Elon Musk announces the “America Party”

The world’s richest man recently announced the formation of a new political party.

A day after asking his followers on X whether such a party should be created, Elon Musk declared, “Today, the America Party is formed to give you back your freedom.” He explained: “By a factor of 2 to 1, you want a new political party and you shall have it!”

Of course, it’s not that easy.

The problem Mr. Musk faces is what political scientists call Duverger’s Law. It explains that in our political system, electoral districts such as those used to elect members of the US House of Representatives have only one seat for the taking, which goes to the candidate with a plurality of votes. As a result, a stable two-party system is all but guaranteed, not to mention the challenges of building party infrastructure, organizing volunteers, and qualifying for ballots.

In countries like Israel and the UK, where elections are only a few weeks long, one-issue parties can be created overnight and compete for seats in parliament. But in the US, where campaigning is now non-stop, the infrastructure to get elected is so massive as to be daunting.

Nonetheless, public sentiment for multiple parties persists.

In a recent Pew Research Center poll, 70 percent of respondents said they “often wish there were more political parties to choose from.” More than half of registered voters are independents, having declared no party affiliation. And 64 percent of independents have an unfavorable opinion of the Democratic Party, while 71 percent have an unfavorable opinion of the Republican Party.

If you have a party preference and had the proverbial magic wand, what would you change about your party? If you don’t have a party preference, what would characterize a party you would create?

This question goes to the heart of an issue far more foundational than even our political system today.

“Individuals who have no conception of the common good”

Longtime New York Times columnist David Brooks has just published an in-depth article in the Atlantic explaining the moral culture of our day. He leans heavily on the work of moral philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre, who traced the root of our problems back to the eighteenth century.

MacIntyre noted that the European Enlightenment substituted rationalistic systems of morals for the religious worldview that had dominated Western culture for centuries. Brooks describes MacIntyre’s response to this secularization of our society:

It destroyed coherent moral ecologies and left autonomous individuals naked and alone. Furthermore, it devalued the very faculties people had long used to find meaning. Reason and science are great at telling you how to do things, but not at answering the fundamental questions: Why are we here? What is the ultimate purpose of my life? What is right and what is wrong?

As a result, according to MacIntyre’s most famous book, After Virtue, we get to make a lot of choices, but we lack the coherent moral criteria required to make these choices well. Brooks quotes political scientist Ted Clayton:

MacIntyre argues that today we live in a fragmented society made up of individuals who have no conception of the common good, no way to come together to pursue a common good, no way to persuade one another what the common good might be, and indeed most of us believe that the common good does not and cannot exist.

What is the way forward?

Rather than seek to forge a coherent, consensual moral community, Brooks thinks that “pluralism is the answer.” (A “pluralist” believes there are multiple, equally valid truths and ways of knowing.) He claims that “a good pluralist can celebrate the Enlightenment, democratic capitalism, and ethnic and intellectual diversity on the one and also a respect for the kind of permanent truths and eternal values that MacIntyre celebrates on the other.”

To accomplish this, Brooks argues for “an education in morals as rigorous as. . . technical and career education,” one that “involves the formation of the heart and the will as much as the formation of the rational mind.”

My response is to ask, in the words of the famed psychiatrist Karl Menninger, Whatever became of sin?

Why the American Revolution worked

The American Revolution worked because its Enlightenment principles were couched within the religious worldview that gave the new nation a moral compass and consensual moral fabric. It also helped that they were declaring independence from the mightiest military empire the world had ever seen and were required to “hang together or we’ll all hang separately,” as Benjamin Franklin is said to have said.

Israel’s multi-party, pluralistic political system works because its national culture is infused with the Hebrew Bible and the consensual morality and culture it produces. It is also because Israel is a tiny nation surrounded by enemies and must stay united if it is to have a future.

By contrast, America has no common enemy such as that which united us during the World Wars and the Cold War. We have jettisoned the consensual biblical morality in which we were birthed. Our post-Christian, secularized society is left with the pluralism Brooks recommends and the hope that we can educate ourselves into a better future.

But human words cannot change human hearts. As I have often noted, laws can restrain actions, but they cannot produce character. 

Education, apart from transformation, makes us more learned but not fundamentally better people. Enlightenment Germany produced some of the greatest geniuses who have ever lived, but eventually the Nazi movement and the Holocaust as well.

This is why the gospel is so vital to human flourishing. Jesus alone can forgive our sins and change our sinful hearts. He alone can make us a “new creation” (2 Corinthians 5:17), turning us into the children of a holy God (John 1:12) and sanctifying us by his Spirit so that we can be holy as well (2 Timothy 2:21).

“Run to and fro everywhere, holy fires”

We can have as many political parties as we have political agendas and ideas, but they will not improve the human condition. We can embark upon moral education that intends to teach us how to choose right rather than wrong and tolerance rather than antipathy, but our minds and our hearts are not connected.

We cannot reason away the sinful impulses of sinful humans (Matthew 15:19). However, “If we walk in the light, as [God] is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin” (1 John 1:7).

So you and I find ourselves on the front lines of the “culture wars” and political divides of our day, not as partisans seeking to defeat our enemies but as “beggars helping beggars find bread.” When we pray for our lost friends to come to Christ and then work to answer our prayers in the power of the Spirit, we become change agents leading to the only true hope we have.

St. Augustine exhorted us:

“Run to and fro everywhere, holy fires, beautiful fires; for you are the light of the world, nor are you put under a bushel. He whom you cleave unto is exalted and has exalted you. Run to and fro and be known unto all nations.”

To whom will you “run” with the good news of God’s grace today?