Twitter's new CEO, Elon Musk, is calling for voters to cast their ballots for Republicans for Congress. It's not exactly a surprise, given his expressions of support for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and a QAnon-affiliated House Republican this year. But his poor reasoning for why he was endorsing the GOP is yet another example of the flimsiness of his depressingly influential political arguments.
Musk is ignoring the fundamental asymmetry between the parties on existentially significant issues.
“To independent-minded voters: Shared power curbs the worst excesses of both parties, therefore I recommend voting for a Republican Congress, given that the Presidency is Democratic,” Musk tweeted on Monday. Musk even pinned the tweet to the top of his user profile, suggesting he felt it was a particularly important message for his 100 million-plus followers.
His tweet is the latest anecdotal example of a broader phenomenon known as “balancing” — where a slice of the electorate backs the opposition party as a check on the governing party's power.
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On the surface, Musk’s thinking is understandable. But the logic is filled with holes, and it's particularly weak reasoning at this particular historical moment. The pursuit of balance in government without regard for what the parties actually stand for and how the government is actually functioning is not a commitment to moderation. It is deeply irresponsible.
First, a split federal government in America today isn't a balanced one, but a dysfunctional one. Polarization and the abuse of the filibuster have slowed the pace and scope of legislative accomplishment in the U.S. government for decades. Voting for a split government isn't curbing the excess of the party in power; it ensures that it will no longer be able to get anything done. In an era when Republicans value demonstrating party purity to the base above almost all else, it's safe to assume they will block almost any legislation from the White House and Democrats. They will hold the country hostage over the debt ceiling. And they will exploit control of committees to hold bad faith hearings — including possible impeachment efforts —in an attempt to taint Democrats' reputation ahead of the 2024 elections.
More broadly, Musk is ignoring the fundamental asymmetry between the parties on existentially significant issues. He has devoted a great deal of his entrepreneurial energy to building climate-friendly cars and thinking about how to deal with global warming. Why would he favor the climate-denying Republicans, who have objected to electric vehicle spending and proudly thwart any attempt to avert ecological catastrophe?
And if Musk is seriously interested in the idea of a government that involves transfers of power and uses elections as a check on extremism, then how can he so casually support Republicans across the board? Hundreds of GOP election deniers are on the ballot, and the emerging risk of a constitutional crisis triggered by Republicans refusing to certify future Democratic electoral victories is real.
Of course, there is also the possibility that Musk simply wants to advocate for Republicans while maintaining a veneer of nonpartisanship. In recent months he has demonstrated over and over again that he has drifted to the right, in part because he now thinks the Democrats are "the party of division and hate." Musk has an interest in masking his motives, as he knows that his new status as the CEO of Twitter means his political statements are more closely scrutinized and will affect his customer base and advertising revenue.
But however sincere Musk's claimed reasoning is, what we can say is that he has indulged in reckless "bothsidesing" under the banner of centrist sagacity. None of this bodes well for his already-rocky tenure as chief of one of the world's most influential digital public squares.
