🔮 Elon's America Party Will Fail…Unless He Listens to Me: Propaganda Expert

‘Disgraced Propagandist’ on the Trump-Elon Split and What Comes Next

Isaac Simpson, @DisgracedPropagandist, writes about propaganda and political narrative control from Bernays to modern practitioners. The Oracle spoke with him about the Trump-Elon breakup, and his predictions for how Musk's America Party will play out.

This interview has been edited for length. All answers are his own.

On your Substack, you write about propaganda and branding from a practitioner's perspective. Have you worked in political consulting?

I come from the world of mainstream advertising and branding. I was doing stuff for huge brands like Uber, Discord, the NFL, and McDonald's, mainly in the world of big, hugely funded Silicon Valley startups. I started WILL, which is the based version of that, about three years ago after getting fired and quitting a bunch of times from various mainstream agencies. I found it was impossible to be anything besides extremely blindly left-wing and not expect to have a lot of trouble.

That managerialized adult daycare HR bullshit leads to terrible work. We were spending 50 Zoom meetings a day talking about this project manager's dog. Look at the shit they come out with now. Every brand looks exactly the same, like something you made in Canva. That's because they can't resist the pressure to conform.

Let's get into the Elon-Trump dynamic. How instrumental was Elon in helping Trump win the second term?

It was massive. Elon thinks of himself as the guy who gave Trump the election, and he has a right to think that. It wasn't just converting young people with Twitter and podcasts. It's also the ground game stuff: registering voters in Pennsylvania. Elon's an extremely good problem solver. He was really good at organizing and giving Trump a rubber stamp from a huge amount of people in the middle. Elon really is owed a huge debt for what he did.

Did you see the split coming?

I literally tweeted it right afterwards: they are going to split up. Anyone with sense knew there's no way this would last. The first hint of trouble was the H1B visa thing. But when the Big Beautiful Bill ended subsidies for his cars, that's where Elon got really mad. I think there was a physical fight. Elon was basically like, "What the fuck, man? I won you this election. I need one favor." And Trump doesn't roll that way. Trump does whatever he wants.

Will the tech bros that Elon brought stay with Trump?

I don't think Elon's going to spend the rest of his career working on the America Party. It feels petty. Everything else Musk does is like "I really do want to go to space, I really do want to make electric cars." The America Party doesn't feel like that. My sense is he's not going to follow through with it.

Lets get to the markets. Will Musk register the America Party by year end?

I don't know what registering the America Party means exactly or how hard it is. Like, is it hard to register a party? My bet is Elon doesn't go through with it all the way, but he'll probably file some paperwork.

We have a market on who will join the America Party. Who do you think will be most likely to join up?

Massie has a really good chance if it happens. He's fucked because he went against the Big Beautiful Bill. They're definitely going to primary him. Mark Cuban for sure would go for it.

Some people not on the list: the All-In podcast guys, Chamath, Calacanis, maybe David Sacks, though he's in the administration now. They're all big Elon fans. If they say anything against the left, they'll have nowhere to go.

Joe Rogan. I could totally see that. He wants a third party really badly. Bari Weiss. Patrick Bet-David. Yang is such a good call, he's perfect for that. The Dems have nothing for him. If his Forward Party hasn't taken off, this is his only move.

Will Trump give Elon a nickname before August?

Didn't he already try? "Subsidies Elon"? I'd be very bullish on this. The second Elon is a pain in the ass at all, Trump's going to give him a nickname for sure.

Will Trump and Elon speak before August?

My gut says definitely not. It's too late. Trump would probably let Elon come back, but I don't think Elon has it in him. He got outmaneuvered and doesn't have any options. He should have waited till he had leverage, but he got so pissed he couldn't hold it in.

Elon no longer richest man this year? Do you think Trump will try to retaliate against Elon’s companies?

I don't think Trump is going to go after SpaceX and Tesla. That would be too much. But I'd be bullish in the medium term about Elon losing the richest man status. Elon's meddled too much in politics and all that meddling is gonna mess up his companies. Tesla sales will definitely go down.

It sucks because he did so much good. I think he was integral to winning the election. But he went too far. Even I said at the time, he's got to go away now. It would be one thing if he was American. He's not American, so at a certain point it's like you're getting too involved.

Once the H1B thing came out, it was clear he'd miscalculated. He didn't really understand what Trumpism was about. He didn't get there was a lot of real nativism involved. He had this naive notion of "America's an idea for everybody who can make it." He didn't realize there's something more blood and soil about MAGA.

If Musk calls you tomorrow to advise the America Party, what would you advise him?

First of all, 100% we are taking that job. We're charging him a lot of money.

First thing is to find a wedge. Find one issue you're really different from the uniparty on. It can't just be "we're not the uniparty." What would be great? The Epstein files. The uniparty just gave us their answer—nope, we're not doing it. As the third party, pick that up. It's a symbol that you're speaking outside the machine.

The problem with the right is it's the heckler's veto. The right in America is the outside party yelling "No, this is not fair! What if it was the other way?" Big C conservatism is a giant economy based on being the complainer.

The narrative should be about freedom. Not individual freedom, but freedom of enterprise. The freedom of a group of people to pursue ends as they see fit. You can exclude people, hire people, build your business or church exactly how you want. Free enterprise. You should be able to build things the way you want in America.

What about symbolism, and logo? What kind of animal do they need?

I would definitely not call it the America Party. That's a very bad idea. Too vague. If it has no identity, no one will care. It should be very narrowly focused. Ground it on "we are the party of ultimate business freedom." It should be a rocket ship. Something associated with what Musk actually is.

Call it the Future Party or the Futurists. Something related to the power of vision. "We are for people who are here to build the future."

Who are your biggest influences in studying propaganda, either the OG writers or currently?

You've got to start with Walter Lippmann. He came up with the theory of stereotypes, but stereotypes doesn't mean what people think it means. It means the lens through which you see the world. Everybody has a stereotype and they see the world through that lens. Lippmann was the original elite theory guy. He was like, "Look, the idiots are never going to get it. So you have to basically have a group of experts that make the real decisions and everybody else gets to play fake democracy."

Then you have Bernays. He's the father of modern propaganda. People give him credit for torches of freedom and bacon and eggs, but in reality, he's the father of "100 experts say." That's really what he's the father of the phony news article that's like "breakthrough: experts say you need this insole in your shoe."

Then you have Saul Alinsky and Rules for Radicals. He's the lefty tactics guy. The biggest rule of Alinsky is the point is not the action, it's the enemy's reaction. So every protest you see, it's not about annoying people because you're protesting. It's about getting a police reaction that you can then take a picture of. They love certain types of images that really work on people's brains.

Who's doing it well currently?

On the left, there's the Meidas Touch group. Funny because I went to college with this kid. They're known for doing all kinds of false flags and they were the number one podcast in America for a second because they juked the numbers in this very specific way.

Everything they're doing is trying to wrap their heads around how to get men back. They want to get into country music, dominate sports. I really don't like them though. All this Alinsky shit used to work before the internet, but now it doesn't work anymore. I think Alinsky is dead.

On the right, I've always been a fan of Bannon. I've always been a fan of James O'Keefe. Whoever's doing the White House X account is great, their stuff is really good.

But if I'm going to say who's the best at propaganda right now, it's Anduril and Palantir. One of the ways I knew Trump was going to win was when he appeared at a football game with Vance and they were on stage, you saw their big visage, and right next to it was a giant Palantir ad. It was like Palantir and then them. And I was like, "Oh shit, we're learning how to do this."

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