Even better. Well played, Good Sir!
Thanks for the update.
Though that still ends up with Elon in charge of the largest losing party. If this kind of split had happened when Trump seized control of the Republican party (which would have happened if the traditional Republicans had a shred of moral decency or courage) then Trump would have lost
Over time he could be banking on the Republican party fading away to the equivalent of the current libertarian party, but that’s giving him too much credit. This is just Elon despirately seeking attention, as always (he is almost as bad as Trump at that though in a much more pathetic less savvy way). But he has the resources to make a third party that will genuinely hurt the GOP, so I’m all for it
There’s zero chance he’s playing chess, and maybe not even checkers.
We saw what his $250 billion accomplished when he was trying to buy out the GOP. He had the support of one of the two main political parties in the US, and even with that, his political ambitions blew up in his face in a matter of months.
There’s no way he has the political chops to build a new national-level organization that could challenge the GOP or Democratic Party. We’ve seen what he’s capable of, and it’s not that.
You can’t build a party with one person, pretty much by definition. Can you see him doing the work of finding decent candidates that he can trust, and then building teams around those people to put them forward as reasonable alternatives to the electorate? This is the guy who thought the Cybertruck was going to dominate the market. Come on.
He’ll waste a few million trying, and then fail spectacularly.
It got a fascist elected president and Musk himself in unchecked personal control of the most powerful government in human history for a few weeks. That’s a pretty significant accomplishment for a unpopular comically incompetent, foreign born, douche bag.
All the claims Musk can’t do it, assumes Musk will do it himself (in which case, I agree). Literally 1% of his wealth could by all the Top. Men. he could possibly need, and fund literally everything they needed. Collectively, the RNC and DNC spent $2.3 billion on the last Presidential cycle.
I don’t know enough about his management style to know if he’d just hire and fund, or if he’d be trying to dictate activities.
I’m not predicting success, just not counting it out. $300-400 billion is a staggering amount of money.
But the GOP party apparatus was already committed to electing Trump. All Elon did was fund their ambitions. He didn’t create any policy, he didn’t convince any fence-sitters to get on board the Trump train. And he didn’t build any personal loyalty. As soon as Trump said he was out, he was out. Now we have Trump openly speculating about deporting him and bankrupting his companies, and no one is even trying to stand up for him.
That is not the mark of a political genius, which is what you’d need to break the US two party system. I think the right someone with enough resources could break it, but that someone isn’t Musk.
Wake me up when the America Party gets a nation wide state wide any candidate elected on the ballot to run as an America Party candidate.
If Musk wanted to play chess, he’d pay someone else to win a title for him and then he’d play an exhibition game where he’d lose to a Fool’s Mate on the second turn.
Elon Musk only hires competent people and let them work after he’s gotten bored. He’s the worst kind of micromanager; the one who is always convinced that he’s the smartest guy in every room even on a topic he knows nothing about except a bit of misinterpreted jargon. Elon bought a lot of attention but it is unclear that it actually contributed much to Trump’s total vote count, and most of the grassroots efforts were ill-placed and ineffectual. He didn’t do any favors by going to Wisconsin with a bag full of $25M for the state supreme court election there, and the most he seems to have gotten for his $277M was for Trump to do a one-time ad for “Tesler” with the tagline “Everything’s computer!”
Stranger
Musk doesn’t care that his party will never become a true third party national alternative. All he wants to do is hurt Trump.
He can. Polls already show that far more Republicans than Democrats are interested in his party.
The survey also revealed clear divides across party lines and demographics. Among men who identify as Republicans, interest was especially strong: 23 percent said they are “very likely” and 34 percent say “somewhat likely” to back the America Party—a total of 57 percent expressing openness to Musk’s political brand. Male independents were also a promising base, with nearly half (47 percent) saying they’re likely to support it.
In contrast, Democrats appeared far more skeptical. Just 7 percent of male Democrats said they would be “very likely” to support Musk’s party, while 36 percent said they would not likely back it at all. Among female Democrats, only 5 percent are “very likely” supporters.
Nothing long term matters. The shorter term the better. If he can get candidates into House races in 2026, the Democrats will retake the House. Huge problem for Trump.
Not billion: million, $290 million according to year-end filings. Huge gigantic difference.
What Musk needs now is encouragement. Even if he’s Stalin, he’s turned on Hitler. Welcome to 1942.
All he did was throw his billions (and newly purchased social media platform with 100s of millions of users) behind a fascist in the final stages of a close election campaign. In exchange he got to personally run the US government for a few weeks.
That’s an unprecedented achievement, an absurdly terrible, comic book evil, corrupt achievement, achieved purely by having a massive pile of cash, but still an achievement.
Nope it’s the mark of a incompetent dickwad with a huge pile of cash, that will beat genius any day of the week in America nowadays.
He’s not going to break the two party system, he could ensure the GOP are unelectable for them next couple of election cycles. So I’m all for it.
How is it that an obscure college student was deported for participating in a few on-campus demonstrations for a political cause, yet no one is talking about deporting Musk?
They aren’t?
It’ll be the first thing Trump has done that I’ve liked since he moved the US embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.
It’s been extensively discussed by the right and the left. It’s like the exact opposite of no one talking about it.
I’m out of the news loop. Normally, I listen to NPR whenever I am in my car, including the ~25 minutes to work, and anywhere from 30-50 minutes home, but due to circumstances beyond my control, have not heard the news in over a week.
Remember he spent a lot on the Wisconsin Supreme Court race which didn’t go the way he wanted. It’s possible the R backed candidate* would have done better WITHOUT Musk being involved. Of course the SCOWIS race is a relatively low turnout affair so hard to draw broad conclusions.
Jesse Ventura won MN governorship so I could see some state legislature wins by a well funded third party.
Brian
* SCOWIS is technically non partisan but it was obvious which party each candidate aligned with.
Does this apply at the state and local level? Couldn’t American party - or Libertarian - candidates win enough Congressional seats that the Rs or Ds become the 3d party?
Theoretically.
An actual third party is only going to live and grow with a local presence first. Then prove its worth and spread from there. And become a permanent thing, as permanent as Democrats and Republicans are permanent.
I can’t see how it ever would work without a local, widespread establishment.
My opinion.
All of which can be brought. I don’t think you realize how much money oligarchs like Musk have. In 1992 Ross Perot was worth 4 billion (9 billion inflation adjusted) Musk is worth 400 billion. That buys a lot of local party officials.
OK, it would take years, too. To establish a party of foundational dependability.
I know that politicians can be bought, I’m from Chicagoish.