Once upon a time I advocated for a centrist third Party, as a way out of our polarized partisan impasse. Even suggested a presidential candidate (Bill Gates). That was in a different Universe.

Comes now the new “No Labels” party aiming to field a 2024 candidate. Seemingly a challenge to both major parties, with a Trump-Biden rematch turning off many voters. But “No Labels” is the ultimate in either naivety or manipulation.

Voter enthusiasm for an inspiring charismatic candidate seems a thing of the past, in our age of alienation, cynicism, and political disconnect. Yet it’s a bizarre irony that in this environment there’s actually one political figure — Trump — who attracts a cultish devotion without precedent.

In an extended interview with a “No Labels” leader, former Republican North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory, David Remnick struggled to get him to explain what, if anything, the party actually stands for. McCrory kept mouthing the words “common sense” without applying that to any actual issues. But where the rubber meets the road, what’s common sense may be debatable.

Another “No Labels” leader is former Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman, who’d previously pretty much fallen out with the Democratic Party. If “No Labels” isn’t saying what it stands for, nor is it hinting at a candidate. (Though Joe Manchin’s name comes up.) But Lieberman assures us the candidate will be no “spoiler.”

Well, do they foresee actually electing their nominee? No third party candidate has ever won the presidency (unless you count Lincoln). Ross Perot did manage 19% of the 1992 popular vote, more than halfway to winning. And I could see how my old Gates idea might have flown. But not in 2024 with our frozen-in-place partisan divide. Enough people might nevertheless vote for a third candidate who looked able to win, but that’s a chicken-and-egg proposition.

While “No Labels” seemingly stakes a middle ground between the two polarized parties, an op-ed by John Crisp argues that no such U.S. political middle really still exists. Yet he doesn’t see the two main parties as ideological opposites. Democrats represent a “version of traditional business-as-usual American politics;” while Trump’s GOP is a grievance cult hell-bent on destroying perceived enemies. “There is,” Crisp says, “no comfortable middle ground,” democracy itself being at stake. “Imagining otherwise imperils the nation.”

And for all the no-spoiler assurances, “No Labels” is obviously a set-up to elect Trump. His voters are his voters no matter what. Whereas some Biden voters could be lured away to another alternative, especially one trying to appear sensible. In fact, “No Labels” organizers — funded largely by right-wingers — are tellingly concentrating on blue states. This is a highly dishonest scheme to divide the anti-Trump vote and thereby get him back in power (despite less voter support than ever).

The Economist recently analyzed plans afoot for Trump’s second term. There’s a whole ecosystem of right wing think tanks and organizations laying the groundwork. His surprise first election caught them unprepared. They won’t let that happen again, seeing this as their chance to remake America. No more Mister Nice Guy.

Their plan is to make the presidency even more powerful than it already is. The Economist focused on “Schedule F,” a first term Trump edict, little used then, but which could permit the peremptory firing of something like 50,000 federal officials. Don’t ask me how this end-run against our 140+ year civil service independence could possibly be lawful. But it would be the Steve-Bannon-far-right’s long dreamed coup-de-grace against its bogeyman, “the administrative state” (a/k/a “the deep state”).

That would be one slice in the death of a thousand cuts for our democracy. We’ve seen this authoritarian playbook too many times in too many countries. America has long been the global avatar of democracy. Fail here, can it endure anywhere?

Further still, what would a Trump return portend for the West’s solidarity against his friend Putin in Ukraine? Or regarding a Chinese attack on Taiwan? The ancient rule-of-the-jungle global order would be back with a vengeance. The end of the world.

Could American voters really be so insane? Or enough of them? To elect so demonstrably wicked a man? Who — beyond so many other grotesqueries — literally attempted, through blatant lies, to overthrow his previous election loss?

I often wonder how history will portray this period. Perhaps that will depend upon how it turns out — what forces and voices come top. It’s said history is written by the winners. Or will there even be such a thing as “history” in the future?

The Republican pathology is shown by their moves in the House of Representatives to expunge from the record Trump’s two impeachments. As though they never happened. And to sanitize our history of slavery.* If there’s history you don’t like, just change it. Like in Nineteen Eighty-Four.

* Florida now officially mandates schools teaching that slaves learned beneficial job skills. (Don’t mention the pervasive torture.)