According to my friend and Republican strategist Jim Pinkerton any serious consideration of a third-party must “grapple with the question of why there have been so few successful third parties in US history. I can think of two: the Whigs in the 1820s, and the Republicans in the 1850s.”
“The Whigs are worth thinking about, because they emerged without a civil war, even if, of course, sectional rivalries were already rising. So the Whig precedent is more encouraging. On the other hand, there are the emergence of third parties elsewhere, more recently. So if you can argue, for example, that technology is more important than history, then you can argue that yeah, there could be a third party in the US, too."
I responded in agreement regarding the critical analytical importance of understanding historic precedent when the concepts under analytical scrutiny are rooted in human genetics or cultural evolution that tightly interfaces with genetic components. But the technological changes that have occurred in the last quarter century are unparalleled in human history. And those technological changes pertaining to communication have a tighter nexus with human behavior than previous communication technologies.
So the backwards look I believe one has to do is in the area of what/how got political parties started to begin with. Communication is at the very heart of the answer to that question. In this era human communications are currently responding revolutionary transformative forces.