Yeah - that’s why I wrote “theoretically.” It COULD happen. It’s never GONNA happen. (Well, I shouldn’t say NEVER. Maybe some charismatic individual/group could get enough support to supplant the Rs or Ds to some extent. Also, it could be argued that the trend leading to Trump has made the Rs into a new party.)
Yeah it would not be a good thing. It would clearly be a big step on the road to the US being a tinpot dictatorship (maybe the official announcement that we have arrived and are now a tinpot dictatorship). But oooo boy it would be so goddamned hilarious.
To paraphrase a post I made elsewhere–The fact that Musk is starting a Party called American Democracy, and expects it to get a part of the popular vote, ignores the fact that he hates Democracy, is not, by his own standards, American, believes himself to be a one-man Party, and is popular with no one .
One of the articles I read on it said that he did a push-poll on Xitter asking if he should do it, and got millions of responses, which were overwhelmingly “yes.” So while most people hate him, he does have at least a million stans, which is more than I have.
Musk’s buyout of Twitter was mainly to control his own narrative, to placate his ego. That’s what this America party is, an opportunity for him to be the primary figure in a political setting, and bask in the headlines. Maybe it will attract a few percent of MAGA followers and piss off Trump enough to post in all caps on Truth Social, but it’s just momentary billionaire pettiness that isn’t going anywhere.
Another way the far right is taking a leaf from the book of the Communist dictatorships of the 20th century. The one way you could be sure a regime was spectacularly undemocratic and didn’t give two craps about its people is if it had the words “Democratic” and “People’s” their title
I’m generally not one to share a Tweet, nor pay much attention to what Musk is Tweeting but…
Fun times.
Interesting discussion. I still think there is an appetite for a third party. I know a lot of people who feel politically homeless, including me. Not that I think Musk is going to create a party that will appeal to me.
It will also be interesting to see how it plays out if and when Trump brings the government to bear on Musk. Hundreds of billions buys a lot of lawsuits, and there are still courts that will rule against Trump if he (say) overtly uses the DOJ to go after someone for engaging in constitutionally protected activities.
There are already lots of third and fourth and fifth etc parties. None of them has any plausible chance of taking significant national office due to structural and mathematical factors. At best a prominent side party could play a spoiler role, as discussed.
Yeah. I cannot see any success beyond a few “true believers” who would believe any shit they find on the internet.
My biggest question, though, is that the US does not allow foreign born citizens to become POTUS. (Witness the Obama furore)
What is Musk expect from this “political party”? He’s going to need a toady to be his proxy president.
I mean, yes, sure, the Trump/Putin relationship sets a precedent, but Musk being the man “behind the throne” is ludicrous.
Is Elon feeling guilty about something perhaps?
Yes, one thing Trump has shown, that I’ve always argued, is that the easiest way to start a new party in the US is to take over one of the existing ones. Over the course of 2016-2024, Trump pretty much gained control of every major power center in the GOP, and re-made it in his own image.
Could Musk do the same with the Democratic Party? Probably not. They’re not quite that dysfunctional yet.
Musk has made himself utterly loathsome to all parts of the Democratic coalition, that, more than any lack of dysfunctionality is what makes it impossible for him to take over the party.
If he had started a takeover when he was just the owner of Tesla and SpaceX (before buying twitter and outing himself as a nazi) he would have had a good chance IMHO.
I prefer Muskrats
While I appreciate the sentiment, I think we should avoid dehumanizing terms.
Theoretically possible, yes. Although the result would be a new two party system, not a three+ party one. The way our system is set up basically guarantees it.
I’ve no reason to insult muskrats like that, they’ve never caused me any problems.
I’m covering points other people have already made but I don’t see Musk succeeding as a genuine political party. Trump succeeded because he jumped into an existing political organization, which did the work and left him free to make speeches.
Musk doesn’t have any comparable political organization. And he’s not going to be able to build one from the ground up. He’s got money but not that much money and time is another limiting factor. And there’s the issue that all of the people who know how to run political organizations are already working for the Democrats or the Republicans.
What Musk is getting is a public platform from which he can make speeches. He might achieve enough to be able to influence the outcome of elections but he won’t be winning any himself.
This, IMHO, is what makes the extremely rich fail at many things. They have SO much money, they have never had to do a thing for themselves. Pick up a hammer and a nail? It is to laugh.
Throw money at it and see if it sticks. Where normal folks do a bit of research for the best approach to a problem, often due to limited funds. The super rich (except a few) rarely have consequences from their actions. There are always a dozen people to insulate them and take the fall.
Trump tried to overthrow the government. Over a thousand of his supporters went to prison as felons. Good luck finding a job even though you have been pardoned.
Elmo is a strange dude that has more money than god. But managed to destroy thousands and thousands of peoples lives with DOGE. They have no clue what it takes to get real work done, because they can just throw money at any problem and it miraculously gets ‘fixed’.
Shit, Trump had an attorney that even said he was a ‘fixer’.
Yeah, and that was backed by both competence AND a ridiculously huge pile of cash. Musk is missing one of those two items.
I would think the best we can hope for would be that this siphons off just enough votes from the Republican Party to allow Democrats to prevail in some districts.
Ross Perot also did something really stupid: he started with the presidency. Third parties have occasional success with lower offices, but not the presidency.
If Musk wants to be a spoiler for certain key races, that’s a much more attainable goal.
Remember that Trump’s victory owes a great deal to the shitloads of money Musk shoveled at getting out the vote in key states. For all the skepticism that money can affect politics, Musk was able to make it happen in 2024. Hopefully he’ll make it happen in a different direction in 2026.