Tuesday, December 02, 2014



This'll work well

Buoyed by his fantastic success in New Zealand, Kim Dotcom wants to launch the Internet party in the United States:

Internet entrepreneur Kim Dotcom says he will be "Hillary's worst nightmare" as he revealed plans for a US version of the Internet Party.

Dotcom, who is fighting extradition to the US where he is wanted on piracy charges took to Twitter today to announce the new political movement.

"The Internet Party is coming to the United States in 2015. Stay tuned for our celebrity founders from the music, film and Internet industry," Dotcom posted.


This is a mad idea. It is extremely difficult to break into politics with a new party. What made the Internet Party potentially viable in New Zealand was MMP, and an alliance with Mana supposedly guaranteeing it a seat (whoops). The US has neither of those advantages. Instead, it has an extremely regressive form of FPP, with gerrymandered districts and restrictive ballot-access laws designed to keep politics firmly in the grasp of the current oligarchy. On the plus side, he's free to throw millions of dollars at candidates in an effort to buy a result, but while he's rich by New Zealand standards, Dotcom is a minnow in the US funding pool. US donors blew US$3.7 billion buying influence in this year's midterms; Dotcom's paltry millions are a drop in the bucket.