Episode 151: The America Party and the Future of Politics

Everybody, welcome to Exponential Wisdom. I'm Peter Diamandis, your co host, along with my dear friend and coach, Dan Sullivan. And today I want to bring up a subject that isn't one we normally talk about, but it's on the border of exponential technologies. And that is Elon's recent efforts to break the two party deadlock in the United States. I should say the two party stranglehold in United States with this proposal for the America Party. Dan, you're one of the most incredible students of history and so I think you might have a lot to say about this. Would love to hear your thoughts.

Yeah. Well, just to clarify why it's a two party country, because it's designed the basic structure and it's the electoral college that does that. You know, you can have third parties, and I'm not discouraging anybody from starting a new political party, but if you have a third party, for it to stick, it has to become one of the two parties, which is doable. Okay. And I think the Democrats are in the worst shape right now since the whig party in 1856. Yeah, very important party. Actually. Abraham Lincoln was a member of the Whig Party. They didn't follow through on abolition of slavery, and that's why they lost. They would have been a very major party, but they lost. And then he created the Republican Party party, 1856. But the big thing was that they put in the electoral college so that there was in certain sense even representation around the country. Every state has two Senate seats and then the rest of the country, based on population, you have 535 electoral seats and you could get 30% of the vote and not get one electoral. But I don't think he's after that. What he wants to do is that he wants to just get a certain number of senators and a certain number of congresspeople and put a scare into the system. And I think he'll do that one is because he knows a lot more about the inside of the government now over the last six months than most people do. So my sense is that it will have a great impact. What he's doing. He'll bring his technological expertise and how you get the votes out. So my sense is that I think it's a serious project.

He also has the ability to bring a huge amount of capital to the table. Right. So Andrew Yang has been talking about transforming the primary elections in the United States. I've had Andrew on our stage at the Abundance Summit, and I've had Elon a couple of times. In fact, I Just had a vote from my Abundance members. Do you want me to bring Elon back to the 2026 summit? And 100% of those I asked said yes. So, you know, I'll invite him again. But, you know, what's failed in the past is none of the efforts had serious capital to do this. And one of the things, first of all, I would never bet against Elon, ever. And number two, he has enough capital to actually mount whatever is required to make it work. And his point, which I agree with, is that America is a sinking ship in terms of debt. We've added $2 trillion of additional debt on this last cycle. And the interest we're paying on debt is bigger than the cost of the entire US Military, which is huge in itself. And that if America goes bankrupt, all of the companies sitting on top of America, the platform, go down with the ship as well. And it's an existential threat. The only other option is we keep on printing more and more money, and that keeps on inflating our system. And then there's the threat of obviously losing the dollar as the global standard. That loss may occur, may be handed over to Bitcoin, but that's a different conversation.

Yeah. One thing that I'd like to point. There's a difference between the government of the US Being bankrupt and the United States being bankrupt.

True.

The liabilities are whatever the government has the liabilities, the assets of the United States are quite controlled. For example, the federal government owns, I think it's 38% of the total land in the United States. You could sell off 15% of the land right now and probably get the debt down by 5, $6 trillion. So there's a lot of assets that are sitting there. One of the things I'd like to introduce in this is my latest quarterly.

Book, the Bill of Rights Economy. What's the subtitle there? America's Founders.

America's Founders created an entrepreneurial repub.

Love that.

Okay, so a little background to this.

And by the way, those who don't know, Dan writes a book a quarter better than I do. I try to do a book a year, but a book a quarter. How many books have you written, Dan?

We're closing in on 60 here.

Amazing. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's small books. They're not big books. But anyway, if you look at the founding of the country, there were 55 people who ratified the Constitution. Most of the work, 1787, 1788, and then they ratified the Constitution. And it's really interesting that if you typed out The Constitution as It was in 1789. Washington was elected president unanimously in 1789, so that if you typed it out in 1789, it was 23 pages. If you typed it out today, it's 27 pages. They've added four pages and two hundred and thirty. And the thing that holds it together is actually the first 10amendments of the Constitution. They're called the Bill of Rights. And these were the demands of the people who opposed the federal government. And Madison, who's the great architect of the Constitution, he said, okay, in order to get them to ratify, why don't we make these the most fundamental rights in the country? And of the 55 people who ratified it, by today's standards, 49 of them would have been entrepreneurs. So what I've done is I've taken the first 10amendments apart, and I've identified the five things in each amendment that support, encourage, and protect entrepreneurism in the country.

Amazing.

Yeah, tell us. So this book, very thin, like the Constitution, actually goes through and says that this was designed to be an entrepreneurial republic. And in spite of history and all the demands and all the, you know, lack of predictability about it, you wouldn't have someone like Elon Musk starting a new political party if it wasn't an entrepreneurial republic. So I just go through amendment by amendment and give how each of these amendments actually protects entrepreneurism. You can download this strategiccoach.com Go Bill, and you'll get your free copy of the book. Or if you want to order it for a very minimal charge, we'll send you the actual book. But my sense is that it's that first 10amendments to the Constitution that keeps things going. The other thing I'd like to just introduce here is an interpretation of why the US Is in debt. And it has to do with the Second World War. In Second World War, the US was half the world economy. So 50% was the United States, 50% was everybody else. The US was already the number one economy in the world in 1900. And they just grew and grew and grew and grew. But the rest of the world destroyed itself with the two world wars. And the United States knew that the next enemy was the Soviet Union. They just knew. They knew five years before the evil empire, it was an evil empire. And so the Nazis were evil empire, and Japan was an evil empire. But the U.S. first of all, America wouldn't put up with another war in Europe against the Soviets. And you couldn't beat the Soviets in Europe anyway. You couldn't beat them in a land war, because the US Is basically a maritime power. And so the US Did a deal with the rest of the world or most of the other countries. And they said, look, we'll lend you any amount of money to rebuild your economies. Marshall Plan. The other thing is that you can manufacture anything you want and ship it into the United States with no tariffs. And the other thing is the US Dollar will be the reserve currency. The British pound had been. And number four, the US Navy will protect all trade routes. And that created the global economy.

Amazing.

Yeah. And they only did that for one reason. They didn't want to fight a land war against the Soviet Union. In 1991, right after New Year's, the Soviet Union collapsed without anyone's permission. They didn't have to, because if they had asked permission, nobody said, no, no, no, don't do this. Meanwhile, US Taxpayers and US Workers were paying for the whole shebang, and the US Was severely in debt. But the rest of the world's going on as if the deal's still in place. And starting with Clinton and then Bush and Obama and then all the presidents saying, we just can't go on with this deal anymore. We're paying for your defense. We're guaranteeing free passage of all your goods into the United States. And every country in the world took advantage of it. And they build in either actual tariffs or they build in what are called indirect tariffs, where you have to talk to nine bureaucrats over two years before your product can get it. China being one of the worst, the European countries the worst. And why Trump was unpopular is that so many people were making money off the deal. And he said, we gotta stop this. We gotta end this. And he's ending it like Everybody has a 20, 25% tariff. So here's the thing about this. That's where the debt came from. The debt will go down really, really quickly, I think, just as the US Gets into a better situation. Now, what I like about what Elon's doing is the system has to be tested. Okay. But my feeling is that the Democrats are in just terrible shape because they're just picking the worst issues. And the worst states from an economic standpoint are California, Illinois. People are moving out very, very quickly.

So tempted. Yes.

Yeah. I mean, you keep an address.

That's true.

Yeah. That's my thought about it. Bill Clinton only got elected because of a third party. He only got 43% of the vote. I think that's the highest he ever got. Yeah. Yeah.

So, you know, Elon does this poll. And by a two to one ratio, everyone on Twitter who responded to his poll said, yes, we need a third party. This duopoly cannot continue. I mean, it's kind of ridiculous that every U.S. election is like 1 by 1%. And that level of voter apathy is. The largest single voting block are the non voters, who consistently are non voters. You know, in Australia, you're fined if you don't vote. There is an absolute requirement to vote. And so how do you create a third party here? You know, America has the potential to do extraordinary things given a resurgence of its manufacturing base and AI being able to come in and make efficiencies in government and government spending and all of these things. I mean, you know, we should and could have the roaring twenties.

Yeah. Once again, they were all Republicans, by the way, in the 20s.

Yeah.

Yeah. My sense is that there had to be a short term adjustment and Trump did it. I mean, Trump has done more than in six months than the last five presidents have done in their terms of office. He's gotten more done. And he's doing a separate deal with 200 countries. If you want to have a deal with the United States, this is the deal. My feeling is that already I can see it here in Canada. Canada has had interprovincial trade barriers for the history of the country. Within three months, all the trade barriers between provinces are gone, just because he said, you guys are the 51st state. My feeling is that every American entrepreneur with a lot of money who wants to start a third party, they should do it. But the system's very durable, and if he creates a really great new third party, it'll be the second party because one of the parties has to go away. It's just impossible for there to be three parties.

Why do you say, I mean, without constitutional change or without changing to the voting, but there could be, you know, a representative government of proportional to the votes that you get. It is possible. It's just not going to be likely.

Yeah, it's not likely, you know. Well, first of all, you'd have to amend the Constitution, and that requires that two thirds of the Senate and 2/3 of the Congress votes for it. And then 3/4 of the state legislatures.

Those are high bars there. I don't know. Wow.

My feeling is that politics is a different game from engineering and manufacturing. It's a very, very different game.

Yes, but he's a quick learner.

Yeah, he's a quick learner. And my feeling is that his creation of the Doge is a major fundamental breakthrough. And My feeling is that whether he gets credit for it or somebody else gets cred credit, it's coming. Just like we talked about on other podcasts, we've talked about age reversal and humanoid robots. I think governments being run by AI is definitely in the making here.

So go back to your point about the US Debt. Can you expand on that? You're not concerned by the mounting US debt by 2 trillion?

First of all, who owns the debt? Americans. Most of the debt is controlled by Americans. So it's not like somebody can have a call like you can call it. Everybody says, well, China owns the debt. China has maybe 3% of the U.S. debt. And it's the best investment that China has. It's the only investment that's actually based on anything. And if they sold it, it would be bought up really quickly. There has to be a reserve currency. The economy doesn't work unless you have a reserve currency. I have a client, he lives in San Diego, and he goes on boat rides near Coronado, where the. Where the naval base is. He had friends and they said, what's the naval base? He said that there is the US Dollar. He says, the Navy, the Air Force, the Marines, the Army. And he said, that's US Debt. But the big thing is that what I would interpret Elon's endeavor, It's a startup. He's creating a startup here, is that it's time for the United States politics to switch over to the digital age. Up until now, it's been the industrial age. It's still based on World War II principles. Okay. And the moment that he started Doge, I said, that's the end of the Second World War. We just reached the end of the Second World War. My feeling is that his influence will be enormous, but I think that first of all, he's up against a tough customer. He's, you know, he can move money, too.

Something interesting, the 39 signers of the Constitution.

55. 55.

Okay. Well, in this case, what I'm reading from Super Grok. I love the fact that Elon named it Super Grok now. Is it?

The 39 was the Declaration of Independence.

The average age was 43 years old, ranging from 27. Very young to Benjamin Franklin, who is your age? 81. Today, the US Senate is at 65 years old on average, and the House is 58 years old on average. So it's interesting.

Well, we're living longer.

We are living longer. But I think when you're younger, there's more of an entrepreneurial bent. Not true for you. And Me, I'm as entrepreneurial as I've ever been. In fact, more so, I think, and you as well. But I think the notion that. That the only way to cause massive change, given the lock in that exists, is a revolution. That sucks. Yeah, I mean, we do have the best system, but, you know, optimizing it and iterating it and, well, it changes.

On a state basis. You can see the movement right now, you know, if this experiment in New York City with Marxist mayor.

Yeah, Mayor. Yeah, yeah.

You want to see movement from New York to Florida just look like it's going to get close to him getting elected. You just see massive movement of capital and talent into another state. That's happened with California now. I mean, enormous. The amount of movement from California to Texas to Arizona and everything else.

Yeah, yeah. Texas and Florida. Yeah.

Americans boat with their feet.

Well, that's one of the benefits of having the system that we have is being able to relocate.

But, you know, along the lines here, you know, Elon was told up front that all the EV subsidies were going to end, you know, and he was all for it. I mean, Trump's been talking about getting rid of EV subsidies forever. And then he, you know, Elon talks a little bit about it. It was discussed beforehand that there was going to be no EV subsidies in this bill. I know he's talking about adding to the debt, and I understand that. I think that's a real concern. But most of the debt is owned by Americans. It's owned by American corporations. It's not like the rest of the world owns the debt.

It's going to be interesting. So, you know, Elon said he's going to have candidates in 2026 and he's going to put forward candidates in 2028 for sure. And 2028 is going to be, I think the official term is a shit show in politics. It's going to be fascinating, for sure.

One of the things I've noticed, I've had a lot of experience with government. You know, I mean, I've been in a lot of political campaigns, both in the US and here in Canada. And it operates on a completely different set of principles than the business world. You know, Elon's a dictator. I mean, I'm a dictator. You're a dictator in terms of our own company. And you're used to being a dictator. Politics doesn't operate that way.

I try and be a benign dictator where I can.

Well, that's looking at it from your standpoint. But my sense is that he'll do A lot of good with this. My sense is that things will change just because he's running, because there's a fear that he'll bring into the backstage and front stage aspects. So I'm all for it, and he can certainly afford it. You know, he's a historic character, and.

People need to realize there's a huge amount of wealth in the offing for Elon.

Right.

He's going to spin out Starlink from SpaceX, which will go public sometime. My guess is next year. That's got massive potential. He probably. My guess is, you know, he's merged XAI and X.

Great.

I think he'll probably merge that entity with Tesla and take that public. So, you know, while he's worth in the order of whatever the Last estimate was, 350 billion, I mean, you know, there's another.

It'll be a trillion.

Yeah, there's a trillion before the end of this decade.

He'll be the first trillionaire. Yeah, he's the first principal guy. Yeah. But he's really busy.

I honestly. I know I'm busy. I don't take my free time as much as I should, and he's really, really insanely busy.

I want to say that in my lifetime, Donald Trump, I mean, what he went through, to go through that and come out the way he has. I forget who it is. The guy who runs ufc. Ufc, yeah. He was there at the Mar A Lago for the last two or three days, and Trump didn't sleep for the last three days. He was drinking Cokes, eating Big Macs and everything like that.

He's got the worst diet.

Yeah, yeah. He says, how do you do it? And he says, good genes. He says, just great genes. The guy just wears everybody out. I think he's 79, you know, that kind of stamina. He's just got an unusual makeup. It reminds me of Bummer Lucky. Bummer Lucky when he was on stage and he had a great line, and I think you asked him what motivates him and he says, you know, I never realized the incredible energetic motivation you can get out of revenge.

I'm going to choke on that one. Yes, he did say that.

He did say that. And I think Trump is the same thing, is that he's got a list and they tried to do him in. And I think it propelled. Tells him every day, you know. Yeah, yeah. I think each of us, whether we're happy to talk about it or not, we've had people who underestimated us or dismissed us, and we've got a list. And anytime we're tempted to stop, we.

Remember our list and we double down. We double down, double down.

But I can't think of a better person to make the attempt to do this, because I think he's going to bring incredible innovation to the project. Yeah. I think that whether he wins or he loses, he's going to have a very positive impact, a lasting impact.

I was on. I don't know if you remember Anthony Scaramucci. Oh, yeah, yeah. So I just had Anthony on my Moonshots podcast. We talked about this at some length. And on the day that Elon originally did the poll saying, should we start another party, the American party, I was like, I texted Anthony, I said, here it goes. The beginning.

Yeah, Yeah. I like things that have good entertainment value, and I think this is going to have great entertainment value.

Yeah. As Elon typically quotes, the most likely thing to occur is like the most ironic thing. And it would be very ironic that Trump brought Elon into the White House only to have Elon's new party displaced in the current White House.

It's America. You know.

Listen, I love the idea that we are a nation built by entrepreneurs for entrepreneurs. It's what makes America great on so many levels. All right, I'm going to my URL right now.

Www.strategiccoach.com Go, Bill.

Okay. Go, Bill. Okay, let's make sure Everybody's got this. StrategicCoach.com forward/, go forward slash, Bill and I click there, and here we are. The United States is inherently entrepreneurial. How the Bill of Rights supports and protects entrepreneurial endeavors. And here is your book. Get your copy now. All right, I'm getting my copy now.

An hour. It's a good read. It's got an audio, it's got a video, it's got a scorecard. It's got everything.

There's an audiobook I can listen to.

Yeah, you just go there. It'll.

Yeah, no, I'm looking at it right here.

Audio, phone number, same address, video.

Get your copy now.

Anyway, nice little books. I like little books.

Awesome.

They were in the 21st century.

Yes. All right, brother.

Okay.

Be well. But give my best to Babs.

Okay, thanks.

Bye.

Bye.