The America Party: a Home for the Lonely Neocon?

I’m more proud to be a neoconservative now than I was in the loftiest days of the second Bush administration. A little lonelier, sure, but as strange as it may sound, I’m hoping Elon Musk can bring America back to the party.

Neoconservativism is everything MAGA-conservatism is not. First of all, it is conservative. George W. Bush’s administration was far from perfect, but I knew where it stood and it stood for morality and freedom. It stood in respect of the office of president and the Republic.

Neoconservatism championed free trade. Unlike today’s populisms, it understood that greater trade made the things we need and want more accessible to more people. Increasing everyone’s success is not a threat to our own, but correspondingly increases the ease of life and everyone’s life expectancy. It is our friend, not our foe.

So-called “compassionate conservatism” realized that America should stand clearly on the side of liberty around the world. Given the blessings we have, our agenda shouldn’t align with tyrants and dictators depriving others of freedom. “Peace through strength” meant genuine peace, not appeasement of liberty robbing strongmen.

Strength was understood as something forged through friendship with allies and with a fixed moral compass bound to freedom and human compassion. Christian, not nationalist. It was not measured by how much we bullied those closest to us.

It was consistently pro-life, not schizophrenically hopping between an unenforceable extreme and full on pro-choice politicking. It stood for traditional marriage and not just when it was convenient.

Musk, to be clear, for all of his genius, gets only a fraction of this. He parallels conservative principles on some social issues by way of his opposition to the “woke mind virus,” but his very terminology (and the principles he ignores) leans towards MAGA’s culture wars du jour instead of genuine conservatism. My expectations are set accordingly low.

They are likewise low on his political alignments abroad. He has the same weaknesses as Trump, including an inexplicable willingness to believe whatever Russian propaganda says.

So, why is this neoconservative excited about Musk’s America Party? There are some places he is closer to the neoconservative norms of the past, most particularly in his vocal support for free trade instead of tariffs.

Musk also offers a vision of an optimistic, aspirational future, full of entrepreneurial spirit. Those of us fed on a steady diet of Reagans and Bushes — or even McCains and Romneys — find the dark “conservatism” of MAGA quite alien. Yes, President Trump speaks of “America’s Golden Age,” but every speech attacks his opponents, every move is against the threat of those not in lock step. MAGA is a “conservatism” of paranoid scarcity, Muskian techno-optimism is not.

If Trump is the “most pro-life president” one minute and the next minute thinks states should decide just how many babies may die, the Magaservatives all fall in line. Musk, for his part, holds another conservative position: actually holding a position instead of bowing to a person. As he retweeted this weekend “Elon Musk hasn’t changed. Last year, he was fighting to stop out-of-control spending and save America from bankruptcy. Today, he’s still on the same mission. Same goal. Same fight. Others changed, he didn’t.”

Musk is many things, some praiseworthy, but also plenty contemptible. He’s rash, brash and frequently crude. His commitment to personally boost the world population, without equal commitment to parent his many children is abhorrent. But there is one thing he clearly is not: a sycophant.

That makes it hard to dwell in MAGA-land. Trump moves like the tide: the only way to stay aligned with him is to give up believing in something and only believe in someone. Trump.

Musk actually has principles. Maybe not all the same ones I have, but real ones. Most importantly, that the two parties are dangerously symbiotic to each other and against us.

This is the real reason I’m excited about the America Party.

Right now, we have two extremely incompetent, populist parties. We have a party for the populist left advocating big government intervention throughout society and sporting a depressing 2028 presidential slate of grievance peddlers. And then we have the Democrats.

(You can tell the difference primarily because the Democrats one-upped the GOP with a communist mayoral nominee bent on “seizing the means of production.”)

Is it a long shot? Of course. But, Musk has a long — and successful — track record with facing down the impossible. He himself is erratic, but with an undeniable talent for surrounding himself with brilliant, capable minds capable of executing literal moonshots.

The America Party will likely infuriate me on some points, but in arguing for a commonsense small government, free trade, centrist agenda that sees the current parties as needlessly dividing us, in itself, it is closer to a reasonable party. More importantly: if it can get even a small bloc in Congress, Musk’s effort can force the other parties back towards their traditional positions.

The GOP is hiding its huge government, populist mess of the Big Beautiful Bill behind a few attractive elements. That façade in front of utterly reckless governance is political malpractice at its worst. The Democrats have the same blood on their hands from the equally abominable Inflation Reduction Act a few years back. Both hid massive overspending and government expansion behind a scant plate of anemic carrots.

Neither party could have gotten away with it, if an America Party held the key swing votes in the House and Senate. If there were a need to hammer out good legislation, instead of just threatening holdouts with being primaried until their principles collapse, Congress would have to pass smaller bills that do what they say and do what Americans really want.

With key swing votes such as Kyrsten Sinema and Joe Manchin no longer around, Congress will only become worse without such a new bloc.

I have strong enough principles on a whole host of matters, I’m under no illusion that I’ll agree with every America Party plank. But if it can restore sanity, that’s a decent starting principle and one that reopens the door for the vast majority of Americans ill-represented by either party’s present extremes.

Elon ending up on the wrong end of Trump has let him discover what we neocons have known for years: the president’s occasional camping out on issues we agree on does not make him a reliable ally. He’ll change again and leave friends of fixed convictions behind.

The last few months have left Musk a part of the lonelier, but meaningful, realm of principled voices. We may not all agree on everything, but I’ll take a bit more company in simply standing for something.

With enough of us, maybe America will come to the party.