously what we've seen over and over is that these major parties and their, you know, their, their, their, the lawfare that they're capable of, of waging, you know, they're going to do everything they can to prevent that. Right. They really believe that he was a threat. So what do you end up doing? He ran as an independent, you know, you know, and the, the system has been known in a couple different ways. And one of the things, it's, it's political system that means, you know, the, the person who ends up winning the majority of votes ends up collecting all of the electoral votes for the state. Now states by no measure are bound to this type of, of structure. In fact, when you look at Maine and Nebraska, they have the option to give their electoral votes to, to divide them up to give them who they want, which is a very interesting idea and, and something to consider as I talk about end of this or whether or not this political, the American party is going to gain any steam.
- [12:51]
Jordy
1.1 slight detail I just want to throw in there for people who don't know about this because I didn't very recently. It doesn't have to be the majority. It's whatever candidate has the most votes. Now that might not be over 50%. Right. But it's just the first one to get more than all the other people. Even if that's, that could be 10. You know, I mean, if you had a bunch of people.
- [13:13]
David Rutherford
That's right, that's right. And that's a key indicator and that's really, you know, and overseas that what they'll do is they'll, they'll divvy up seats based on percentages and highest and lows and, but not here. Right. It's, it's, that goes back to that first past the post political system. There's a brilliant guy at Hillsdale College. I'm forgetting what his, his name is right now. Maybe we'll put a link. He's got a great Little video on YouTube that we'll post in the notes here of, of this show that really kind of explains the basics of this system. Now you know, the idea is, you know, are there what are the pros and cons versus this? Obviously, you know, the pros are. It really drives. Incentive for the main system to be able the main party to work in kind of a coalition based framework which you know, the Democratic Party since really, since the 1950s has been, you know, a grand coalition of all these dis. And we saw it, you know, considerably recently. We've got all these, the progressive, progressive wing, you've got, you know, all these different groups. You've got Blue Dog Democrats, Democrats, you've got the squad, you've got all these. And they, and they break down like that within Congress as well, right. We've got these caucuses that end up, you know, kind of you having to convince to get a majority vote within the House or the Senate, you know, the Freedom Caucus within the Republican Party or you know, like I said, the squad and the Democratic Party.
- [14:51]
Jordy
So would the MAGA movement be an example of that?
- [14:55]
David Rutherford
Well, you know, nothing has been quite formalized when in either one in the House or the Senate as a particular MAGA movement. And I think, you know, the Freedom Caucus is kind of the, the, the, the root cause. You know, you've got Eli Crane in that group who, you know, another team guy who's got some great interviews that he did with, with Sean on, on his show, which I highly recommend you check those out if you're listening. And so you have this kind of caucus base, coalition based thing. And even in the Republican Party, as you know, you have, you know, traditionalists in the party. You have Tea Party old school. Yep. Oh my God, you've got Tea Party members.
- [15:35]
Jordy
Neocons.
- [15:37]
David Rutherford
Yeah, yeah, I, that's great. You know, foreign. And I think it really kind of.
- [15:41]
Jordy
Divides probably unofficial though, right?
- [15:45]
David Rutherford
Well, I mean I think the Tea Party tried it at its hand to be, you know, its own party, you know, as kind an off offshoot of the Libertarian Party in some capacity. But they, you know, the, the challenge is funding, right? And that's really where it becomes substantial because you're in these massive races against these juggernauts with you know, all these.
- [16:08]
Jordy
Different, you know, dnc dude, good luck.
- [16:11]
David Rutherford
Well, you look at like the grassroots aspect of what ActBlue was able to accomplish, right? And you had millions of these voters, Democratic voters from this wide of this coalition that were giving on a regular basis, you know, 5, 10, 15, $20 every month. And then it became this juggernaut. Now I will say, you know, the. To the great work of Mr. James O' Keefe and, oh my God, our OMG Media, his company, he did this wonderful expose that really discovered that ActBlue had been compromised. Right? Huh? No, actually, no, it's wild. He actually showed up at these. Voters in rural Virginia would show up to these old people's house and say, you know, knock on the door and say, excuse me, ma', am, I'm a journalist, but have you donated to Act Blue? And they'd be like, oh, yeah, I donated. And you know, and. And he's like, well, it says here that you donated $125,000 after. Over the last three. And they're like, oh, my goodness, I'm on a fixed income. There's no way I could have done that.
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Jordy
Oh my God.
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David Rutherford
Oh. The corruption in this thing is substantial. And what many people believe is those donations were hidden and they were foreign donations coming from China, coming from the Middle east, coming from all over the place. But that's another part of investigation that we need to get to the bottom of as well, too. And the other cool, radical thing about within one of the collation aspects, the BLM movement, guess who ran. Who ran and controlled BLM's funding and fundraising. Fundraising. Act Blue. So when you went to BLM and donated to blm, that money went to Act Blue, which was the fundraising juggernaut of, of the Democratic Party. Right. Anyway, so.
- [18:08]
Jordy
We need an ngo, dude, that's. That's what we're missing. We need, we need to get us an ngo.
- [18:13]
David Rutherford
Well, they're already in there. What are you talking about? There's all these religious NGOs that we saw in the last component. Right, where you had one. Ngo, a Christian based NGO in Texas. I forget where it was. They went from annually getting about $40 million a year, 40, $45 million a year to $250 million a year. And that was through government funding. So what do you have? You have essentially them bringing in all these illegal aliens. Well, what is part of the process of that? Well, you try and get them identification so they can work. Well, then what? Take that identification, you go to the local registrar, you know, and you register those people to vote based on their, their things. A huge thing just got busted down in Texas doing this. Like, it was like 25 people within the Democratic Party that got busted for doing this. So, you know, you, you have these systems, obviously there's so much money taking place, there's so much space for corruption. You Know, that's, I think that's another aspect of why, you know, you're frustrated. Like I am. Like, I know, you know, the people that are listening are frustrated as well too. So, you know, you, you know, one of the thing that, you know it, this concept called party sorting. So if one party has a tendency to lean too far one way or the other, you know, what you have is the breakdown of coalition. Then people just, you know, are like, well, I'm not voting for that, I'm not being a part of it. And then you lose that consensus. Well, one of the things we've seen over the last eight years or more than that, I would say prob. We're going in, you know, 15, 16 years now is this, you know, the consolidated effort of the Democratic Party. Like they vote, lock, stop, lockstep with each other and they don't break those party lines, which has created this, you know, pretty divisive system. But you know what, here's the deal. It's always been divisive. Like we have, I think the American public gets to a certain place and it's like, oh no, no, politics used to be cool. Like it was very, you know, very, very regimented and all this. And that's all bull. Like, you know, here, like I just found this out, you know, based on this last election cycle that, you know, back in the early 1900s, like senators didn't even run campaigns. They were appointed by the parties, right? So like the RNC or the DNC or you know, whatever, the bull moose party of Theodore Roosevelt, right. In early 1900, like they would appoint, appoint, you know, if you won, you appointed senators and they appointed, who would get these, these positions. So, so there's a lot of nuance about this that I think is, is really creates a difficult hurdle to overcome if you're a new party. But we'll get into that, right? You know, the other aspect is the idea of the direct primary. You know, that really kind of ingrains the idea of this two party system system where you're gonna run against another person, you win the primary, you get the voters in your area, you know, in these, these districts, and you know, you're good to go, you win the primary, you move in, you're the favorite. Now that's the, where we have this other, you know, thing that becomes very problematic for us as voters is the gerrymandering that takes place. And this takes place with all different types, right? Whether it's a faulty consensus by integrating illegal residents of who have no place justifying the differences of, of, of how many congressional seats a particular state gets, right? Then there's also within the states themselves, you know, how they rearrange and gerrymander districts.
- [22:08]
Jordy
You know, this is bipartisan, right?
- [22:10]
David Rutherford
Like, I mean, yes, they both do this right. Both do this right. It benefits them. And, and you know, it's obvious it comes out that they have discussions about this thing. Well, we'll give you, we'll give you the west side of Boca or we'll give you this little piece over of Kissimmee or, you know, of, you know, and we're going to move this and, and, and, and that's what you're doing. You're, you're, you're, you're rigging your area to make sure that you get enough voters so that you're never going to get primaried, right? You're never going to have some candidate come in and overwhelm you who's from a different party. And that's how this whole system works. You know, I think, let me just, let's just take a break from this and let me just give a kind of a brief, brief summation of the history of parties in America. Right?
- [23:02]
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- [25:16]
David Rutherford
Your people.
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- [25:34]
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- [26:05]
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- [26:31]
David Rutherford
Learn more@abekahomeschool.com and let me just give a kind of a brief summation of the history of parties in America. Right. You know, I think the first party system really originated. Everybody's familiar with the wonderful Broadway play called Hamilton, right? And the Federalists, you know, and what was interesting is this is the part that I think people need to think about if they start to think about third parties emerging or whatever is what are the core Issues for Americans. And what have been those core issues from the beginning? And so what did the Fed. What did Hamilton and his people, what were they supporting? They supported strong central government, a national bank. Right. Commerce and ties with Britain. It was funded by the wealthy elites and commercial interests. All right. Had early victories with President Adams, Right. But declined after the War of 1812. Then here was an interesting one. And many people don't realize this, but the other party at the time was called what the Democratic Republicans. And this is essentially Jefferson and Madison, right. Where the champions of this emerging party and they, they champion agra aggregation. I can never say this, dude. Agrarian agrarianism. Right. That states rights and strict constitutional interpretation. Right. So that's key, you know, to begin to. I understand. So it's, it's money, states rights, influence, right. Foreign policy. Right. And this, you know, this really was the, the, the system. All right, so what, when did the second party system emerge? And this was basically from 1824 to the 1850s. And you had the Democratic Party. Who was the big little trivia question for you, Jordy? Who was the first. Who was the first pipe hitter in the Democratic Party?
- [28:36]
Jordy
Democratic. Not Federalist.
- [28:38]
David Rutherford
Not Federalist, Not Democratic Republicans, but the Democratic Democrat Party.
- [28:44]
Jordy
Dude, I'm gonna embarrass myself if I answer this. I got no clue.
- [28:48]
David Rutherford
Andrew Jackson.
- [28:49]
Jordy
Oh, dog.
- [28:50]
David Rutherford
Right, right. Who is a populace. Right. Pro states rights. Right. And it was all about this grassroots, small donations, you know, large number of people. And, and they really, really connected with, with the people. And I think, you know, also, because he was a war hero, he, he was a badass. Was. Yeah, he was badass. When you, when you, when you do the research on. And Andrew Jackson, you know, nothing other than he was a badass. Right. Grew the country bigger than anybody else, really. A powerful. Well, you also had the Whig party that emerged. Right. And these are the opponents of Andrew Jackson, who were pro federal investment people and infrastructure. And they were funded by the businessmen, right. And the elites, William Henry Harrison. But the party eventually was dismantled over, you know, the concept of slavery. The third party system, 1850s to the 1890s. You had the Republicans, right? And we. Who's the most notorious Republican in history?
- [30:00]
Jordy
Abe Lincoln.
- [30:02]
David Rutherford
Honest Abe Lincoln. Right. Anti slavery, pro business, high tariffs, you know, kind of anti central banking, you know, systems. But high tariffs get other, other countries who want to deal with us to pay their fair share and historic wins.
- [30:19]
Jordy
That was, that was the Industrial revolution around that time. So we needed it. Right?
- [30:23]
David Rutherford
Yeah, well, it began, right, early kind of 1840s. 1850s railroads started going big, transcontinental commerce, shipping grew. Industrialization began.
- [30:36]
Jordy
That's the only way we could compete probably as an emerging country.
- [30:40]
David Rutherford
That's right.
- [30:40]
Jordy
You need the tariffs, right?
- [30:42]
David Rutherford
Yep, 100%. Why? Because our, the south was producing a tremendous amount of goods that were going overseas. Right. Sugar, tobacco.
- [30:54]
Jordy
Yes.
- [30:54]
David Rutherford
All this stuff that was really, you know, the, the juggernaut of, of the Southern states. Then you had the Democrats right. Regionally with urban southern support, back to immigrant labor, rural interests and fluctu in power through the Gilded Age. Now, you know, post Civil War, the Republicans really dominated all the way up and through that time, right through the.
- [31:20]
Jordy
Reconstruction era, because they were anti slavery and they won. Right.
- [31:24]
David Rutherford
Well, they, they pretty much demolished the, the old school system. Right. And they had, you know, so much industrialization going in particular beginning in the 1870s, 80s and 90s that you know, the south, because it had been essentially decimated these farms, I mean they, they restructured and, and came back with a vengeance under those Jim Crow laws.
- [31:47]
Jordy
And their economy collapsed because their, their cost of labor just went through the roof. If you can't. Slavery, obviously. And so yeah, the north obviously would crush them because they had all the, it was all industrial.
- [31:59]
David Rutherford
That's right. All right. So within the 20th century, things really began to shift. Right. You know, I think what was interesting for me was you had had, you know, Teddy Roosevelt really kind of excelled at turn of the century based on kind of American might and industrialization, but was another badass. Yeah. But he had very progressive views. And it was like, hey, you know, let's get rid of child labor. Let's. Women's suffrage was a big thing. But after he came out, you know, he went back into politics and that's when he started. And this was really, in my opinion, the first of the 33rd party candidates. And this was the Bull Moose party. Right. Which was the Progressive Party of 1912 because he lost the Republican nomination to Howard Taft. Right. So he rose run as this third party. So on women's suffrage, labor protections, direct democracy, regulation of corporations. Right. He wanted to break up the monopolies. Well, what was crazy is that he won 27% of the the vote, but he split the Republican vote. And that's, that's where all these third party concepts come in. You know, you have so much pressure. Well, all you're going to do is just split one side or the other, thereby losing all your momentum. There's no way you're going to pull from both parties. Right. So he ended up, we Losing. And then who'd we get? The great Woodrow Wilson, who, Who gave us all kinds of wonderful, wonderful outcome. World War I, the Federal Reserve act, income tax. Income tax. God bless Woodrow Wilson. Right, you son of a. All right, so. So that was really, in my mind, the first one of modern politics that began to emerge. You know, they pretty much dominated Democrats, dominated pol politics all the way through FDR, World War I. Then you had Truman come in Republican. Then right after him, Eisenhower, Kennedy, LBJ, and then finally in late 60s Nixon, you know, but there were kind of these. This coalition that even gained strength. But even within the Democratic Party, there was some division. You had The Dixiecrats of 1948, led by Storm Thurman. You know, you had within the American Independent Party, led by George Wallace, the governor of Alabama, who was opposed to civil rights. You know, what was crazy is that he won 13.5 of the popular vote and 46 electoral votes. Now, that's key to realize. Many people never even talk about him winning that many votes, right? Because it's the electoral votes. What everybody always wants to go is people want to go to the most notable in modern history, which was Ross Perot. And they want to be like, well, Ross Perot run as an independent. You know, he gained a significant. His 1992 run. He peaked at 19% in summer polls in October, finished with 19% of the popular vote. But he. Guess what? How many electoral votes did Ross Perot get? Jordy?
- [35:31]
Jordy
Oh, no. I'm gonna guess 10.
- [35:33]
David Rutherford
He got zero. Nice.
- [35:36]
Jordy
So if I was alive, I feel like I would have. I would have liked Ross Perot.
- [35:40]
David Rutherford
I'll tell you what I did. I really did. I mean, I. I thought he was sharp. He used to do these really awesome, like, commercials where he would take graphs and he'd explain everything.
- [35:52]
Jordy
I've seen his famous thing about him explaining all of that, like the spending or the debt or the, The Federal Reserve. I mean, it was like he just put, put. He just. He was super wealthy, right? And so he just. Time.
- [36:03]
David Rutherford
That's right.
- [36:04]
Jordy
And he was like, here you go. We're gonna do a college lecture real quick on how this works. Dude, that's. That's awesome. I wish people do that.
- [36:10]
David Rutherford
Well, people resonated with him, right? People were like, yeah, we're sick of the spending. We're sick of the bull. We're sick of all this that's going on, the wars going on. We're sick of all this. And he was able to strike a nerve, right? And, you know, he was a populist a centrist. Right. And he called it the refor party basically and it was an alternative to the Democratic Republicans. And his main thing was he wanted to balance federal budgets with defit reduction. He opposed to corporate driven trade deals. He wanted campaign refine finance reform. Excuse me, campaign finance reform, term limits for Congress which I think I know if you're listening, you want, I love this guy. I want that. Right. I mean. Right. Government accountability and transparency. That, that would be nice, wouldn't it?
- [37:03]
Jordy
Ross Perot, 20, 28. Let's go.
- [37:06]
David Rutherford
Exactly, exactly. Immigration controls. Right. That's a big issue nowadays. And you know, in 96 he ran again, but he only received 8.4% of the vote. Not as strong as 92. I think people really loved Clinton. Yeah. Jesse Ventura who actually ran right. As a reform candidate and won the Minnesota governor's race. Now that's a key indicator right. Right there because states are the most vulnerable. And I'll get into that in a second. Right. And finally you, you had Pat Buchanan, John Hagelin, you had a couple Green Party candidates in the past. But, but really the last substantial one was on a presidential was Ross Pro and Jesse Ventura as a governor. And then finally where we're at today on July 4, Elon Musk Musk announced that the American party Now according to YouGov, 45% of Americans believe a third party is necessary. But just 11% would consider joining a Quinnipiac University poll, 49% Americans say they would consider joining a third party while only 17% say they are interested in the one Created by Musk CNN 63% Americans favor third party party. Just 25% when Musk is involved. I guess those, those centrists on the Democratic side, once he got behind Trump, kind of, kind of ended that for him.
- [38:37]
Jordy
Well, this reflects kind of how I'm feeling of this. Sounds like a great idea in theory, right? In theory I support this. I sounds like a great idea because you know, people usually line up with most of maybe but not all of people's opinions on each side of the aisle. And wouldn't it be nice in theory to have this third party that got everything I wanted but I also have this other part of my brain. It's like the angel and the devil on my shoulder. The devil's like yeah, but how practical is it? How realistic is it?
- [39:08]
David Rutherford
Well, I'm going to tell you how realistic it is actually. There's actually a gentleman that did an extensive study on this and came up with something that is now known as the DUI verge law and is a principle in political science that explains the relationship between electoral systems and the number of viable political parties in a given political environment. Now this is named after French political scientist Maurice Duvarger, who developed this concept in the 1950s.
- [39:47]
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David Rutherford
Your people.
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- [43:16]
David Rutherford
Learn more@abekahomeschool.com the law posits that certain electoral systems tend to produce specific party systems, systems and outcomes. Specifically, it suggests that a single member district plurality rule electoral systems, often called first past the post, tend to favor two party systems while proportional representation PR systems tend to encourage multi party systems. Now you can look this up on ChatGPT or Grok4, whichever is your fancy, and this guy gives a real deep dive on this. Now, now there was one aspect I want to talk about and that was the psychological effect. So the psychological effect refers to how voters and political actors adapt their behavior based on the electoral incentives, right? In the system that we have, voters often engage in strategic voting, choosing not to vote for smaller parties. They prefer to avoid, quote, wasting their vote and instead supporting one of the two leading parties likely to win. For example, a voter in the US who prefers the Green Party might vote for the Democratic candidate to prevent to prevent a Republican victory. Now we saw that pretty extensively with Donald Trump, right? I mean, yes, you know anybody but Trump was a major thing, right? For, for the last three cycles because they basically, basically on the flip side.
- [44:54]
Jordy
I think, sorry, I think on the flip side, the Libertarian, a lot of libertarian leaning folks will probably gonna vote Republican for the same exact reason.
- [45:01]
David Rutherford
I think we saw that you had major libertarians like Scott Horton, Dave Smith.
- [45:09]
Jordy
You know, Ran As a Republican.
- [45:11]
David Rutherford
Right, well that, that's right, that's right. Right. He, he runs as a Republican. And, and you know, if you, if you dig into his stuff, which are some really amazing thing, my favorite aspect of him is the Fed. Love that. No new wars, different focus on foreign policy. But again, the Libertarian party is not going to be able to one get the energy it needs via funds and a concises around the political system. Now what's interesting to me is, is, you know, when you see all that, you, you, you go to yourself, well, all right, we're, well we're, we're, we're stuck in this. And I know if you're, you know, if you're like me and you see these and you get into it and you start reading about it, you start becoming a little depressed. All right, we are entrenched in this system and we can't break out of it. But again, I go back to the idea of why not. The fact is, is, you know, if you look at both parties and let's just start, let's just start at 2002, a 2000 election. Let's just start there and go forward from there. And we've got, you know, 25 years to evaluate in our political system. And what we have is we have, both of those parties have done substantial damage to the American system. Now granted. Hold on, I'm going to give a caveat. My life is awesome. All right? My, my, I, I do a podcast for a living, right? I work for a large asset management company. My kids go to great schools, right?
- [47:06]
Jordy
Got a sick buzz cut.
- [47:08]
David Rutherford
Yeah, I got a sick buzz cut, right? You know, dude, my life is awesome. And, and I'm, I want you to know because sometimes I worry that my audience, who I know are, are incredibly pro American, as am I. I mean, I, I raised my right hand. I, I volunteered to serve down range. I, I served in many different facets. I, I, I am the guy that, you know, screams America. You know, I was just at a Zach Bryan concert in New York, right, at the MetLife Stage Stadium. And you know, multiple times in this, this concert, the crowd broke up, broke out in usa, usa. So I'm there chanting, my kids are looking at me like, geez, what are you doing? I'm like usa, you know, so I, I am, I bleed red, white and blue. I am a die hard American. I love America. Right? However, there are some pretty substantial things that have led me to be forced to present these questions, right? And I think the big ones for me are some of our foreign policy fiascos, the Iraq war in particular are, are the bailouts of 2008 was astonishing to me. I think the corruption that we've seen on both sides of the aisle, I think the Epstein thing is unbelievably detract towards both political parties because I think everybody was involved in this government spending.
- [48:44]
Jordy
Both parties.
- [48:45]
David Rutherford
Well, that's it. That's the final one. I mean, how, what, what is the level of catastrophe that my children are going to have to suffer through and yours too? Right? Like that's who's going to bear the burden of $38 trillion in debt.
- [49:01]
Jordy
It'll blow up at some point. It'll be, it'll be fine until, until it's not. And when it's not, it'll be very not. Okay.
- [49:08]
David Rutherford
Well, I mean, last time we went into a crisis like this, we had 34 million people out of jobs in, during the Great Depression. This thing lingered for 10 years because of poor fiscal responsibility and these, these programs. You know, and I mean, I think.
- [49:25]
Jordy
That that would make the Great Depression look like a, like a rainy day compared to what would income?
- [49:30]
David Rutherford
Oh, I agree.
- [49:32]
Jordy
If we have to default on our debt or people stop using the US dollar or there's, or the other route is hyperinflation. I mean it would be like people would be begging for the Great Depression at that point.
- [49:43]
David Rutherford
Well, thank you. Going to, you know, you're showing up and you know, all of your assets are gone. No, no bank has the money to pay your money. Right. Nobody is holding like the FDIC is insured. Like there's no way, if there's a bank run, there's a collapse. You know, we saw a small collapse take place in regional banks, what, just.
- [50:02]
Jordy
A few years ago, 22, 23 around there.
- [50:05]
David Rutherford
That's right. That's right. And, and you know, so, you know, with all of this going on and the madness of the ping pong back and forth of the current political systems, I actually would like to see what Elon Musk is going to do now for, you know, you know, my little fun things I like to do at night when I'm sitting at home. I asked, all right, Grok, how would you run this political party and what do you need to do? Went through all the different FEC things that he had to do. All this type of stuff. The campaign financing, finding the right political person, getting behind it, the messaging of the party. Exactly. And explicitly what they represent and then, and then the campaign in order to do that. And you know, it, it Seemed logical to me. I mean, well, I mean he could.
- [51:01]
Jordy
Fund it and he's a marketing genius. He's got those, he's got that going for him.
- [51:05]
David Rutherford
That, that's right. He controls, you know, he's got, you know, he doesn't have $200 billion liquid, you know, but he certainly can cash in $10 billion worth of stock or wherever I, he just posted something today that he believes in the next 10 years Tesla could have a $25 trillion value valuation. Once the robots come online, once all this stuff comes online. Self driving.
- [51:29]
Jordy
I think he's right.
- [51:30]
David Rutherford
Oh, I do too. There's no doubt. So, you know, and with his new T Mobile, I don't know if you saw this earlier in the week, his new T Mobile agreement, essentially there's not a place on the planet that you're going to have a dead spot.
- [51:44]
Jordy
Oh, from Starlink.
- [51:46]
David Rutherford
That's right.
- [51:47]
Jordy
So dang, I didn't see that.
- [51:48]
David Rutherford
Stand by to watch T Mobile if you want to invest. I would invest in T Mobile and Tesla here soon because that's what's going to take place. I'm actually thinking about doing it. I do have, love Verizon, they give great deals, you know, we've got great family plans, but you know, to, to be able to have coverage everywhere in the world, you just can't beat that. So this is a guy that is, many people have repeatedly, and I'm talking the most successful financial people in the world, inventors in the world, tech people. You know, don't bet against Elon. No. All right, don't bet. But if there's anything that's going to unify the un, the DNC and the rnc, it's going to be a fight against a new emerging political party. Now saying all that to say this, you know what, what we definitely need though is we, we, we need a greater sense that our politicians are, are not, you know, abusing their power. Right. Whether it's insider trading, whether it's government agencies and they're spending. I mean, what was the funniest, I mean, I think the funniest thing I saw all week was just yesterday, Trump, or whenever it was Trump was, went over to the new Fed construction and basically in front of Jerome Powell was like, you know, a reporter asked, you know, Trump goes, what would you do with one of your buildings if you win a billion dollars over budget? And he goes, it's simple, I fire him. And you know, drone power, I've never seen drone powers. He was just humiliated. Sweating. Sweating, right. And when you see things like that, and I see things like that, that's the thing that, that stirs this spark in you. You're like, enough already. What the hell? Why don't we have term limits? Why don't we have better control of our government spending? Why does the Pentagon fail an audit every single year? Why can't we know if there's gold at Fort Knox? Why can't you know? How does the Federal Reserve have secret meetings where they establish the rates? In fact, a group just filed an emergency lawsuit against them so that they're meeting, I think next Tuesday. Tuesday will be public and we can actually watch their meetings and how they set interest rates and why I didn't.
- [54:23]
Jordy
Know that wasn't already true. That's insane.
- [54:26]
David Rutherford
Yeah.
- [54:26]
Jordy
I mean, think about the power and influence of what the, the federal funds rate is. The interest rate of the United States is. Right. That that influences the entire planet and that's planned in a secret meeting that no one knows about with a few people in it.
- [54:41]
David Rutherford
That's right. That's right. Yeah. And why, why is the Federal Reserve never been audited? So these are the things that provoke this. This is the, this is the stuff that provokes a person who has the capability, the know how, knowledge and desire to begin to launch another party. It's not new. It's been done multiple times before. The last billionaire, Ross Perot, we saw, Teddy Roosevelt, we go all the way back, back. But what I'm trying to say is that the American political system is ready for a little bit of a shakeup, right. To test the resolve of the two main party system. Right. And I think that's a good thing. Do I think it's going to be successful? You know, I'm not going to hold my breath. Is it possible for it to be successful? Anything's possible in the American spirit. Anything, including revolutions, civil wars, world wars, protests, you name it. Anything is possible when the American public has had enough. So, you know, if, if you really want to get involved, like if you really believe that enough is enough, what many political scientists believe is, is get involved in the system that exists. Right. Go volunteer on a municipal level, get involved. Go run for city council, run for city mayor, do state elections, go involved in political. Get involved in the RNC or the DNC in your state. Right. Become an electoral person. Right? Get it, get involved and try and make the changes internally because of the Duveze, Right. The duive law. This is the system that it appears that we're stuck with, but with a guy Like Elon Musk behind it, who knows? But again, the politics is in your hands again to reinforce. Nothing in the Constitution prevents a third party. And the states really have the overall ability to make huge changes in our political system. So get off your butt, get involved and get out there. All right. You know, thank you so much. Yeah, that was pretty good, huh? That was all right.
- [57:08]
Jordy
You know, you know, you, at least you moved me a little bit because you had it. You kind of called my bluff a little bit. And I at least have to ask, okay, why not? Even if I'm a little concerned or, you know, not super hopeful about a third party, I, I can't, I can't allow myself, if I'm an American who, which is a country that was started in a way, that's way less likely than having a third party in the United States States now for that to be successful. Right. I mean, the American Revolution was the most unlikely thing to be successful ever. If we can pull that off, you can at least ask the question, well, well, why couldn't there be? Right. So I'll at least be open minded to it.
- [57:46]
David Rutherford
Yeah, I, I think we always have to. I think that's our duty as an American is to ask, why can't we change the system?
- [57:54]
Jordy
Right?
- [57:54]
David Rutherford
It's part of, it's, I think that's imbued with who. It's so funny, man. We. When I was up in New York, I, I, I took my children to the Metropolitan Muse, one of my favorite places on the planet. Absolutely love. And I went into old American art and I, and you know, I was going through all the different hallways and I'm looking and I turn and I see it and we walk out and there it is. There's the giant painting of Washington crossing the Delaware. Right?
- [58:21]
Jordy
Yeah.
- [58:21]
David Rutherford
And I'm sorry, I'm blank on the artist right now, but, you know, I go, kids, come here. Right here. This is the representation of who you are right here. It's a bunch of folks, farmers with, you know, pitchforks and beat up old rifles and no, some guys didn't have shoes. They had, you know, they wrapped their feet in, in burlap and, and they're crossing the icy Delaware and they go kick, kick, kick the asses of a bunch of mercenaries, right? And that was the change of the entire thing. Had they lost that assault, it was, was over. We'd still be British maybe or something else. Who knows?
- [58:59]
Jordy
If they allow themselves to think about, hey, is it likely that we win?
- [59:04]
David Rutherford
That's right.
- [59:04]
Jordy
They would never have Crossed the Delaware.
- [59:06]
David Rutherford
That's right.
- [59:07]
Jordy
Absolutely not.
- [59:08]
David Rutherford
And that's the thing I'm trying to teach my children. And that's what I want you to learn, too. That's what I want you to remember. Inside of you, inside every American, is a. A person that has the capacity to question the system. And then not only question the system, but once you realize the system isn't what it is to be able to stand up and make a change in the system, the. The. It all comes down to whether or not you have the grit, the determination, the focus, the effort, the obsession and. And really the. The patriotic gusto to make that change. So that's what I'm hoping, Jordy, and, and we'll keep paying attention to this. I think 2026 is going to be wild. It's going to be an adventure unlike anything we've seen before. But, you know, God bless America. Yeah.
- [59:59]
Jordy
Amen.
- [60:00]
David Rutherford
Amen. All right. Thank you so much. We appreciate you more than we could possibly imagine. If you're enjoying the show, what we really could use your help, and that's by leaving a comment, liking, subscribing. But more important, even beyond that, if you could just share the show with somebody you love. Share. If you think you're g. There's anything to be gained from this. If you're learning something, if you like it, if you like what you. What we're doing, just share the show with one person, send them a link, you know, go to Spotify, Apple, any other place, the iHeartMedia app, and just go to that little share button and share it to somebody who you think would benefit from any one of the different topics that we cover. And we're.
- [60:40]
Jordy
Yeah, I know you guys are on Instagram or, or X like DMing each other, like funny clips or cool clips or interesting things all the time. Like just go on our Instagram. It's at David Rutherford show or X is D. Rutherford show. Yeah, DM your friends, some of our clips. There's a bunch of them coming out. I'll the time. So do that.
- [60:56]
David Rutherford
That's it. And just peak their interest, get them going and that's awesome. And then if you could give us a follow, that'd be fantastic. All right, here we go. Thank you very much. God bless you. I'm grateful for. To God. I'm grateful to Jordy, my family, and grateful to Christ. Hoo yah. Come on. Why is this taking so long? This thing is ancient.
- [61:24]
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David Rutherford
Whoa, this thing moves.
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