- Music
- 05 Jul 17
Group combines lobbying with crowdsourced policy proposals
Silicon Valley nobility getting involved in US politics is nothing new, but a new initiative co-founded by Marc Pincus and Reid Hoffman, the heads of Zynga and LinkedIn respectively, certainly seems novel.
Win The Future Democrats, or 'WTF Democrats' for short is based on a website where rank and file members can put forward and vote on policies, the most popular of which will be placed on prominent billboards which will be seen by US politicians in Washington DC.
Pincus and Hoffman also hope to field candidates under the "WTF Democrats" banner, and with the stated aim of attracting "political outsiders or politicians who are ready to put the people ahead of their career", they have turned to an unlikely source.
Third Eye Blind frontman Stephan Jenkins has been making increasingly political statements via Twitter recently, which may reflect the tech titans' courtship of him (Pincus and Jenkins are reported by Stereogum as having met "in recent months.").
An example is his 4th of July tweet, in which he compared US President Donald Trump to 18th century monarch George the Third:
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241 years ago Americans resisted government by a foreign power and the ravings of a crazed authoritarian. Now's our turn. Happy4th. #Resist
— Stephan Jenkins (@stephanjenkins) July 4, 2017
One day prior, Jenkins referenced WTF Democrats in another anti-Trump tweet.
#FireTrumpOrYoureFired Let Congress know we’re watching. Make a stand today or be voted out later. #FireTrumpOrYoureFired #WTFAgenda
— Stephan Jenkins (@stephanjenkins) July 3, 2017
Third Eye Blind were most prominent in the '90s and early '00s, gaining prominence with songs like "Jumper" and "Semi-Charmed Life".
Their most recent release We Are Drugs came out in 2016.