>I donated to both his ill-fated Mayday PAC and his ill-fated presidential campaign last year.
I'm sorry to hear that. He ran an incredibly irresponsible and dishonest platform, even for this election.
>He is a selfless guy who is trying to address the root cause of US political dysfunction.
In politics, as in engineering, programming, development and creative works in general, good intentions are not enough. Granting him the benefit of the doubt that he really was genuinely "trying to address the root cause of US political dysfunction" (and I do in fact doubt that he was) it was a crazy incompetent and blindered effort, exactly the kind of ivory tower BS that he displayed in Eldred v. Ashcroft. Back a year or so ago, September 2015, he gave an interview with Ars Technica [1] (where I also vented now that I look at it) with a bunch of doozies, but the fundamental one was this:
>Lessig-on-ars-article: "Reform can still win. The part of the system that is most broken is Congress. We still have the ability to elect a president. And if we elect a president with a super-mandate to demand Congress fix itself, I will do everything possible to make sure Congress does fix itself."
Uh, lol? "Demand Congress fix itself"? That's not how it fucking works. Congress is Constitutionally by far the most powerful body, and it does not answer in election terms to the Executive or even the nation as a whole, it answers to individual states or (often extremely heavily gerrymandered) districts, and even more so to the people who actually bother to reliably vote every time. The most powerful and critical Constitutional role of the Presidency is foreign affairs, and while expansion of the executive in the 20th century has increased the domestic role that still is an utterly key part, along with control of and ability to negotiate with (ie., dirty ugly sausage making) Congress. Lessig, Sanders, and Trump all basically were/are running to be King, not President, and a king that didn't particularly care about the rest of the world either and just wanted to pursue their own interests at that. But we do not have kings in the USA, we have Presidents.
For a political movement, frankly the Presidency should probably be the FINAL goal, not the first. Bottom-up, in classic American fashion, rather then top-down. It's getting power in towns, in cities, then in states, slowly working up, and then in Congress, that really allows for long lasting change, and that will have the most direct impact on people. It's the way to deal with inevitable setbacks, resistance and failure, and also represents a basic humbleness and self-reflection, as it allows testing the practical application of ideals in limited areas before moving to the national and international stage. It's a long, grueling and unpleasant, un-flashy slog, one that can take years to decades, with no guarantee of success. But that's what it takes. I have very minimal respect for people who try to take shortcuts, who demand instant change in one year and then don't bother to show up to the polls 2 years later because they're just so let down that it all didn't go their way right off, and anyway getting an early ballot or spending a few minutes to a few hours voting in person every few years is just WAY too much to ask a citizen for the preservation and enrichment of their entire society and democratic government!!/extreme sarcasm. This is why I doubt people like him are really "trying to address root causes", because I suspect they find the actual methods it would take to do so too much work or too unpleasant. They want better sausage, but they don't actually like the whole real sausage-making thing, so instead they pursue abstract platforms about idealized Sausage Theory of Utopianism.
Incidentally, while I disagree with basically every single thing they stand for, this is an area where movements like the Tea Party and such got it right (unfortunately). Despite being a tiny fraction of voters, and despite probably never ever seeing one of their own in the Presidency, they've had a massive impact by getting control in local areas and through gaining a strong minority within a major party. At the national level, the "House Freedom Caucus for example with just 42/435 seats has exercised significant influence of the course of the country the last few years despite engaging in rampant obstructionism. If they'd been even somewhat flexible they could have done far more. There are big money backers sure, but they still worked bottom-up and often in the face of hostile party leadership. A tech/governance movement could pursue the same strategy and have a much better base and effects then leaping right for the Presidency, failing, and giving up. Or for that matter succeeding, then failing (because the President can't fix it all themselves), then getting disillusioned even more, and giving up.
>Lessig-on-ars-article: If he gets elected and the CEA is passed, he'll resign the presidency and the vice president will take over.
And what if the rest of the planet didn't cooperate? What if there was a financial melt down February 1st 2017? What if Russia invaded the Baltics? What about North Korea? What if China moved military forces towards Taiwan? What if some new plague broke out? What if a reactor melted down in the USA, or there was a massive industrial accident? And that's just big ticket possibilities, the POTUS must also deal with a million smaller things, starting Day 1, that are more mundane but nevertheless vitally important. They have to deal with getting the top of the Executive branch staffed up. They have to start getting people approve by Congress right away. There will be affairs of our allies and adversaries both to work on, particularly because in many cases mere perception can affect reality. Really, even potential presidents should be considering and planning this before they're even elected, all of them, no matter how low the odds, just to ensure continuity and hit the ground running as much as possible (as Clinton is doing right now for example [2]). Again, his candidacy wasn't just a bad joke, it was flagrantly irresponsible by every measure.
>I wish him the best of luck in his future projects.
I do too, so long as they're actually good projects whose failure won't screw over hundreds of millions to billions of people.
1. http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/09/presidential-cand...
2. http://www.politico.com/story/2016/10/clinton-trump-apology-...