The ideal pie is the so-called “Toll House Pie” in which you make cookie dough, stick it in a pie crust, undercook it, and eat it. My wife insists they aren’t really pie, but if this is wrong pie I don’t wanna be right.

I hope they’re Oreo pies.

All it means for now is that I’m putting my fingers in every available pie.

Does this mean you’re leaning toward ASP instead of a new party?

Oh I agree, including on your predictions of election results. I see no hope for anything other that Trump or Clinton, and frankly I was predicting a year ago that Clinton would win this election. It seemed obvious then, and does now, but the odd twists and turns with populists revolves in both parties did catch me very much by surprise.

While a party like the ASP cannot win this year, that party, or a party like it, can springboard itself into position to start being a serious rival, maybe, if it starts taking advantage of the disaster of the 2016 election, but such a party should really start doing that now.

I think it’s too late for this election. The Republican Party organized out of the ashes of the Whigs at blazingly fast speed — first meeting in March 1854, Congressional elections spread out across the fall (Aug – Nov) — in an era when the two-party system did not have all the legal favors it has today, and they still weren’t organized enough to really be successful. It took another two years beyond that for them to really become a powerful party, and years more for electoral stability to reassert itself. And where the GOP had six months to get organized, we have barely 90 days. Where the nascent GOP was facing a midterm, the crackup of the GOP happened in a presidential year. The obstacles are too great.

So: Trump or Clinton is going to win this fall. (And, let’s be honest: it’s very probably Clinton.) The catastrophe of this election will hopefully galvanize Americans to consider alternatives — but not in time to prevent the catastrophe from happening this year. The best we can hope for is to prevent it from happening again… and maybe, just maybe, that we’ll be able to undo the worst of the damage.

I do expect that something will arise in place of what we have today — if not the ASP, then something like it — but I don’t think it’s going to happen until AFTER the next president’s inauguration.

With the situation being what it is, it would seem that a party like the ASP is ideally situated to gather up some disaffected Conservatives and perhaps unite with like minded groups. If ever there was a year for them to get a jump start, or even just a start, this is it.

I noticed they were getting some attention from Mark Shea (whose views on who we are to vote for this year I otherwise strongly disagree with) and are noted in some other Catholic circles. The trick really will be getting a presence in the states, and they’re pretty late to the party there. I don’t know how they, or any small group, do that, but they need to attempt it.

For Conservatives, if some stand isn’t taken, and something isn’t built this election year, i.e., right now, I fear that pretty much the entire herd of horses will be out the barn door.

I have (as you know!) been very, very hard on the ASP this year — they were, as of May, a dead political party with no serious activity and barely any awareness — but, since Trumpocalypse 2016, they have undergone a period of exponential growth, expanded media attention, and (finally!!!) are developing some state-level organizations.

They still lack the elite support that is essential to new-party formation, but they’re in a much better position than I expected in May, and perhaps they will prove part of the solution rather than a distraction.