Two problems:
- The US is not a multiparty democracy and has no realistic route to becoming one, given the near-impossibility of fixing its voting system.
- It is implausible that anything run by _Elon Musk_, who is a far-right lunatic, would remotely fall under the definition. This feels more like an attempt at splintering the Republican Party. Again, this often happens in multi-party democracies, where parties fracture on a wedge issue; typically the splinter withers away, but there are exceptions. Again, it's hard to see it happening in the US as the electoral system just doesn't really support a multi-party system.
Where "the 80% in the middle" are assumed to agree with whatever Musk's political opinions happen to be today.
1. The leaders now pushing for a centrist party are the same people who got us to this point of polarization. Whether by actively exploiting it (Musk) or by failing to recognize people wanted change (centrist democrats, small government republicans etc).
2. Voting is a hassle, having to wait in line or go to the drop off box, or deal with paperwork with mail-in ballots. Plenty of people may have very strong opinions when they get riled up, they may hate or fear the opposition, or talk abou how much they care about civic duty, but that doesn't always translate into actual votes.
The second problem is why highly motivated supporters are more important than walking on eggshells around people outside the base. Best example I can think of is Mamdani (and I think this applies to Trump's 2016 campaign too). He has a lot of poralizing ideas, and there are vanishingly few people who agree with everything he says.
So you'd think maybe Cuomo would be the obvious victor, since people knew him and he wasn't really doing anything on the campaign trail, staying quiet with a cery curated message. But not only did Mamdani beat him, but more people voted for Mamdani in a 5 way primary than voted republican in the last general mayoral election.
Such as?
What positions will this party take on other (eg "culture war") issues?
The Democrats have been utterly unwilling to go towards popularism– to calling out the capitalist classes–as the problem, as exploiters.
Also the Democrats havent gotten a ton of chance to actually do much. The last time they had a trifecta was 2011. We got the ACA, which Dems attempted very very hard to make bipartisan, and ended up passing on their own anyways after making concession after concession in failed attempts to woo in some Republicans. The ultra conservative supreme court and court shopped to high hell 5th district have also kept any possible progress from happening. Running on talk alone is hard, in a system set up to only enable obstruction & de-governance.
The moderate Democrats are the ones who voted with the establishment Republicans to kill the bank reforms put into place after the financial collapse during the first Trump term.
They definitely aren't populists.
I think most of us would prefer the spending just get killed at this point, whatever that takes.
If the problem is that "tax the rich" is taxing the middle class & poor, it wasn't actually popularism. It's also not what happened under Biden nor Obama nor what Kamala's plan was!!
None of this has been managed well for quite some time, meanwhile the deficit spending is so high we have to raise already very high taxes. Nope, just torch it.
The current ultra-right admin promised this, and the end-result has been that things are both shittier AND more expensive. Turns out nobody actually wants to reduce spending, that's always a ruse. Please, please stop falling for this.
This being said party built on “tax the rich” wouldn’t be perceived as centrist, taxes-are-for-socialists is too ingrained in people’s minds.
Trump got his (allegedly) hacked election and entry to the wild west world of crypto, from which he has made billions. And goodbye, back to his maga anti-intellectual base.
Posted yesterday. (my goodness, the OP was flagged!) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44409844
3 points by k310 1 day ago | parent | context | prev | next [–] | on: Elon Musk says Senate bill would destroy jobs and ...
You bought it; you own it.
Tech bro's were used, then abused.
Let's ask Michael Moritz.
Musk vs Trump is a cautionary tale for Silicon Valley [0]
Story by Michael Moritz
The writer is a longtime Silicon Valley investor, former board member of PayPal and an investor in SpaceX
> While Musk has left Washington with his reputation tarnished and his businesses impaired, the president’s family has inked deals for new hotels and golf courses around the world. Membership fees at Mar-a-Lago, his Floridian sanctuary, ballooned last year. And he is milking the enthusiasm of his supporters with his own controversial memecoin, launched days before his inauguration.
> One word of advice for those in Silicon Valley who followed Musk’s lead and sided with Trump. Leave. Don’t delude yourself that you are working to make crypto a part of global finance, minimising artificial intelligence regulation, helping start-up companies or protecting the interests of Silicon Valley. You have no sway. You are just cannon fodder.
[0] https://www.ft.com/content/c779b3b6-e989-4277-91fd-d72468291...
quantified•7mo ago