North Carolina has now accepted the No-Labels as a political party, and this now makes it ten states that the party is eligible for. North Carolina now joins Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Florida, Nevada, Oregon, South Dakota. When you look at these states, Arizona, North Carolina, and Nevada are key battle ground states and even Red States like Florida could be changed and flipped to one political party over the other.
I have mentioned in a previous piece that No-Labels could hurt Republicans more than Democrats, “In a recent Arizona poll, Sen. Kyrsten Sinema independent campaign actually takes more votes from Republicans and a recent Emerson even noted that she takes 21 percent to 34 percent of GOP voters depending upon the candidate versus only 8 percent of Democrats. As one news report observed, “One of the more fascinating elements of the polling is Sinema’s continued popularity with a sizable bloc of Republicans, a dynamic similar to her 2018 Senate victory when she ran as a Democrat. That year, she peeled off enough Republicans and independents to defeat then-GOP Rep. Martha McSally.”
Other surveys showed that if it was a Biden-Trump contest, that 63 percent are open to voting for a moderate independent candidate in key battle ground states.
If you look at their proposals, they are reflective of what many Republicans believe and for many Republicans who are tired of the Trump drama, this actually gives them an option. We are talking getting our border under control, combining voter ID and early voting similar to laws passed in Red States like Georgia. Election security is important Americans and No-Labels promotes that. Congress needs to get our financial house in order and on energy, it is “all of the above” but they noted, “When Washington tries to prohibit exploration of America’s fossil fuel resources or discourage investment in the sector, all it does is weaken our country and strengthen other oil- and gasproducing countries like Russia that will gladly meet the world’s growing demand for energy. Meanwhile, neither Democrats nor Republicans in Washington have done enough to champion the expansion of carbon-free nuclear power, which is more reliable than wind and solar and cleaner than oil and gas. Despite the fact that US nuclear facilities are among the safest industrial facilities in the world—and newer reactor designs could make them even safer—the number of nuclear reactors in the US hasn’t increased in three decades.”
These proposals are attempted to be centralist in nature but in these days, being in the middle is still far to the right of the present Democratic Party, which has become the socialist party of the America, but the GOP is still trying to define itself, is it the Party of main street and the common folks. Who will stand up for the middle class? They also stand up for parents to be able to escape failing schools and protect citizens from criminals.
I made the case that the importance of supply side economy and that its definition must be expanded in my book, “Americas at the Abyss, will America survive?” I made the case that government spending must be controlled, regulations burden reduced, and supply side had to move beyond just tax cuts. Trump did two of three, reduce regulation and tax reduction which benefited most Americans. The result was continuation of the recovery and more importantly the middle class, minorities, and lower income saw their income increase. Economic growth matters but Trump failure to get government under control hurt his overall economic plan and the massive spending during the Covid pandemic along with the anti-growth lockdown hurt the economy in 2020 and ended Trump chances to win.
We are now in the decisive battle as a movement to identify what conservatism will be in the 21st century and be able to turn this nation around. The future of conservatism is to combine Trump populism with Reagan conservatism. The battle is between the populist conservatives and more traditional conservatives. Dominic Pino detailed this recently, “For decades, tax cuts have been at the center of the conservative economic agenda. But some on the right want to deprioritize them in favor of other economic goals. Senators Marco Rubio, Josh Hawley, J. D. Vance, and others talk of the need for a new Republican economic agenda focused on things such as industrial policy or social policy. The Trump administration sought to increase tariffs, and conservative defenders of protectionism are being more vocal…Tax cuts seem to irk some right-wing commentators. In May 2020, writing for the American Conservative, Michael Cuenco bemoaned the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA), the 2017 tax-cut law that Donald Trump signed, and called for a “reformulation of fiscal policy along populist economic nationalist lines.” He wrote, “The reformist right should ask: is there any way to stand athwart the supply-side swamp yelling Stop?”
The No-Labels movement is a direct rebellion against Trump and the radicalization of Biden and the Democrats. Joe Manchin, whose own political career as United States Senator will most likely end in 2024 and now is talking leaving the Party. While he voted the majority of the time with the Democrats and Biden, he represent a state that depends upon fossil fuels. He has seen his constituents betrayed by the Party he served faithfully for decades. Manchin is now running as quickly as possible to the center.
The little secret that needs to observe, the average Trump supporter would be supportive of much of the No-Labels movement and as Trump showed, Reagan conservatism and Trump Populism can be combined for effective policies. The MAGA movement is not the radical movement, and the No-Labels has the opportunity to combine their ideas with Trump populism/Reagan conservatism in the post Trump era.
We stand at the cusp of nation slowly imploding into camps but yet in reviewing the No-Labels movement one can see that there is movement that is not far different from the Trump populism/Reagan Conservatism.
The Donelson Files 