Using Primary Threats to Instill Party Discipline?

Using money to control the GOP.

Source: the White House

I have long argued that the decentralized nature of the nominations means that American parties are not especially disciplined. By this, I mean that the capacity of party leadership to force conformity on votes in the legislature is limited by the fact that party leadership does not fully control membership in the party.

In more disciplined party systems the ability of leadership to stop members of the party from using its label at the next election is a way to force party members to either toe the line or lose their seat. In the US, candidates enter the party by their own choice by filing paperwork at the local level to compete in nominating elections, i.e., primaries. Win the primary and the Republican or Democratic label is yours and, often because of the noncompetitive nature of US general elections, it could mean capturing the seat as well.

As a result, returning to the House or Senate typically requires winning the primary. And usually, incumbents do quite well in such contests, if anything because they almost always have a substantial money and name-recognition advantage. There is always some fear of being “primaried” by being challenged by a well-known and/or well-funded opponent. But this is normally a very ad hoc threat.

This appears to be changing, at least for the GOP. There appears to be a growing centralization of this threat funded by Elon Musk.

I was already planning to write about this phenomenon as it pertains to the Hegseth nomination, but then last night I saw that Trump wanted to stop the spending bill in Congress and threatened to primary any Republican who voted for it (see, via the AP, Trump threatens Republicans who support funding measure will ‘be Primaried’). This morning I woke up to hear that that the bill is now on hold.

Again, the notion that individual members of Congress might face a serious primary challenge is not new. And Trump threatening to endorse a challenger in such a scenario is also not new. What appears to be new is the notion of a coordinated/centralized threat of this nature to force party discipline on specific votes in the legislature via the deployment of Musk-funded PACs and siccing the right-win mob on individual members of Congress. The threat of Musk funding primary challenges has been in the air since the election, but this week there was already evidence it was becoming reality.

Specifically, I would note the case of Senator Joni Ernst (R-IA). Ernst appeared to be a likely holdout on the Hegseth SecDef vote. She had the moral high ground as the first female combat veteran elected to Congress and also was known as a champion who fought against sexual harassment/abuse in the military. She appeared poised to vote against Hegseth and then the Trump machine unleashed a media and advertising campaign against her and there was a clear threat of a primary challenge. Ernst is up for re-election in 2026.

Ernst appears now to have caved.

I recommend The Daily from Monday, which details the entire Ernst story. See, also, this write-up in the NYT: Ernst, Under MAGA Pressure, Signals Backing for Hegseth’s Pentagon Bid.

Mr. Trump’s hard-line backers paid for ads in Ms. Ernst’s home state, questioned her Republican bona fides on social media and even threatened to launch primary challenges against her in 2026 to push her toward supporting Mr. Hegseth as the nominee.

Some prominent Trump activists, including Charlie Kirk and Stephen K. Bannon, the right-wing strategist, pushed to recruit Kari Lake, the former Republican candidate for governor of Arizona who grew up in Iowa, as a potential challenger to Ms. Ernst.

Setting aside the moral failing one could assert that is on display here by Ernst, this is Trump demonstrating a substantial amount of power, and it is a combination of his standing in the party, but also the power of Musk’s money. The inclusion of a billionaire willing to spend millions of dollars to get a single vote in the Senate is a game-changer in a way that solidifies Trump’s grip on the GOP.

It may be that the media blitz, and commensurate constituent pressure it likely generated, is more the issue than the primary threat at this stage, but the willingness to engage in such a media blitz over this one vote is a gauntlet being thrown. If Trump’s allies have the ability to coordinate a media campaign this quickly and easily over Hegseth (and demonstrate their willingness to spend) it is certainly enough to make the primary threat feel more concrete.

I have argued that the nomination of problematic and unqualified individuals to very important jobs was going to be a test of Trump’s power and a measurement of where the Senate GOP was. Ernst’s willingness to vote for Hegseth is a triumph for Trump and a failure of leadership and independence for the Senate GOP.

It may well be that the ability to coordinate these kinds of attacks will instill party discipline. A disturbing element of this is the simple fact that this discipline would not be because of a party unified around ideology or a governing philosophy linked to long-standing voter feedback. No, this would be a discipline driven by fear of Elon Musk’s bank account and his willingness to fund Trump’s whims.

This is not a healthy development for American politics and is yet another sign of the rising power of oligarchs in American politics.

Along those lines, see the following via Politico which demonstrated Musk’s influence and irresponsibility: Elon Musk fueled backlash to spending plan with false and misleading claims. See, also, from The Hill: House Democrat: ‘Unelected oligarch’ Musk ‘governing by tweet’. And this timeline from Axios: Behind the Curtain: Musk’s America.

One of the threats of Trump 2.0 was that he would empower fringe actors who could do a lot of damage. Well, Musk is both being empowered by Trump and is also empowering him.

On balance, I think that more disciplined parties are better for democratic competition because it creates a stronger, clearer signal as to what the party stands for. But what we are seeing here is the personalization of one of the parties via piles of cash.

Maybe all this is bluster, but if members of Congress capitulate, it is effective bluster. It will be interesting and telling to see if the primary threat continues to be dangled over the heads of congressional Republicans and how much it controls their behavior.

The longer-term question will be how much will billionaire influencers like Musk continue this kind of political role. I fear that we are seeing a significant shift toward direct oligarchic power in our elections which is not healthy in the least.

FILED UNDER: US Politics, , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Steven L. Taylor
About Steven L. Taylor
Steven L. Taylor is a retired Professor of Political Science and former College of Arts and Sciences Dean. His main areas of expertise include parties, elections, and the institutional design of democracies. His most recent book is the co-authored A Different Democracy: American Government in a 31-Country Perspective. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Texas and his BA from the University of California, Irvine. He has been blogging since 2003 (originally at the now defunct Poliblog). Follow Steven on Twitter

Comments

  1. Scott F. says:

    ’Unelected oligarch’ Musk governing by Tweet is just another form of ‘unelected oligarch’ Murdoch governing by Fox News, is it not? Only less regulated. Unelected oligarchs buying congressional seats through dark money PACs isn’t new either.

    Billionaires unduly influencing the US government is as American as apple pie. Trump being reelected as a populist while flaunting that he was in the can for big money donors simply showed the Republicans they needn’t be coy about it. The mob is easily manipulated and can be sicced on anyone the oligarchs don’t like.

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  2. becca says:

    When Leonard Leo and Co laid the groundwork for this with Citizen’s United and “money is free speech”, a disastrous ruling that the greased the wheels for whackadoodle grifters and sociopathic CEOs to get richer faster, this insanity was guaranteed. It was planned.
    Add in that social media has become such a powerful propaganda tool, these amoral cretins are succeeding beyond their vilest dreams.

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  3. @Scott F.: Billionaires having influence is not new. Money in politics is not new.

    What is new is having a specific billionaire being willing to directly spend on presidential whims to include targeting specific politicians over specific votes.

    I would caution against seeing this as just business as usual.

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  4. Andy says:

    While I generally agree with your take here, I think you’re greatly overemphasizing the importance of money/cash.

    For example, one of the aspects we’ve seen over the last couple of decades is candidates developing independent funding streams via small donors and leveraging social media and cable news to create more opportunities to raise funds. Some of the most radical elected GoP representatives are especially good at utilizing this strategy and this allows them to not worry about needing to please big outside donors. There are also plenty of examples where big-spending outside people and groups fail miserably at successfully promoting a particular candidate.

    I’d also point out that in 2016, the vast majority of the money and much of the institutional party were arrayed against Trump, and he still won easily—largely for similar reasons—the ability to get “free” publicity and capitalize on disaffected segments of the voting public.

    Furthermore, Trump, in particular, and the funders who support what he wants, have a record of promoting terrible candidates in primaries that end up losing winnable general elections.

    Money is important, but it is far from the most important factor.

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  5. @Andy: as you know, I am not one to over-emphasize money as a master variable.

    And in the past, candidate independence meant that these threats are usually watered down. But if the kind of behavior that was demonstrated in re: Ernst becomes the norm, then I think we have entered truly new territory.

    If billionaires are willing to coordinate with the president it will greatly empower that office.

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  6. @Andy: And I would add: the terrible candidates won’t matter if the threat cows the current office-holders.

    Ernst is someone who should be incapable of supporting Hegseth. And yet, here we are.

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  7. Jay L Gischer says:

    @Steven L. Taylor: Isn’t the situation in Texas with Tim Dunn comparable to the national situation with Musk?

    I mean, still comparatively new. As I understand it these days the Texas Republican party is Tim Dunn and Greg Abbott.

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  8. James Joyner says:

    @Andy: @Steven L. Taylor: As far as I can tell, Musk just jumped on the Trump bandwagon in a big way a few months ago. But Trump has been cowing Republican Senators (Graham, Cruz, Rubio, etc.) who had previously been vociferous opponents and are in relatively safe seats pretty much since taking power in 2017. I think it’s his personality cult much more so than Musk’s money that’s at play here. But, to be sure, having a seemingly unlimited slush fund to attack opponents can’t hurt.

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  9. gVOR10 says:

    I fear that we are seeing a significant shift toward direct oligarchic power in our elections which is not healthy in the least.

    That’s because you’re a prole. If you were an oligarch you would see this as healthy, finally. The mob who use their unfair voting majority to take our money is finally coming under control. We Galtian makers and creators will finally get our due. Von Misean efficiency will rule.

    There’s a case to be made that politics always revolves around how much the elite allow the masses to keep. (The real ruling elite, not the GOP version.) Wasn’t it Warren Buffet who said there’s always been a class war, and his class is winning.

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  10. Scott says:

    @Jay L Gischer: This playbook is exactly what happened in Texas with Greg Abbott and the Texas Republican civil war. Greg Abbott wants his school voucher program passed. Rural Republicans and Democrats opposed. He primaried the rural Republicans and now he probably has enough votes to pass what he wants. This voucher program will greatly harm the public education system here in Texas. Which is what the far right Christian Nationalists like Tim Dunn want.

    A school voucher program in Texas is more likely than ever. Can lawmakers craft a bill they agree on?

    After adopting the mantle of “school choice” in his 2022 reelection bid, Abbott tried to muscle a voucher program through the Legislature last year by using a mix of hardball tactics. When those efforts failed, the governor doubled down at the ballot box, spending millions of his own campaign dollars and numerous hours on the stump boosting primary challengers against fellow Republicans who had helped sink his voucher proposal last fall.

    The upshot: More than a dozen of those Republicans lost their seats or chose to retire and were replaced by voucher supporters.

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  11. Modulo Myself says:

    Money is incredibly important at a primary level. Look at how much AIPAC spent to oust Jamaal Bowman and Cori Bush. Dropping 8 million into a race to teach a lesson about a moot point is just bullying. We’re seeing what happens when money shifts from the idea of building and influencing institutions–like a university or a museum –or an actual cause–like climate change–and into something that’s been spawned out of the need to teach people lessons they would not learn otherwise. It’s money at its most dysfunctional and it’s going to get worse.

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  12. Scott F. says:

    @Steven L. Taylor:

    I would caution against seeing this as just business as usual.

    To be clear, I don’t see Musk as “business as usual.” Rather I see what is happening with him as an evolution – an exacerbation of a long present malignancy. I think the significant shift you fear is already here and I actually think it is far more pernicious than you (and apparently @Andy) do, because it is an escalation rather than a novel and uniquely Muskian turn of events.

    The somewhat recent growth in small donor revenue streams and more independent social media influencers is a response to Big Money winning the day with Citizens United (as @becca notes). I believe it would be a mistake to see this growth in decentralized campaign financing as a strength that counterbalances oligarchic rent seeking. It is a developing (and still relatively weak) mitigation at best. If, as Andy suggests, Trump’s win in 2016 showed that the rentiers can be overcome, Big Money has proven it can adjust. This latest with Musk is such an adjustment. And it’s working like wonders!

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  13. Slugger says:

    We had a period in U.S. history when economic policy was made by one rich guy, J.P. Morgan. Musk is not going to be content with just being Trump’s tool. The main thing that will prevent an eventual blowup between the two of them is if Trump’s ego remains gratified by servile displays and being allowed to cheat on the golf course while Musk becomes the de facto president. I think this is likely. GOP politicians including Vance will not stand up against this situation. Vance is probably thinking of ways to get Musk’s favor. Perhaps Vance can use his wife to reach out to Ramaswamy to form ties to Musk.

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  14. Lucysfootball says:

    Musk’s net worth has doubled since Trump was elected. That is based on the market assuming that a large portion of Republican economic policies will be dictated by the needs of Elon Musk. I think the market is correct in this case. Since Trump the Republican party cares only about meeting Trump’s needs. The bottom half of the country in terms of net worth is about $3.5 trillion. The top 12 billionaires in the US have a net worth of about $2 trillion. Ultimately, it’s all about money, at least with the modern Republican party. It is amazing how cheaply someone like Ernst can be bought. Maybe all these senators have something in their closet.

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  15. Andy says:

    @Steven L. Taylor:

    I think James better explains what I was getting at.

    Primary threats are hardly new—the only real difference here is that a very rich man isn’t hiding intentions like most of the super-rich do by operating via third parties that provide some cover and deniability. IMO, it’s better to have the kind of open transparency regarding intent that Musk is demonstrating than that traditional kind of under-the-table influence that people like Soros, the Kochs, and others use.

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  16. Scott says:

    Speaking of threats:

    GOP lawmakers prepare to carry out Gaetz’s revenge, expose harassment settlements

    Former Rep. Matt Gaetz, the focus of a House Ethics Committee report that may soon become public, is planning to inflict fresh pain on some of his old colleagues. A number of Republican lawmakers are preparing to help.

    Gaetz this week floated a plan that would force the disclosure of House members who were the subject of sexual harassment settlements paid with public funds. The effort is inching toward reality, with GOP lawmakers passing around a resolution that would execute the effort.

    The measure says it would make public “each settlement of a complaint filed against the office of a Member of the House under the Congressional Accountability Act of 1995 that provides for the payment of funds which was approved by the chair and ranking minority member of the Committee during any Congress.”

    Fine by me.

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  17. Kathy says:

    There’s a second problem, what I call the Julius Caesar issue.

    Briefly, had Caesar not rebelled and crossed the Rubicon river with his legions, he’d have had the quiet life of wealthy a Roman patrician for decades, limited only to never again holding a political office. He wouldn’t have been executed, his property would not have been seized, and his liberty would otherwise not have been infringed.

    Many in Congress, and Senators in particular, have wealth enough to survive in comfort and without any major worries if they find themselves out of a job. I bet most also have the connections to land a job that pays even better. So all they’d lose is their power. Not their lives, not their livelihoods.

    I’d argue that losing your self-respect, and all or much of your political agency is far worse. A Pyrrhic victory that leaves you with less when you “win” it.

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  18. Just nutha ignint cracker says:

    @Scott: Fine by me, too. Though I do have to admit that it does have sort of the “what happens to me isn’t important–as long as you get hurt” feel that Luddite’s stories about working in family law had.

  19. dazedandconfused says:

    I too am of the opinion the money isn’t the whole problem, it’s Trump’s popularity with his base that puts the punch in a primary threat. I posted in the open thread that there’s an incoherence between the oligarch’s desire for radical, painful spending cuts and Trump’s emotional and practical need for popularity. Something’s gotta give.

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  20. Scott says:

    As a former constituent of Chip Roy, this makes me laugh.

    President-elect Donald Trump is calling on eager Texans to consider a primary challenge to conservative Rep. Chip Roy.

    “Chip Roy is just another ambitious guy, with no talent,” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social on Thursday. “I hope some talented challengers are getting ready in the Great State of Texas to go after Chip in the Primary. He won’t have a chance!”

    I, for some reason, thought of this Goya masterpiece.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturn_Devouring_His_Son#/media/File:Francisco_de_Goya,_Saturno_devorando_a_su_hijo_(1819-1823).jpg

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  21. Beth says:

    @Steven L. Taylor:

    Billionaires having influence is not new. Money in politics is not new.

    I think your framing is slightly off. I think it should be “The Rich having influence is not new. Money in politics is not new.”

    I think Billionaires are a whole class of rich that is new, different, and way more destabilizing. I don’t have time now, but it would be interesting to compare say the Gilded Age Rich vs the Billionaires now. Or even just the growth of Billionaires in the U.S. I suspect that prior to about 1990 the number of Billionaires could be counted on 2 hands max. Now we have dozens if not hundreds of them and they can effect things more than the ordinary rich can because the difference between say having 100 million and having 1 billion is HUGE. Most people don’t understand how huge.

    Hell, Trump is a fake billionaire* and the mere threat of his fake billions is destabilizing.

    Also, while money isn’t everything, having a Billion dollars at your disposal allows you to do pretty much whatever you want, whenever you want, however you want, with little personal fallout if it goes bad.

    *intentionally not capitalized

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  22. dazedandconfused says:

    @Kathy:

    IIRC, Caesar faced deep legal doo-doo for his actions during his term in Gaul when he gathered his followers to over-run the capitol.

  23. Kathy says:

    @dazedandconfused:

    I should write down Kathy’s first law on historical controversies: the next historical fact not open to controversy will be the first.

    I’ve heard both versions, and others, of what Caesar could expect, or what he thought he might get.

    Nevertheless, without empowering a fascist autocrat by knuckling under, all the many, many, many Republiqans who allegedly oppose the felon, would face no further hardship than losing their political power and much of their influence.

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  24. Scott F. says:

    @Andy:

    IMO, it’s better to have the kind of open transparency regarding intent that Musk is demonstrating than that traditional kind of under-the-table influence that people like Soros, the Kochs, and others use.

    I agree, but only if the transparency brings consequences.

    Right now, “President Musk” is only a punch-line and the masses don’t see his undue influence as a problem. Hopefully, it doesn’t have to come to Musk succeeding in the elimination of important, popular government services/entitlements and voters only then learning they can’t vote him out of his unelected position of Puppetmaster in Chief.

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  25. Beth says:

    @Scott F.:

    Hopefully, it doesn’t have to come to Musk succeeding in the elimination of important, popular government services/entitlements and voters only then learning they can’t vote him out of his unelected position of Puppetmaster in Chief.

    Serious question, why hopefully? One of the persistent problems is that Republicans get to wind up their partisans with their stupid nonsense that the great non-voting/not paying attention populace and then do nothing but blame Democrats and lie about what they are doing.

    I may be a bad person, but I want everyone to get their faces rubbed in this shit. I’m gearing up to leave my home because this country forgot. Other people her have had to leave their homes. Women are dying in hospitals, children in schools, everyone is going to suffer and I don’t care.

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  26. Gustopher says:

    @Scott: I feel icky agreeing with Matt Gaetz on anything, but I support this.

    I know that Gaetz only wants this out of spite, but that also makes me feel icky, because I am primarily motivated by spite. The creepy hairline creeping upwards while creeping on teenage girls gives spite a bad name.

    ——
    That hairline isn’t going back, just up. Weirdest thing. What bizarre skull is under that hair?

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  27. Gustopher says:

    @Beth: I get where you’re coming from. Hopefully it will be just enough pain that people will realize that policy actually matters, but not so much that everything is ruined.

    It’s a fine line.

    There was a dude* at my last job who refused to get health insurance to defy the socialist mandate. I really hope he gets into an expensive, painful, but ultimately not ruinous or crippling accident. Enough to get him to rethink things before he gets something much worse as he gets older.

    *: could there be any doubt that this was a dude? Women may have their own very specific failure modes, but this is 100% manchild failure mode.

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  28. Scott F. says:

    @Beth:

    Serious question, why hopefully?
    – – –
    I may be a bad person, but I want everyone to get their faces rubbed in this shit.

    Serious answer – I’m with you, Beth. My main take-away from the 2024 election was that it clearly wasn’t enough for smart, well-informed people to warn of the dangers of returning Trumpism to power. The choice couldn’t have been more stark or been more clearly delineated, yet just enough voters chose to put a bad guy back in the WH with both houses of Congress to boot.

    So, it wasn’t enough to tell voters of the dangers and I agree, it appears they will have to learn the hard way that authoritarianism with fascist overtones is bad.

    All the same, the margins were so close and Trump only won a plurality, so I think it is fair to say that most US voters didn’t vote for this. And the problem with giving the non-voting/not paying attention voters what they deserve good and hard, is that a lot of passionately voting/paying close attention/disenfranchised voters will get it good and hard as well.

    Bottom line: I hope for minimal damage to those who worked hard to avoid our Trumpist fate. I am NOT HOPEFUL that the damage can be avoided and that may very well be what it takes.

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  29. Mikey says:

    @Beth:

    I think Billionaires are a whole class of rich that is new, different, and way more destabilizing.

    And having someone like Musk, with Musk money, is incredibly so.

    Think about this for a second: Musk is worth, in the most recent update I’ve seen, $400 billion. The $250 million he pumped out to help Trump amounts to 0.000625% of that wealth. For you and I that’s equivalent to what, the change we pull out when we decide to vacuum under the couch cushions?

    Musk could fund a primary challenger to every incumbent Republican in the House and Senate, and fund them at a level the incumbent’s fundraising could not reach in a thousand years, and for him the expense would be like you or I went out for a nice dinner. THAT is how rich Musk is, and that wealth coupled with his twisted, quasi-fascist, apartheid-scented world view results in a level of danger America has never seen from one person.

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  30. Scott F. says:

    @Mikey:
    Maybe some good could come from Musk’s transparent oligarchy. His obvious power grab, plus a dose of financial numeracy education, could get us the confiscatory tax rates the country needs to rebalance our massive wealth inequity. We HAVE to eat the rich to keep them from making trouble.

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  31. Ken_L says:

    This is not “party discipline”, which means disciplining members who depart from established party policies and positions. This is coerced loyalty to the arbitrary whims du jour of Elon Musk and his feeble old sidekick The Donald.

    Musk could throw tens of billions of dollars into political activism over the next four years, and probably will. He’s had great fun running a car company, and building giant spaceships, and taking over one of the planet’s most popular news platforms, but now he’s discovered something even more satisfying: running the United States government. And no, there has never been another rich person remotely comparable to what Musk could do if he puts his mind to it; he could make Rupert Murdoch look like a third-rate amateur when it comes to influencing public opinion. Christ, the man could use the money he makes in the first few minutes of each new day to fund a personal militia that would far surpass anything Antifa or the Proud Boys ever dreamed of.

    Trump is a buffoon who tapped into deep strains of bigotry and resentment in white America to become an improbable president. Musk is a deeply dangerous individual who could make all those James Bond villains intent on global domination suddenly look prescient. Americans will dismiss the threat he poses at their peril.

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  32. DrDaveT says:

    @Andy:

    For example, one of the aspects we’ve seen over the last couple of decades is candidates developing independent funding streams via small donors and leveraging social media and cable news to create more opportunities to raise funds.

    And those small donors and social media followers were willing to pitch in a few bucks because…? Trace the cause and effect. It’s because billionaires spent billions to ensure that those small donors get all of their info from specific billionaire-controlled news channels and social media. There are no traditional grass roots anymore; all of the grass is fertilized.

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  33. @Ken_L:

    This is not “party discipline”, which means disciplining members who depart from established party policies and positions

    Party discipline simply means the rank-and-file doing what party leadership wants.

    In this case, party discipline would mean the congressional Republicans doing whatever Trump wants.

    Party discipline doesn’t have to be for good, consistent, or philosophically understandable goals.

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  34. Ken_L says:

    @Steven L. Taylor:

    Party discipline simply means the rank-and-file doing what party leadership wants.

    That’s not usually the case in parliamentary democracies, where party caucuses determine the policies and positions that all members, including the leader, are expected to abide by. Party leaders are, of course very influential in those internal debates, but they tend to pick and choose which issues they’ll take a firm stand on.

  35. liz says:

    at some point, inevitably, Musk will betray Trump.
    Musk’s sense of “loyalty” is only to himself.
    the co-dependency presently on display between these 2 ego-centric power-hungry (and deeply insecure) narcissists will eventually give way to a show down and a major hissy fit, petty vindictive and venal.

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