What's most astonishing is that Yang is still falling for Musk's grift.

Or maybe he thinks he can have a piece of it, like Trump did.

Nothing Elon Musk has done, nothing he has proposed, has made the world a better place. From the very beginning, when he landed in California's Silicon Valley, it's all been about him sucking up money from gullible tech-bros and the politicians who direct the spending of our tax dollars.

Now trying to hook up with nazi Musk.

the National American Zeitgeist Institution Party.

Sorta like Yang, who said Eloon has probably been very busy, a few months ago, I invited someone to dinner and I haven't heard back, so I assume they've been very busy.

Just more of the same old oligarchy shit.

Having more than 2 parties that matter is NORMAL. It’s the norm everywhere in the world but here, and it used to be the norm even in the US. Complaining about 3rd parties is a sign of political entitlement and lack of faith in one’s own party.

However, tech bros idiots starting 3rd parties for the sake of their egos is definitely getting old.

... elections where no party has 51% of the vote or more and they work.

Our constitution defines a winner-take-all election which will always be a two-party system. Otherwise, we'd have a parliamentary system like most other countries. Just ask Steve Forbes, Ross Perot and others who had the same "bright idea."

It makes all the sense in the world for a few years till you actually live it.

Then you realize the reality that the party infrastructure is a paper tiger but is deeply enshrined into law, that only a handful of people understand it, show up to events, and run it, and that you can have as much or as little political effect as you want by participating in the party system.

What is very real though, are powerful election spoilers who are in this life phase and can utterly disrupt a more balanced two party fight.

You do not have to throw away your vote if you prefer an alternative candidate.

Third parties have been highly influential may times throughout US history. The Democratic-Republican Party in the 1820s, the Whigs in the 1830s, the Republican party in the 1850s, the People's Party in the 1890s, the Bull Moose Party in 1912, the States' Rights Democratic party in 1948, the American Independent party in 1968.

The Democratic Republicans in the 1820s were a factionalized, dominant party. The whigs became a second party when the Federalists collapsed, and the Republicans became the second party when the Whigs collapsed. The others at best were spoilers or parking spaces for party dissidents.

All new parties were formed from elements of old parties and involved factionalized, dominant parties. When do we label a party a "third party"? Only when there happen to be three strong parties on a ballot?

Maybe hair splitting, but the D-R Jacksonian faction, the Whigs, and the Republicans all finished second in their first presidential runs and then won in the next election. Their rise was more a resetting of the two party system replacing a previous too-two party than a third party muscling in.

My understanding has been that of internal party change being the driver. TR changed the GOP as an insider. As a third party candidate, he left the party to the McKinley-to-Hoover establishment.

I think that when we talk about third parties here, we are really talking about Nader and Stein and that whole shit storm.

there has ever been a positive outcome for the country when they siphon off votes. Nader gave us George W. Bush and the Iraq War as a good example and the Green Party and Jill Stein gave us the first reign of terror under Trump. I suspect they siphoned enough votes away from Kamala to dump Trump on us again.

Other countries do that afterwards.

Will use that going forward.

They work in parliamentary systems, but unless one party secures a majority, they have to form coalitions, and when the coalitions collapse, the government falls.

Third parties in the US are often staunchly opposed to the party with which they're most similar. Ask any Green Party supporter in the US if they'd cooperate with the Democratic Party, and you'll get a vigorous "no." They won't form coalitions with other parties. Thus, they act as spoilers.

Yang will split progressive voters.
He is either an effing idiot who will step on the rake for voters so they can smack themselves in the face yet again, or he is a fascist snake in the grass nihilist who knows exactly what he is doing and probably working for foreign adversaries.

I despite tech bros. Literally despise them.

I worry you would class me as a tech bro. My career has intersected with technology for most of my life, from telecommunications engineer to website design and management. I'm far different, I hope, than the willing assholes in the Elon Musk circle, but I started my own small online business when I was younger, and embraced the startup hustle of long hours, risk-taking, and a relentless drive for success that it takes to run a business.
I'm kinda-sorta retired now, but I still manage information systems and technology for a public institution part-time.
Am I a tech bro?
Not trying to provoke, but sincerely curious about how other folks view those of us who grew up in the last century and are into technology.

I mean the people who are somehow creating the dystopia we are living in, with all our data being mined relentlessly, the charms and quirks of a city (I live in Seattle) being traded in for a glorified suburbia, with a downtown Target instead of local stores, the amassing of wealth at the top (we seem to have the biggest income disparity since the Gilded Age), the inability to do anything without a smart phone, the handing over of housing stock to Airbnb, the end of brick and mortar stores (especially bookstores) thanks to Amazon, and the out-in-the-open misogyny that reigns at places like Tesla and Google.

You are probably none of those things. And obviously there are a wealth of good things that technology has brought us. But I don't like how a handful of companies have been handed the power to change our lives (including the pace of each day) so drastically with no guardrails.

I did a little more research to the term, and it definitely has a negative connotation of misogyny and racism. I guess I'd be more of a entrepereneurial technophile than a tech bro. Thanks for the clarification.

Still desperate for relevance. All these rich tech bros want attention.

The Nader Fallacy is the belief that someone who can't even come close to winning the nomination of either major party could nonetheless win the general election running as a third-party candidate. It's equivalent to believing that less than half of all Democrats plus less than half of Republicans could somehow add up to more than half of all voters.

Yeah...several hundred billion dollars and a powerful social media platform.

That is what he has that Yang needs to be relevant.

Actual policies be damned.

Go away...again.

So many misguided opportunists.

are 'political outsiders'. Puppeteer would be a better description. His ideas are crazy, self-serving, sociopathic and drug-addled. Labeling them as 'non-tradtional' doesn't magically give them virtue.

That would be more accurate.

The 'I Got Mine FU' Party. The OO* Party. *"Oligarchs Only". The 'Batsh!t Crazies' or 'Heads up A**es' Party. The 'We Will Accomplish Nothing and Just Piss Everyone Off' party. Go away Andrew. That's a request, not a name suggestion.

And Yang won't be far behind if he aligns with him.

And more Progressive, actually cared about people. Now I'll never give him a second thought.
Damn idiot billionaires who meddle in our futures for sport.