The political organization No Labels, despite their protestations to the contrary, clearly wants to send Donald Trump back to the scene of his greatest crimes—the White House. To clarify, this group is not directly affiliated with either the Republican Party or the Trump campaign. In fact, its stated purpose is to organize voters against partisanship in American politics and encourage a "common ground" approach to problem solving. But they are performing the role of useful idiots for Trump, whether they know it or not.
This group’s goal is to put together a third-party bid for the presidency, a key facet of which is to get people to donate money and otherwise support their effort. Finding a candidate is kind of important as well, although so far they’ve come up snake eyes there (with former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie also saying, “No thanks” to No Labels).
The task No Labels has set itself is not an easy one, although they have gotten their party on the ballot in 16 states—battlegrounds Arizona, Nevada, and North Carolina among them. Now they are upset because some folks who are supporting President Joe Biden are—get ready to put the back of your hand to your forehead—trying to make it harder for them!
The group has written a doozy of a letter to the Department of Justice demanding a criminal investigation into the effort—which they characterize as “a highly coordinated, conspiratorial, partisan, and often unlawful conspiracy”—by Democratic and other anti-Trump groups that have the temerity to oppose them.
RELATED STORY: No Labels has a new, unofficial motto: 'No Democrats'
No Labels admits that they have no actual evidence of wrongdoing, as stated by attorney Dan Webb, a member of the group who signed the letter: “We don’t have subpoena or grand jury powers. We cannot do the type of investigation that is needed like DOJ can.” In other words, they want the DOJ to go fishing on their behalf. The group claims that opponents are using “intimidation tactics,” and cite a recording of some real meanies talking about, heaven forfend, looking into the background of people who support No Labels.
Michael Scherer of The Washington Post offered a very polite assessment of what No Labels is trying to do here. He called their tactic “untested and unusual,” and added: “Efforts to pressure donors, candidates and endorsers from taking various actions are the currency of politics, and courts generally give significant leeway to campaigns to compete publicly and privately for support.” Attorney Marc Elias, who went 64 for 64 fighting in court against Trump’s lies that the 2020 election was stolen, was less polite.
Oh, and I love that No Labels is upset about what their opponents are saying behind closed doors to convince people to not support them. Because this group is all about transparency. Except when it comes to who’s funding them, as Ja’han Jones reported for MSNBC: “The shadowy organization, whose leadership has discussed assembling a long-shot bipartisan ticket to compete in this year’s election, has avoided donor disclosure rules because it’s technically registered as a ‘social welfare’ organization and not a traditional political party.” Right, it’s not a political party … except it wants to run a candidate for president. Hmm.
Here’s the reality. A lot of people feel very strongly about The Man Who Lost An Election And Tried To Steal It. If you like him, you’ll vote for him. If you recognize the danger he poses to reproductive freedom, an economy that grows while shrinking unemployment rather than increasing economic inequality as well as racial wage gaps, and, oh yeah, our democracy, then you won’t.
In a two-person race, if you don’t like Trump, it means you’ll likely vote for President Biden. But a prominent third-party candidate on the ballot who isn’t Trump may well draw votes from those anti-Trump voters who’d otherwise vote for Biden, especially if there’s someone prominent on the third-party ticket who is associated with the Democratic Party—here’s looking at you, Sen. Joe Manchin. This is why the strongest opposition to No Labels is coming from Democrats and their allies.
No Labels says it just wants to provide voters with an alternative by running a third-party, supposedly centrist candidate for president—never mind that Biden is actually closer to America’s political center than any of the clowns No Labels is pushing. At the end of the day, anyone who drains support from the anti-Trump coalition is only helping put the Tangerine Palpatine back into the Oval Office.
RELATED STORY: Anti-Trump group launches early ad campaign warning third-party candidates threaten democracy
Ian Reifowitz is the author of The Tribalization of Politics: How Rush Limbaugh's Race-Baiting Rhetoric on the Obama Presidency Paved the Way for Trump (Foreword by Markos Moulitsas)
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