In a post a few days ago, I noted that a civil war in the Republican Party was probably boiling beneath the surface, given the profound differences between Traditional neoliberals and MAGA post-liberals. Unsurprisingly, the BB Bill, which is essentially neoliberal and light on real reform, is a potential lightning rod for confrontation. Institutional Power, recognized as a practical path for the party to maintain electoral power, has kept things more or less under control among the pragmatic. But for someone who doesn’t need to be especially pragmatic or even patient (i.e., the richest man in the world), right now is the time for open confrontation — as we saw occur, very spectacularly, last week.

Since the idealistic and impatient enragés of the Republican Party are at this point few in number and limited in power, I don’t think this particular episode in the ongoing political circus would matter very much — except for one, utterly unique, thing. Elon Musk has proposed the establishment of a new third party. That’s a fairly standard and generally ineffective political response to principled disappointment, but when someone worth about $400 billion with a successful history of iconoclastic enterprise management proposes it, the outcome could be very non-standard. It might happen, and (more likely) even the increased plausibility of it happening could influence the political landscape.

People with expertise in US politics and political science will be able to evaluate all this far better than I can — and I doubt even they have many confident predictions. But I think it’s worth considering briefly what a New Consensus developed by a Third Party would need to look like for a major reform of federal infrastructure finance.

• Defined and Constructive: The most important dynamic is that a new party will need to have a defined and constructive platform, not just negating resistance to the status quo. A compelling vision for the future that motivates people across a wide spectrum is the hardest part of developing ideological power, but that’s exactly what a new party needs to do. So, major reform of the status quo will now have a better chance of being a serious part of political discourse. Needless to say, ‘federal infrastructure finance’ per se is unlikely to be a topic, but as discussed in the prior post, public infrastructure renewal almost certainly will, and that’s sufficient to get things going.

• Demonizing the Rent-Seekers: As a practical matter, ideological movements reacting to great wealth inequality, widespread economic distress, and corrupt ‘elite’ leadership always target the 1% as the cause, not just a symptom, of all the problems. That way, tricky social and cultural issues, which are usually more fundamental (but inherently divisive) causes, can be put to one side until, you know, the revolution is secure, the reactionaries eliminated, wreckers neutralized, etc., at which point the vision can be realized. Not especially edifying if you look too closely — but good for federal infrastructure finance reform, which of course will be centered on public-sector financing programs as a replacement for the irredeemable financial rent-seekers, for whom few tears will be shed. I’m guessing that Third Party rhetoric will have a lot of such energizing demonization, regardless of more technocratic substance, because it works. Perhaps like a resurrection of the derailed Occupy Wall Street movement — but this time with both deeper grievance and more funding.

• Conservative Values: Since Musk launched out of the Republican Party in a kind of private civil war but in specific reaction to the neoliberal BB Bill, MAGA-type conservative values might be the starting point of a Third-Party platform. Many of those values emphasize ‘common good’ objectives at the local community level, which presumably involves local public infrastructure renewal and a generally helpful, but not too meddlesome, role for the federal government. That’s a good normative framework for federal infrastructure finance that aims to facilitate local funding for local projects but otherwise stays out of the way.

• Progressive Values: Solely in terms of political institutional power, you’d expect the Democrat Party to see a possible Musk-backed Third Party as fracturing the Republicans, and as such something to both shun and encourage. But they’ve got their own civil war going on, so I’m not sure that the ideological elements will follow that script, especially if the Third Party is vociferously demonizing the rent-seekers. If some do gravitate towards the new party, they’ll probably agree on many economic issues, including some version of ‘common good’ for local communities. But more important will be the progressive mindset of an activist federal government — that’ll counterbalance more extreme MAGA small-government approaches. So, again, positive for public financing programs.