America’s first Independent president?

From Dan Balz, Donald Trump, America’s first independent president – The Washington Post:

Trump owes his success in part to the fact that he ran for president in an environment that favored change over the status quo. But his luck or genius goes beyond that. It has long been noted that the conditions have existed for an independent candidate to run a serious campaign for president. The level of dissatisfaction with Washington, the anxiety over the economy and the generally sour mood about the future provided the foundation for a campaign by someone from outside the system, who is tied to neither political party and with a promise to shake things up.

What has stood in the way of people running as an independent is that winning the presidency in a system that so clearly favors the two major parties is something of a hopeless cause. That’s a big reason former New York mayor Michael Bloomberg decided not to run several times when he seriously explored the idea.

Trump took the elements of an independent candidacy — the lack of clear ideology, the name recognition of a national celebrity and the personal fortune needed to fund a presidential campaign — and then did what no one seemed to have thought of before. He staged a hostile takeover of an existing major party. He had the best of both worlds, an outsider candidacy with crosscutting ideological appeal and the platform of a major party to wage the general election. By the time he had finished, he had taken down two political dynasties: the Bush dynasty in the primaries and the Clinton dynasty in the general election.

[Keep reading. . .]

I would just observe that George Washington was not a member of a political party–indeed, he warned against them–and he was elected.  Unanimously.  (Though not in an election like ours.  The Electoral College, chosen by the states with no candidates on any ballot, chose him unanimously.)

Also, it will be interesting to see how Trump staffs his administration.  If he only chooses Republicans–“establishment” or not–then his presidency would seem to be Republican after all.

It will also be interesting to see if “Trumpism” survives beyond Trump’s term or terms.  Will other Republicans adopt his philosophy and approach of economic nationalism, as opposed to free market capitalism?  Will this become the new Republican ideology?  Or will it just be connected to his person and not last beyond him, in which case Trump would be an Independent outlier?

Finally, if the general public is sick of both parties, is there a possibility of adding more?  Might there be sub-parties that could also conduct a “hostile takeover” of one or both of the two main players?

Photo by Gage Skidmore [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons