The Musk effect is not so much Musk himself sending out these tweets on X. Rather, it is that his platform makes clear how many people agree with him. Thereby, those who may have sympathy for AfD, but have had reservations about voting AfD based on media coverage suddenly realize that their views are not out of the mainstream.
That is the main threat that Musk poses. That not he, but his followers will demonstrate that it is the establishment who are the extremist lunatics.
Musk is not infallible. He is also a bit erratic. Intelligent people are like that. With Elon you have to take the good with the bad. He does more good than bad with his platform.
Never heard that, but Musk is playing with his algorithm in ways I don't quite understand. Some are alleging the effects will be the return of throttling and shadowbanning. Others claim if you p**s him off, he cuts off your X subscriptions. I don't know what to believe. But I don't have to cut off engagement because I disapprove.
I admire Elon and have mostly agreed with and supported his interjections into politics. If I think he's wrong, I'll say so. Matthew McWilliams above explained the Musk effect perfectly. As to its effect on support for the AfD, we will see. At the least, maybe more Americans will understand that the AfD is not the modern Nazi party.
I have eclectic taste in Substacks, so maybe. The term liberal, to me, has no meaning today. This AfD "prejudice" I've detected may actually have more to do with Musk than the AfD. Many ultra-MAGAs don't trust Musk.
An important observation. What you describe is how Musk has facilitated a “permission structure”, a technique developed for digital media to make Obama electable. I strongly recommend a long essay on this by David Samuel’s in Tabletmagazine (online). Obama’s spinners relied on a network of self reinforcing platforms, which is easier than using just one platform. But Musk, with 200m followers, is uniquely placed: he is his own synergy.
Yes. And this is why the only proper answer for the established media is to ignore Musk and to keep silence about his tweets.
Most people in Germany aren't on Twitter anyhow, and they would never know what Musks says.
But our established media is unable to keep stumm. They see their main task as screeching about the rightwing menace. So they will screech hysterically, unable to see how ridiculous they look, and how normal people question more and more their honesty or indeed sanity.
They did that with Trump, enabling him to become president. And now they do it with Musk.
Eventually, once most people stop trusting the media's opinion on the AfD, there will be a great AfD election victory. But that will still take a few years.
"A commitment to unlimited migration from non-Western countries is today the West’s constitutive principle. It defines what it means to be a member of the Western elect; anyone who wants to restrict immigration has revealed himself, at best, as an enemy of the Enlightenment and, at worst, a genocidal maniac. The commitment to open borders is so profound that it overrides the preservation of other cherished elite values. Europe’s establishment would rather import millions of migrants opposed to its liberal regime than protect that regime by restricting such immigration."
I love Heather Mac Donald. Highly recommend all her books (When Race Trumps Merit, The Diversity Delusion, The War on Cops). She's had her finger on the pulse of various social issues for years now and is really good at picking out the most pertinent data points to back up her positions.
I have tried all my life, ('pace' scolds - from the age of 7) to match 'girls' in their facility with speech, and possibly, with thought. When I hear Heather MacDonald I realize that I have lost at least half of the battle.
I think that Musk's biggest contribution here is to show the German people and the broader world that it's okay to speak your mind without fear, and that it's okay to buck the elites.
I have very high hopes for the German February elections, and feeling quite buoyed by the fact that Justin Trudeau joined Scholz, Macron, Austria's Nehammer, and New Zealand's Ardern in the dustbin of history!
This swing to the right is global, generational, and completely unstoppable....
for a small number of German voters, maybe only 5% of them, Musk's endorsement makes the AfD seem OK. it doesn't mean they support the AfD just because Musk likes them, but it means they're no longer out of bounds. that's something.
It’s a bit like the Covid censorship effect. When we all thought that we were the only one that thought it was an absolute scam, no-one said anything. Once we all got onto Substack, and Musk bought X, we discovered that there were thousands of us. Made it much more likely that everyone would speak out.
Well, change seems to be in the air, and I firmly believe that it is generational, and that overlong reign of the 60's "Flower Children" is finally coming to an end, even in the Land Down Under.
There's a trend afoot, and one that I don't see stopping any time soon.
The 60's "Flower Children", who railed against "The Man" in their youth, have held onto power for far too long, and have become "The Man" to our younger generations, and they can't seem to grasp this completely natural evolution.
It doesn't hep their cause that they've gone full-authoritarian via Climate and COVID overreach, and gosh-darn it, we plebes simply yearn to be free!
These posts have demonstrated to me that CDU/CSU is much more a left-wing party than I previously believed. Respondents to the AfD question almost certainly take it less as a literal matter of “last hope for Germany” and more a measure of general approval or tolerance.
In my head, I had always equated CDU/CSU with something like “US Republicans without the religious stuff” but actually they’re more like “Bloomberg Democrats” or “NeverTrump Republicans”.
Knowing nothing about German politics, when I read here that the "center right party" was showing itself willing to coalesce with the Marxist Greens, I began to wonder whether their description was objectively accurate, or was instead the creation of the leftist consensus press, who routinely describes anyone not to the left of Pol Pot as "far right."
I would propose that it's not Musk's statements themselves that are having an effect, but the Streisand like effect of the German media hyperventilating about his statements, giving the AfD a lot of free publicity and in a way that isn't directly negative.
I just read yesterday in the Belgian press, that for umpteen times in a row, no Vlaams Blok participation, or even a mayor, is left. They have managed again, to put this party on the side, and the other parties will look at Belgian politics to do the same with AfD.
But there’s hope in Austria where Herbert Kickl of the Freedom Party has been given the opportunity to form a coalition government. I think they had 29% of the vote.
Austria's always been a bit of an outlier. It is, geographically and culturally, somewhere between East and West. The FPO has been in coalition before regionally and enjoyed popular support well before counterparts like the AfD existed.
It will be worth watching what happens after Austria's decision to ask the head of the strongest party - FPÖ - to start building a government after the "multiparty-coalition"-idea failed utterly. From Habeck to Özdemir, everybody has weighed, their reactions much in the shock-horror range. I see two options, not mutually exclusive:
a) they will be pushing harder for a multiparty coalition, trying to reconcile utterly different ideological standpoints and putting much pressure on CDU to conform to left/green party standpoints.
b) they will try to attack AfD harder than ever and to ban it in the long run. By now they must have realized that AfD is here to stay and might grow considerably, as FPÖ did in Austria. At the same time, they will try to regulate X to be less stubbornly free-speech and less in their way.
very much agree, his majesty the sun chancellor robert habeck is already saying that nothing like what happened with FPÖ should be allowed to trasnpire here in BRD. but it gets people thinking anyway – it gets them wondering why the AfD means the apocalypse if the Össis get Kickl for Chancellor and the lights stay on just fine there. This will make them go only harder against AfD, but I don't what they left to fire at them. we see, I guess.
Pro tip: tell people that FPÖ was in five coalitions already and their track record is not that different from other parties. Austria did not genocide anybody, invade anybody, it's just sitting there quietly amassing debt just like everybody else. And at that occasion one could also tell people that the one overwhelming reason why Kickl got the support he did was that people are really DONE with the immigration they've been getting. Even people who voted for Social Democrats for decades are DONE.
> At the same time, they will try to regulate X to be less stubbornly free-speech and less in their way.
I honestly have no idea what they think they can do from a practical perspective. X is an American company. Unless Europe is going to emulate China's "Great Firewall", Europeans will be able to get there. X doesn't *have* to have offices in Europe.
Probably they're going to try to regulate X until Musk just withdraws from Europa (Great Firewall of China-style). Then they might push for a EU social media platform where people have to identify before being allowed to post. That is how I would do it if I were an anti-free-speech Eurocrat.
But what does it mean to "regulate" a company they have no authority over, because it's based in a completely different country? They could probably make it difficult to impossible for European companies to *advertise* on X, but they can't actually do anything to X itself.
But you've seen what happened with the USB chargers - EU regulated the sh*t out of them, so apple decided not to sell two of their phones in the EU. There are already a number of AI applications that are not available within the EU on account of regulatory issues. They could bother Musk until he deprives EU citizens of access to X. They would KNOW that he wouldn't comply with their regulations but they wouldn't mind bc the main goal would to "save" EU citizens from evil X.
Yeah, but Apple phones are hardware. It's a lot easier to prevent physical devices from entering a country than to prevent bits from crossing the border. Unless there's a very stringent firewall in place, of course, but you have to get pretty draconian to make that work. Even in Europe a sufficient number of people might squawk if they try that.
That is the actual plan: an online-version of Festung EUropa. The main obstacle isn't even technical, as much as it is political.
Imagine if every state in the US had veto power over any and all federal decisions. That's not an exact analogy, but darn close to how the EU (tries to) function.
Probably why there's been so much focused effort on social engineering, tarnishing everything but a few select state+regime media outlets/capitalist corporations as "right-wing extremist fake news Russia hoax conspiracy theories".
Speaking for myself, as I always do: The idea of a messed-up Bundestag along the lines mentioned in the last paragraph is appealing. I like it when stupid politicians who hate each other have to try to form an alliance, if and only if they try to keep a different political force out of power.
I love that they are looking at Kenya or Jamaica as the third world color combos for whatever shitshow coalition of imbeciles they manage to Frankenstein together.
So SPD+CSU/CDU coalition with passive and tacit support of Die Grüne "to protect Our Democracy" and in return Die Grüne gets some kind of symbolic measure (a biogas plant or higher rates of additives in petrol/diesel or some-such) would be my bet.
Then again, by February you may have a real energy shortage: the unspoken position of the Swedish government and parliament - and people! - is best summed up as "Fuck the European power market".
Regime-friendly papers have even started running "This is why the EU is so good for Sweden"-articles: a real "tell" if ever there was one.
'Voters in German elections have two votes: they cast their first vote directly for candidates in their district (Germany is divided into 299 districts for the purposes of federal elections), and their second vote for their preferred party. The 299 directly elected candidates enter the Bundestag with direct mandates, and the remaining 331 seats are awarded to party list candidates proportionally, so that the Bundestag reflects the general proportions of “second votes” that each party received.'
Fascinating. Do any other countries have such a system?
Yes, we do here in New Zealand, on a smaller and less complicated scale. It means that the Greens, for example, can get about 12% of the party vote and list MPs who may only get a few hundred direct votes end up in parliament. It's the share of party votes which determine a party's seats in parliament. This is complicated by the fact that voters of maori heritage can choose between being on a general electoral roll or a maori roll which has 7 reserved seats. When MMP was introduced about 30 years ago, these seats were to be abolished but this hasn't happened.
"Elections to the State Duma of the eighth convocation were held on 17–19 September 2021. Members of the State Duma were elected by a mixed electoral system: 225 deputies in federal constituencies and 225 in single-mandate constituencies. Five political parties were elected to the State Duma: United Russia (324), CPRF (57), A Just Russia — For Truth (27), LDPR (21), New People (13). There are also 5 independent members of the State Duma."
It’s an additional member system of PR but I did not know about the 3 seat threshold although the 5% one is well know and I assume it still applies.
Such a system could work in the UK but I would prefer (say) 400 directly elected and 200 available for top-up selected in regions or counties (about to be abolished) according to their personal public vote and not from their leader’s list.
The Musk effect is not so much Musk himself sending out these tweets on X. Rather, it is that his platform makes clear how many people agree with him. Thereby, those who may have sympathy for AfD, but have had reservations about voting AfD based on media coverage suddenly realize that their views are not out of the mainstream.
That is the main threat that Musk poses. That not he, but his followers will demonstrate that it is the establishment who are the extremist lunatics.
Too bad Musk continues to exclude ivermectin from his effect. He claims any human use of it "advocate suicide".
My wife takes it for Lyme and it's safe and effective.
Every time before I walk along the beach ,I take a shot of rum ,to prevent getting the fish flu ,that is raging under the waves next to me .
And I bet you've never had the fish flu.So that proves the rum works.
I take it whenever I feel a cold coming on. Shortens the cycle for me.
Musk is not infallible. He is also a bit erratic. Intelligent people are like that. With Elon you have to take the good with the bad. He does more good than bad with his platform.
Never heard that, but Musk is playing with his algorithm in ways I don't quite understand. Some are alleging the effects will be the return of throttling and shadowbanning. Others claim if you p**s him off, he cuts off your X subscriptions. I don't know what to believe. But I don't have to cut off engagement because I disapprove.
I admire Elon and have mostly agreed with and supported his interjections into politics. If I think he's wrong, I'll say so. Matthew McWilliams above explained the Musk effect perfectly. As to its effect on support for the AfD, we will see. At the least, maybe more Americans will understand that the AfD is not the modern Nazi party.
I suspect most Americans have never heard of the AfD. And those who have understand that it is the German version of MAGA.
I have seen multiple commentors on Substack refer to the AfD as Nazis.
Are they liberals?
I have eclectic taste in Substacks, so maybe. The term liberal, to me, has no meaning today. This AfD "prejudice" I've detected may actually have more to do with Musk than the AfD. Many ultra-MAGAs don't trust Musk.
NATO is the NaZis.
kinda right. longhistory ofnazis
I hope they're better than that.
Rainer Rothfuß with Harley Schlanger on AfD (Alternative for Germany)
https://soundcloud.com/ktalkmedia/2015-01-09-rainer-rothfuss
First half hour. Waveforms in first half hour clipped; doesn't help Rainer's halting English.
When did he say that?
Almost like a court of public opinion.. dangerously democratic overtones, eh?
An important observation. What you describe is how Musk has facilitated a “permission structure”, a technique developed for digital media to make Obama electable. I strongly recommend a long essay on this by David Samuel’s in Tabletmagazine (online). Obama’s spinners relied on a network of self reinforcing platforms, which is easier than using just one platform. But Musk, with 200m followers, is uniquely placed: he is his own synergy.
Yes. And this is why the only proper answer for the established media is to ignore Musk and to keep silence about his tweets.
Most people in Germany aren't on Twitter anyhow, and they would never know what Musks says.
But our established media is unable to keep stumm. They see their main task as screeching about the rightwing menace. So they will screech hysterically, unable to see how ridiculous they look, and how normal people question more and more their honesty or indeed sanity.
They did that with Trump, enabling him to become president. And now they do it with Musk.
Eventually, once most people stop trusting the media's opinion on the AfD, there will be a great AfD election victory. But that will still take a few years.
A UK TV News/current affairs programme did a poll asking did viewers think Musk should stay out of UK politics… 68% Said NO.
he should he is making it about him for clicks an $$$$
I think everyone here will enjoy this, by the excellent Heather Mac Donald:
https://www.city-journal.org/article/germany-populist-afd-party-immigration
"A commitment to unlimited migration from non-Western countries is today the West’s constitutive principle. It defines what it means to be a member of the Western elect; anyone who wants to restrict immigration has revealed himself, at best, as an enemy of the Enlightenment and, at worst, a genocidal maniac. The commitment to open borders is so profound that it overrides the preservation of other cherished elite values. Europe’s establishment would rather import millions of migrants opposed to its liberal regime than protect that regime by restricting such immigration."
GREAT REPLACEMENT OR BUST!
I love Heather Mac Donald. Highly recommend all her books (When Race Trumps Merit, The Diversity Delusion, The War on Cops). She's had her finger on the pulse of various social issues for years now and is really good at picking out the most pertinent data points to back up her positions.
I have tried all my life, ('pace' scolds - from the age of 7) to match 'girls' in their facility with speech, and possibly, with thought. When I hear Heather MacDonald I realize that I have lost at least half of the battle.
I think that Musk's biggest contribution here is to show the German people and the broader world that it's okay to speak your mind without fear, and that it's okay to buck the elites.
I have very high hopes for the German February elections, and feeling quite buoyed by the fact that Justin Trudeau joined Scholz, Macron, Austria's Nehammer, and New Zealand's Ardern in the dustbin of history!
This swing to the right is global, generational, and completely unstoppable....
for a small number of German voters, maybe only 5% of them, Musk's endorsement makes the AfD seem OK. it doesn't mean they support the AfD just because Musk likes them, but it means they're no longer out of bounds. that's something.
It’s a bit like the Covid censorship effect. When we all thought that we were the only one that thought it was an absolute scam, no-one said anything. Once we all got onto Substack, and Musk bought X, we discovered that there were thousands of us. Made it much more likely that everyone would speak out.
Indeed, and sometimes all it takes is a little nudge to make a BIG change!
I'm so very hopeful that your home country will start to "right" itself come February 23rd! Fingers, legs and eyes crossed...
Here’s hoping for Australia in May (or so) this year. 🤞
Well, change seems to be in the air, and I firmly believe that it is generational, and that overlong reign of the 60's "Flower Children" is finally coming to an end, even in the Land Down Under.
Oi, Oi, Oi!
🤞 From your mouth to the public’s ears
There's a trend afoot, and one that I don't see stopping any time soon.
The 60's "Flower Children", who railed against "The Man" in their youth, have held onto power for far too long, and have become "The Man" to our younger generations, and they can't seem to grasp this completely natural evolution.
It doesn't hep their cause that they've gone full-authoritarian via Climate and COVID overreach, and gosh-darn it, we plebes simply yearn to be free!
These posts have demonstrated to me that CDU/CSU is much more a left-wing party than I previously believed. Respondents to the AfD question almost certainly take it less as a literal matter of “last hope for Germany” and more a measure of general approval or tolerance.
In my head, I had always equated CDU/CSU with something like “US Republicans without the religious stuff” but actually they’re more like “Bloomberg Democrats” or “NeverTrump Republicans”.
Knowing nothing about German politics, when I read here that the "center right party" was showing itself willing to coalesce with the Marxist Greens, I began to wonder whether their description was objectively accurate, or was instead the creation of the leftist consensus press, who routinely describes anyone not to the left of Pol Pot as "far right."
Generally speaking, any European "conservative" or "right" party is left of the US Democrat party on most issues.
Often, the term "Demokratur" is used by critics of our various versions of "democracy":
https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demokratur
Sorry, but there's no English page for it, but if you're interested, a computer-assisted translation ought to do.
Yes, and this tendency is self-reinforcing. Some of the right wing of CDU has defected, so the remaining ones are now more leftist.
Dare I say it's starting to feel like we're winning?!
Winning feels good!
I would propose that it's not Musk's statements themselves that are having an effect, but the Streisand like effect of the German media hyperventilating about his statements, giving the AfD a lot of free publicity and in a way that isn't directly negative.
“And likely leave the AfD as the strongest party in Germany in 2029.” That’s a long way off, leaving plenty of scope for mischief in the interim.
I just read yesterday in the Belgian press, that for umpteen times in a row, no Vlaams Blok participation, or even a mayor, is left. They have managed again, to put this party on the side, and the other parties will look at Belgian politics to do the same with AfD.
But there’s hope in Austria where Herbert Kickl of the Freedom Party has been given the opportunity to form a coalition government. I think they had 29% of the vote.
Austria's always been a bit of an outlier. It is, geographically and culturally, somewhere between East and West. The FPO has been in coalition before regionally and enjoyed popular support well before counterparts like the AfD existed.
Uh-huh. You just keep sayin that.
theyeill be malinged and called nazi. kinda are
FPO takes the Ostmark!
Sei schlau, wähl Blau!
If this isn't the campaign slogan, it should be.
I think the Musk-effect is that he removes some of the AfD's Nazi stench, which many Germans fear so much.
It will be worth watching what happens after Austria's decision to ask the head of the strongest party - FPÖ - to start building a government after the "multiparty-coalition"-idea failed utterly. From Habeck to Özdemir, everybody has weighed, their reactions much in the shock-horror range. I see two options, not mutually exclusive:
a) they will be pushing harder for a multiparty coalition, trying to reconcile utterly different ideological standpoints and putting much pressure on CDU to conform to left/green party standpoints.
b) they will try to attack AfD harder than ever and to ban it in the long run. By now they must have realized that AfD is here to stay and might grow considerably, as FPÖ did in Austria. At the same time, they will try to regulate X to be less stubbornly free-speech and less in their way.
very much agree, his majesty the sun chancellor robert habeck is already saying that nothing like what happened with FPÖ should be allowed to trasnpire here in BRD. but it gets people thinking anyway – it gets them wondering why the AfD means the apocalypse if the Össis get Kickl for Chancellor and the lights stay on just fine there. This will make them go only harder against AfD, but I don't what they left to fire at them. we see, I guess.
Pro tip: tell people that FPÖ was in five coalitions already and their track record is not that different from other parties. Austria did not genocide anybody, invade anybody, it's just sitting there quietly amassing debt just like everybody else. And at that occasion one could also tell people that the one overwhelming reason why Kickl got the support he did was that people are really DONE with the immigration they've been getting. Even people who voted for Social Democrats for decades are DONE.
> At the same time, they will try to regulate X to be less stubbornly free-speech and less in their way.
I honestly have no idea what they think they can do from a practical perspective. X is an American company. Unless Europe is going to emulate China's "Great Firewall", Europeans will be able to get there. X doesn't *have* to have offices in Europe.
Probably they're going to try to regulate X until Musk just withdraws from Europa (Great Firewall of China-style). Then they might push for a EU social media platform where people have to identify before being allowed to post. That is how I would do it if I were an anti-free-speech Eurocrat.
But what does it mean to "regulate" a company they have no authority over, because it's based in a completely different country? They could probably make it difficult to impossible for European companies to *advertise* on X, but they can't actually do anything to X itself.
But you've seen what happened with the USB chargers - EU regulated the sh*t out of them, so apple decided not to sell two of their phones in the EU. There are already a number of AI applications that are not available within the EU on account of regulatory issues. They could bother Musk until he deprives EU citizens of access to X. They would KNOW that he wouldn't comply with their regulations but they wouldn't mind bc the main goal would to "save" EU citizens from evil X.
Yeah, but Apple phones are hardware. It's a lot easier to prevent physical devices from entering a country than to prevent bits from crossing the border. Unless there's a very stringent firewall in place, of course, but you have to get pretty draconian to make that work. Even in Europe a sufficient number of people might squawk if they try that.
That is the actual plan: an online-version of Festung EUropa. The main obstacle isn't even technical, as much as it is political.
Imagine if every state in the US had veto power over any and all federal decisions. That's not an exact analogy, but darn close to how the EU (tries to) function.
The technical problems are fairly impressive, though. The internet is designed to be accessible.
"The internet treats censorship as damage, and routes around it."
Probably why there's been so much focused effort on social engineering, tarnishing everything but a few select state+regime media outlets/capitalist corporations as "right-wing extremist fake news Russia hoax conspiracy theories".
Musk vs. Scholz = James Bond vs Jimmy Carter.
"Springtime
for that guy
and Germany..."
Found the conga song we needed!
Speaking for myself, as I always do: The idea of a messed-up Bundestag along the lines mentioned in the last paragraph is appealing. I like it when stupid politicians who hate each other have to try to form an alliance, if and only if they try to keep a different political force out of power.
The problem with this situation is that nothing ever gets done because no-one can agree on anything.
I love that they are looking at Kenya or Jamaica as the third world color combos for whatever shitshow coalition of imbeciles they manage to Frankenstein together.
So SPD+CSU/CDU coalition with passive and tacit support of Die Grüne "to protect Our Democracy" and in return Die Grüne gets some kind of symbolic measure (a biogas plant or higher rates of additives in petrol/diesel or some-such) would be my bet.
Then again, by February you may have a real energy shortage: the unspoken position of the Swedish government and parliament - and people! - is best summed up as "Fuck the European power market".
Regime-friendly papers have even started running "This is why the EU is so good for Sweden"-articles: a real "tell" if ever there was one.
Footnote challenge accepted!
'Voters in German elections have two votes: they cast their first vote directly for candidates in their district (Germany is divided into 299 districts for the purposes of federal elections), and their second vote for their preferred party. The 299 directly elected candidates enter the Bundestag with direct mandates, and the remaining 331 seats are awarded to party list candidates proportionally, so that the Bundestag reflects the general proportions of “second votes” that each party received.'
Fascinating. Do any other countries have such a system?
Yes, we do here in New Zealand, on a smaller and less complicated scale. It means that the Greens, for example, can get about 12% of the party vote and list MPs who may only get a few hundred direct votes end up in parliament. It's the share of party votes which determine a party's seats in parliament. This is complicated by the fact that voters of maori heritage can choose between being on a general electoral roll or a maori roll which has 7 reserved seats. When MMP was introduced about 30 years ago, these seats were to be abolished but this hasn't happened.
It's almost the same in Russia. The threshold is currently 5%.
http://duma.gov.ru/en/duma/about/history/information/
"Elections to the State Duma of the eighth convocation were held on 17–19 September 2021. Members of the State Duma were elected by a mixed electoral system: 225 deputies in federal constituencies and 225 in single-mandate constituencies. Five political parties were elected to the State Duma: United Russia (324), CPRF (57), A Just Russia — For Truth (27), LDPR (21), New People (13). There are also 5 independent members of the State Duma."
It’s an additional member system of PR but I did not know about the 3 seat threshold although the 5% one is well know and I assume it still applies.
Such a system could work in the UK but I would prefer (say) 400 directly elected and 200 available for top-up selected in regions or counties (about to be abolished) according to their personal public vote and not from their leader’s list.
And people in the US get excited when a third party makes a showing. Think of all the fun we are missing with 6 or 7 parties.