Summary
Elon Musk’s threats to fund primary challengers to Democrats in safe districts, following his role in nearly forcing a government shutdown, have reignited calls for campaign finance reform.
Musk, who spent $277 million backing Republicans, criticized a bipartisan spending bill and used his platform to sway GOP opposition, influencing legislative outcomes.
His intervention has sparked outrage among Democrats, with leaders like Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez warning of rising oligarchy and calling for reforms to limit super PAC and dark money influence.
The episode highlights growing concerns over Musk’s political power and its impact on democracy.
I’m not sure how he could primary a Democrat unless he convinced people in that district to switch registration.
Pretty simple, he funds a “moderate” (read: right leaning basically republican who will obstruct regularly) democrat who will play the game for money, will say the right thing, play the role, and openly lie. Even if the funding is traced back to him a great deal of voters don’t pay all that much attention to nuance, they pay attention to headlines
So watch out for a bunch of democrat challengers with a shocking amount of funding following the fetterman playbook: initially appears as an “Everyman” with unclear politics (unless you dig), maybe says some promising sounding stuff about income disparity, cops being too much, the climate, or whatever’s the hot topic at the moment during the election, wears a hoodie! Then gets elected, has a fairly uneventful year, then starts to shift hard right when they need them to.
It has a huge chance of being successful, it’s worked many times. And when it works again what the fuck are you going to do about it? The incumbent has an inherent advantage once installed because people don’t pay attention, recall elections basically never ever happen, there is no accountability for them whatsoever so they will do whatever they want
He doesn’t need people to switch registrations. He just needs the currently registered voters to continue to be mostly low informed and the help of the media to keep them that way
Didn’t Fetterman’s views change after a major medical incident? It really just seems like he had an actual personality change after having a stroke.
This. He had a long history of being exactly who he said he was in local politics, which led to real grassroots support. He hasn’t been the same since. Whether it was medical or financial, he’s no longer that person.
Regrettably that’s probably what will happen.