Three centrist political parties announced on Wednesday that they are joining forces to become the Forward Party, a new iteration of the party led by former Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang.
Joined by the Renew America Movement, formed by former Republican officials in 2021, and the Serve America Movement, a coalition of Republicans, Democrats, and Independents led by former Republican congressman David Jolly, the party intends to be on the ballot in all 50 states by 2024. It will be headed by Yang and former Republican governor of New Jersey Christine Todd Whitman.
The Forward Party says it isn’t “just a new party, but a new kind of political party.” For that reason, rather than a typical political platform, the party has three priorities: free people, thriving communities and vibrant democracy.
“A core principle of who we are and how we’re operating as a party is to encourage civic engagement beyond just voting and giving money,” said Joel Searby, National Political Director of the Renew America Movement. “We believe that party members should be helping to make their communities a better place.”
A major part of the party’s strategy is to start with local and state level races, where third parties have more often made inroads.
However, it is still an uphill battle, if history is any indication. No third party presidential candidate has won a single state since 1968, and third party candidates only rarely win elections in the U.S. Senate or House of Representatives. Forward Party leaders claim that they can overcome this precedent.
“When other third party movements have emerged in the past, it’s largely been inside a system where the American people aren’t asking for an alternative,” said former Department of Homeland Security Chief of Staff Miles Taylor, who leads the Renew America Movement. “The difference here is we are seeing a historic number of Americans saying they want one.”
At a time when the major political parties have become entrenched in partisan battles, the Forward Party is trying to escape the establishment through bottom-up organizing and find collaborative solutions that most Americans can agree on.
“Our American democracy hangs in the balance. The Republican Party is a threat to our democracy, and the Democratic Party is not built for meeting this moment. The Forward Party will be purpose-built to take us into a new, better era,” said Lucy Caldwell, a former Republican political strategist who is one of the party’s advisors.
There is also concern that the Forward Party could be a “spoiler,” taking away votes from one of the major parties. In the 2000 presidential election, many accused Green Party candidate Randalph Nader of causing Democrat Al Gore’s loss to Republican George W. Bush by taking Democratic votes in a very close election.
Searby rejects this narrative in regards to the Forward Party.
“The system is already deeply spoiled,” he said. “Those who claim that third parties are simply spoilers are not only not paying attention to the facts of the matter, but really are just entrenched in an old way of thinking.”
Americans are locked into parties they don’t necessarily agree with, particularly at the local level where 40 percent of elections went uncontested nationwide in 2020, according to Ballotpedia.
“We will be mindful and cautious, especially in these very tenuous times, that we do not become a vehicle to elect extreme elected officials,” Searby said. However, he notes that at the local level where the Forward Party hopes to build a citizen-based coalition, that is unlikely to be an issue.
“To suggest that there’s too much competition or that an additional party would somehow spoil all the elections is just not consistent with the reality on the ground in America.”
A golden tray sits on the Resolute Desk as President Donald Trump speaks during an announcement on American nuclear innovation in the Oval Office at the White House on July 24, 2026, in Washington, D.C. Trump is signing multiple executive orders targeting the nuclear energy sector and easing rules for new reactors and nuclear fuel supply chains.
Trump’s hubris rivals the fallen heroes of ancient Greek mythology
In January, the New York Times asked President Donald Trump if there were any limits on his global powers.
“Yeah,” the president responded, “there is one thing. My own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me.”
That was eight months ago, but fortunately Christopher Nolan’s blockbuster adaptation of “The Odyssey” has made ancient Greek literature newly relevant. Before that window closes, I’d like to talk about hubris.
Today, the term mostly means excessive pride or arrogance. That’s part of what the Greeks meant by it too, but the meaning was a bit richer and more specific. Hubris was an insolent or outrageous act that offended the gods, often because the transgressor was claiming abilities or authorities that solely belonged to supreme beings.
Nolan renamed and slightly modified the concept of xenia for the film, calling it “Zeus’ law.” In the director’s telling, mortals should follow the rules laid out by the gods, specifically the requirement to treat strangers with respect lest they be gods in disguise.
In a sense, hubris is the opposite, or at least the rejection, of xenia. The hubris of the suitors, and at times Odysseus himself, invites punishment by the gods and their mortal instruments.
Which brings me back to Donald Trump. His claim that there are no constraints on his personal power to dictate events on the global stage was one of the greatest expressions of hubris ever uttered by a political leader.
Trump’s claim was obviously false when he made it.
He vowed that he could end the Russia-Ukraine war in 24 hours. He’s proved powerless to make that happen. If he had divine powers to work his will, why would he have balked at implementing his tariffs so often that Wall Street adopted the “TACO trade” term for his deals? “TACO” stands for “Trump always chickens out.”
And why would Trump have made so many embarrassing concessions to China — from rescinding tariffs on Chinese goods to allowing them to buy crucial and incredibly valuable computer chips?
But Trump saw his success at capturing Venezuelan strongman Nicolas Maduro as proof of his ability to launch missiles to the same effect as Zeus’ lightning bolts. Trump believed he was the most powerful man who ever lived.
This is no exaggeration. In March, when the Iran invasion seemed successful, Trump gave a document penned by“Presidential Historian David King” to New York Times reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan purporting to prove that Trump was “the most powerful person to have EVER walked this planet.” King was, in fact, a businessman and occasional caddy for legendary golfer Gary Player.
King compared Trump favorably to many of history’s most powerful, and often heinous, figures: Alexander the Great, Attila the Hun, William the Conqueror, Napoleon Bonaparte, Joseph Stalin, Genghis Khan, Mao Tse Tung, Adolf Hitler and Vladimir Lenin. Many of these men thought they were the most powerful person in the world, too. And many were defeated precisely because they believed it.
At least Napoleon and Hitler had a string of truly impressive victories before they learned the folly of hubris. The limits on Trump’s power have been exposed by far less august forces than the combined might of the allies in World War II or the fearsome Russian winter.
Iran is a comparatively middling power. But the regime’s ability to absorb punishment while imposing its will on the Strait of Hormuz has proved to be a greater constraint on Trump’s power than his morality or mind. We should note that, at least rhetorically, his morality has not proved much of a constraint. He has repeatedly promised to destroy Iranian “civilization” if the regime refuses to capitulate.
But they haven’t — and won’t anytime soon — because the regime’s tolerance for pain far outstrips Trump’s. The combined fear of skyrocketing oil prices, outrage of Gulf state potentates, diminishing weapon supplies and domestic unpopularity is doing the work that international law, congressional oversight and the collective opinion of foreign policy experts can’t or won’t do.
If I considered Trump more heroic than reason and facts could allow, I would say his Sisyphean predicament has the whiff of Greek tragedy to it. Trump is vexed by the fact that the Iranians won’t honor deals or ratify his countless premature claims of victory — giving new meaning to his vow that his presidency would make people tired of winning. It’s almost like they’re out-Trumping Trump.
Things might have gone better if he’d heeded that great Greek tragedian Sophocles: “For Zeus utterly abhors the boasts of a proud tongue.”
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Jonah Goldberg is editor-in-chief of The Dispatch and the host of The Remnant podcast. His Twitter handle is @JonahDispatch.