This Crypto billionaire/Presidential candidate’s plan to disrupt the Two-Party System
Are you fed up with Republicans and Democrats? Brock Pierce plans to bring Silicon Valley Disruption to Politics: The former child star turned Crypto billionaire and 2020 Presidential candidate’s plan to create a “Thiel Fellowship” for politics.
Bringing Silicon Valley Disruption to Politics.
On the Bad Crypto Podcast, a few months back featuring crypto billionaires Tim Draper and Brock Pierce shared their thoughts on the present political structure. Pierce, who is running for president, explained the point of his extremely long-shot candidacy to become president.
A Bitcoin billionaire, Pierce is known for being a Disney child star. Incidentally starred in a movie titled “First Kid” with Sinbad, acting as the spoilt child of the president. In the podcast, he explains that he knows that he stands no chance of winning the popular vote. He, however, explains that if there ends up no clear majority winner between Trump and Biden, the election could using some calculus using the House of Representatives, end up going towards him.
That said, he readily admits that even in his super optimistic perspective, there’s next to no chance that he does in fact win this election. What he really wants to do is start to build a coalition to disrupt what he believes to be a “corrupt, non-representative two-party system.”
As you yourself may be able to tell, his belief is also held by an ever-increasing larger portion of the American population. Moreover, Americans have long felt isolated by this two-party system, with the majority of Americans identifying themselves as “independents,” and the largest voting block in elections traditionally non-voters.
So, What’s his plan to fix it?
Well, it seems as though he has a plan to bring Silicon Valley to Washington DC. One of the most famous venture capitalists, Peter Thiel, has a program called the Thiel Fellowship. The gist of it is that Thiel, a famous skeptic of the university system, gives students 100 thousand dollars to drop out of college and pursue their dream startup.
This project has turned out to be a huge success. Alumni Vitalek Buterin, whose Ethereum project is widely considered one of the most famous and important crypto technologies, as well as OYO hotel founder Ritesh Agarwal, widely considered the youngest self-made billionaire, make up just a few of the standout successes from Theil’s venture.
According to the Bad Crypto Podcast, Pierce plans to create his own form of this program, but for politics instead of college. Pierce’s plan is to draw upon his personal financial resources create a support network for non-traditional candidates who run for office up and down the ballot: ranging from senators to local officials. This is how he feels material changes to this system that has an ever-decreasing level of efficacy to it can actually happen. This is how he plans to “disrupt the two-party system”
How do I sign up?
From what I understand, the main criteria to join Pierce’s support network is similar to Thiel’s fellowship: you have to subvert the norms. With Thiel, he will fund your company if you drop out of school. With Pierce, it appears, that he will help you with your election campaign if you are a non-traditional candidate (from the podcast it seemed like the main criteria for this was not being a lawyer), and you are running for your respective office as neither Democrat nor a Republican.
If you are someone who is disillusioned with the present two-party system, but still has faith in America, then you should reach out to him. It appears tha the best way to email Brock Pierce/his team asking to join his coalition is this link to his website's contact forum.
What the catch?
Well, I am not sure yet. Firstly, he is still winding down the days of his campaign. In the podcast, he said that on Nov. 4, 2020, he plans to shift his focus to this specific project. So this idea is still very nebulous.
The other obvious concern is given Pierce’s several projects in the crypto and tech space, will he actually follow through with this promise of a support/financial network to dismantle the two-party system in America? We will have to see.
If you’re an aspiring non-traditional politician, this seems like the perfect moment to join a support network like this. There likely has never been a time in recent history where people have had as little faith in the present power structure on both sides of the spectrum. As Pierce says between the non-voting and independent blocks, the majority of Americans actually choose neither party every election.
If Pierce can in effect make a “Thiel Fellowship” type program that can subvert the two-party political system the way that the Theil’s seeks to subvert the university system, then I predict a couple of reactions:
First, that there will be a handful of really stellar candidates that enter the mainstream media through this-the same way that the Thiel Fellowship has created some really big wig entrepreneurs. Second, and perhaps more important to Pierce’s mission, in the long run, he will be setting up a framework for increased movement away from the presently accepted fact that the two parties that run America are the Democrats and the GOP.
The merits of going to university have only received a dramatically higher level of skepticism as time has gone by. While it is unlikely that programs like the Thiel Fellowship have directly caused this increased distrust, they do create dropout success stories, in effect showing that university isn’t necessary. I believe that this could be how Pierce can help start setting the groundwork to show that there is another way.
