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This seems exactly right and I dunno from this if you're voting for him or not, so maybe it's a characterisation people on both sides can agree to. I also agree that a new apex predator will emerge (the Marlo to his Stringer Bell) but the interesting thing is what they will have had to go through to be sharpened into such a new variety of shark. Although I really cannot see Musk as commanding much authority with either ordinary people or non-SV elites, I do think Silicon Valley could produce the right combination of brutal drive combined with (lying) idealistic rhetoric. There would need to be an extra ordeal or formative chapter in a candidate's background though for them to reach a broader audience. Vance in theory has both though I feel like he's speedrun poverty and tech too quickly to be adequately honed by either.
I disagree re Musk. The man has run several companies and has managed to build all of them to be successful, he’s created new technologies that weren’t even on the table before he showed up. Nobody in 2010 thought that you could reuse the launch phase of a rocket. Musk figured that out and can actually have one caught in midair at this point. He’s dreaming the future, except that when Musk says he wants to see it, it stands an above average chance of happening. You don’t think that if (when) a guy steps out of a SpaceX vehicle on friggin’ Mars that he’s not going to resonate with average people who will be seeing him as “commanding authority?” I can’t think of anything that would get blue collar voters in line like “when NASA was busy booking trips on Russian rockets, Musk went to Mars.” They like doers, big thinkers, and bold adventures.
I mean if he goes to Mars and back, then who knows. But he doesn't put people at ease and is not gifted as a communicator, so he's got quite a lot to overcome if he is going to get through all the normal gates political candidates go through (debates, speeches, interviews etc).
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I, too, am curious about Vance. It is possible 4 years in the White House will sharpen him even further.
I personally expect something new and 'interesting' to pop out of the Democratic party, eventually, their best hope is someone that can keep the social justice wing satisfied while also restoring populist appeal, I think, and that's going to take a unique set of traits, similar but not identical to what Obama brought to the table.
They won't be a 'standard' politician and will have a unique background, though, I can predict that.
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