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The message to Democrats is clear: you must dump neoliberal economics
(www.theguardian.com)
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this post was submitted on 28 Nov 2024
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politics
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Before the 1980s that used to be the unions paying and funding campaigns. The reason Democrats started chasing and boot-licking oligarchs. Is because the unions stopped funding elections and campaigns at the rate they had been before the 1980s. If you can figure out why that was. There were two solid hints given. Then we could probably understand why they're seeking funding from oligarchs. And how we should probably go about changing that.
People love to complain about Democrats begging for oligarchs money without understanding why. Which helps the oligarchs. And gives them even more control over the DNC than they would have otherwise. I'm not saying we should accept the oligarch funding and ownership. But until we come to terms with why that came to be and address it appropriately. It won't end anytime soon.
It sounds like you're saying we need to bribe our politicians to get them to represent us. Is that what you're getting at? Because I fundamentally disagree with that concept.
Only if you consider funding bribing. Was it bribing when the unions financed the Democratic party before 1980?
Yes. All money needs to be removed from politics with the same amount given to all candidates to run with and dark money investigated and prosecuted. Politicians shouldn't be NASCAR teams, and lobbying should be called what it actually is.
I agree. The irony is that we're going to need money and resources to do that. I would rather it wasn't from oligarchs. The question is then who from. Democrats have "technically" broken fundraising records repeatedly with small donors. Every 4 years. Which is a tiny meaningless record. Republicans and conservatives spend MULTIPLES of that 4 year aggregate EVERY YEAR. On campaigning and messaging.
It was recently revealed that many conservative media personalities and influencers . People like Tim Poole were being paid millions of dollars a year. To put out one barely edited propaganda video a week. To put that in perspective, over the course of two weeks. With 1/5th the effort of a left leaning media personality like Sam Cedar. They make more than he does in a year. In just two weeks. This isn't isolated either. A big group were found to be unregistered foreign agents of Russia because of this. And Russia didn't invent it. Our own oligarchs have been patronizing conservative media outlets and influencers like this for decades.
How do we compete with that? Serious question.
Strict campaign finance laws, where all political donations go to a bipartisan elections department and then are split equally between all candidates in graduated stages from the primaries through until the general election. No contributions to candidates directly, no PACs or Super PACs (they can exist but fund everyone equally), no ads paid for outside the provided war chest. Any dark money found results in IRS forensic audits and criminal penalties for the campaigns.
If you want more money for your "side", you get it at roughly 50% of what you put in. The "other side" gets the other half. Should still drive donations, including mega-doners, because their candidate still gets more money for ads and campaigning. This also allows 3rd party candidates to compete equally at all stages. If we can get graduated polling too this should spur a further plurality of viable candidates.
Political commentary from news and independent "journalism" on places like YouTube would still be covered under free speech, but audits are allowed to look into them being dark money ads with the above consequences for the campaigns.
Foreign ads are what they are unfortunately, but the IRS is good at finding US money laundering through offshore institutions. Make sending money to foreign assets to be spent circumventing these laws especially steep. A few campaign managers and money managers getting 20-life or going to Gitmo for laundering campaign money through Russian agents should help curb some shenanigans.
Sounds great. How do we get there? Campaign finance laws are written and voted on by politicians. Why would a politician funded by oligarchs cut off their own funding?
If you want campaign finance reform, you need politicians in office who are willing to vote for it. Which means you need to get them into office. Which means their campaigns need funding.
That means we need a plan to fund campaigns in the current landscape, before reform.
Honestly? I won't hold my breath, because the only thing that gets unanimous bipartisan support is congressional raises. I doubt we will see any of my suggestions or any campaign finance reform in my lifetime. We can't even get a majority of elected Democrats to agree that insider trading by Congress should be illegal.
Realistically it's probably a lost cause, but I will vote for, and campaign for, anyone running with that on their platform. Not supporting ranked choice voting is one of the many, many reasons I voted Democrat and not for my district's Republican candidate, but that was a substantial issue I looked for in every candidate on my ballot.
I consider myself, broadly, a pragmatist. Lost causes are lost effort in a world that desperately needs unwasted effort applied strategically. As idealistic as it may seem, politics is a game of pragmatism. All that actually matters is installing representatives that represent your interests. At least, moreso than the popular alternative.
You can disagree in principle, but that's what liberal democracy is, and that's what participating in it in any meaningful way entails.
Perhaps that is why many choose not to participate
I think the campaigns at this point can be funded with regular donations. I don't think corporate donations are even needed at this point.
The key thing to realize is that in a presidential race, you reach advertising saturation. Hillary and Kamala both massively outspent Trump in their campaigns, but they still lost. Their financial advantage didn't help because ads reach saturation. At some point, everyone already knows about the candidates, and additional money spent really doesn't help you.
The Democratic party could get by just fine with the amount of donations they can raise from individual donors. They don't do this because the consultants that run the DNC ad buying get paid a percentage of all ad buys. And the DNC itself simply benefits from having larger budgets in general. So the push is always to have as much ad spend as possible, even if having that large ad spend requires cozying up to oligarchs.
They should. But they can't currently be. And no one has a plan on how to get it there. Actually Republicans and the oligarchs are actively making it harder to do. They own all the popular TV, radio, print, and social media and are turning most of the people you know or have contact with against it.
The pittance Democrats and the DNC are raising from small donors etc can't even begin to get us there. What's worse is that they're trying to get the money to actually push back. And people want to crucify them for it. But not provide actual alternatives. Actual left wing media is atrophied and under funded. With no reach or presence. But vital in addition to campaign funding. Just completely ignored.