12 ms·

Larry Lessig: I'm All In

324 points by command_tab 11y ago

jacobolus 11y ago
> But it weakened the credibility of the campaign. Was I really trying to be president? Or was I just trying to make a point? Obvious answer: he’s just trying to make a point, the whole thing is a publicity stunt, and his campaign has never had and still does not have any credibility whatsoever. > But the result was almost no national media focused on a campaign that was actually more viable than that of at least two of the other Democratic candidates, “More viable” meaning that when you add up the poll numbers for Lessig plus those other two candidates, the percentage rounds to zero. Likewise they have no budget, no endorsements, a tiny donor base, no institutional support from the Democratic party, no grass-roots campaign organization, etc. etc. Lessig’s approach to politics is to shout “HEY EVERYBODY, LOOK AT ME! I don’t have any experience or support, and I haven’t tried to engage with the political system before, but vote for me because all those other guys are corrupt!” That works if you’re a billionaire with universal name-recognition like Trump, running in a primary with a bunch of weak other candidates, targeting primary voters responsive to knee-jerk racism and insults. Lessig isn’t Trump though. In the 2014 midterm elections his PAC raised a moderate amount of money mostly from Silicon Valley VCs, threw it at a handful of congressional races, and had absolutely zero impact on anything. Seems like it’s not working out this time either.
- smacktoward 11y ago
  The sad thing is that in some ways Trump is actually better at making Lessig's pitch than Lessig is, because while Trump is a clownish, racist buffoon he does have one thing Lessig completely lacks: charisma. He knows how to deliver a line, how to work a crowd. Those are important skills for a politician!
- AlwaysBCoding 11y ago
  The thing is though, Lessig is completely right. Members of Congress spend 70% of their time raising money. They're not lawmakers, they're professional fundraisers. Think of a startup whose founders spent 70% of their time raising money, they would never get anything done. And since fundraising is now such an integral part of a Congressman's day to day, they have two classes of constitutes to think about: the voters, and the funders. And there is a very small group of people who give > 50% of all campaign cash and more or less have control over the entire country. This is why common sense laws that have majority support from the voters (gun control, marijuana legalization etc...) never get the traction they should. The funders don't want them, and they have the final say, not the voters. It's crazy how complacent people have become about government incompetence. The becoming president and then resigning thing was weird. I'm glad he's dropping it, because you can hate the method all you want, and I too think he comes off really distant out of touch sometimes, but what he's saying needs to be heard.
  - jacobolus 11y ago
    Okay, but so what? Lessig has no chance of winning the Democratic Party nomination, so his campaign basically amounts to hijacking the primary to promote his message. Even if that message is “completely right”, so what? You think if Lessig gets a seat at the Democratic primary debates, he’ll be able to convince the Republicans in Congress to reverse course on campaign finance? Fat chance. The most likely way to improve things at the moment is to elect another Democrat to office, and hope that Justice Scalia and/or Justice Kennedy resigns within the next few years, and the composition of the Supreme Court changes enough to reverse the Citizens United case. Also, hope that the Justice Department under a Democratic president stays aggressive about promoting voting rights around the country. Beyond that, the next big hope is getting Democrats back in control of the House of Representatives, which probably can’t happen until after the 2020 census, and only if the Democrats gain control of enough state legislatures to redraw fairer district boundaries.
    - Gotadime 11y ago
      Having a single party in total control like that would be destructive to our country, no matter how you spin it. Both parties have legitimate points and interests that need to be represented in our system. I have never understood individuals that buy in 100% to a single party and just can't fathom the idea of the opposing party having any good ideas that need to be heard. Radicalism of any kind is dangerous - conservative or liberal.
      - jacobolus 11y ago
        Campaign finance reform is dead in the water as long as the Republicans control Congress (and as long as, per Citizens United, unlimited corporate spending on political advertising is considered protected speech). So if we agree with Lessig that campaign finance reform is the most important national political priority, then electing a Democratic majority to the House is the necessary precondition. (I’m not saying you should agree with that, but it’s the premise of Lessig’s campaign.)
        11y ago
- SwellJoe 11y ago
  "I haven’t tried to engage with the political system before" Now that's just inaccurate, unless you mean merely that he's never run for office. He has engaged with the political system on numerous fronts over the span of a couple of decades, sometimes effectively, sometimes not. He's made real positive change in the world (possibly as much as anyone else running, if we're being honest), occasionally through political means. But, more importantly, I genuinely trust him to do what he says. Which is definitely more than can be said of the vast majority of people vying for the title on either side of the fence (the entirety of GOP field is particularly villainous this year, but the current leader for the DNC isn't exactly a pillar of virtue). But, you're right that he is running a losing race. Several commentators on the first debate said they would have preferred to see Lessig on the stage, and perhaps if that would have happened, things would look different. I don't know. That said, I think you're missing the point of why he's so thoroughly unlikely to even get fair treatment by the DNC, much less taken seriously as a candidate. Despite his impressive fundraising for a "nobody" in politics, and despite being clearly smarter and more broadly competent than some of the other DNC candidates, his desire to tear down the very system that feeds the DNC (and the GOP) virtually guarantees he will never be taken seriously. A reform candidate in a thoroughly corrupt system stands no chance. Short of pitchforks and the guillotine, our system likely won't be reformed.
  - jacobolus 11y ago
    He’s been a lawyer arguing cases and filing amicus briefs w/r/t copyright law and net neutrality, and he’s been an issue-specific activist/lobbyist on those two issues plus, more recently, campaign finance reform. He’s also given a TED talk and written a book outlining zany, politically impossible proposals for tackling the latter issue, and he ran a failed single-issue PAC in 2014. But that’s a very limited kind of engagement with the overall political system. If you want to become president, you need to build a broad base of support, which means spending many years organizing, becoming versed in salient political issues, directly working on a wide range of issues with a wide range of other people, leaving a public record and earning credibility. You won’t be able to build a large grass-roots organization, earn endorsements from major institutional political players, build a donor base, etc. on pure message alone. The easiest way to meaningfully engage in a public way is by being elected to political office, but there are probably other possible ways for someone willing to put the years of work in (e.g. as a high-level executive department official, as a career judge, as a military general, ...). Right now Lessig’s only reputation is as “that guy who doesn’t like copyright, and keeps grandstanding about campaign finance”, but he has no broader credibility as a presidential candidate. Lessig is not “smarter” or “more competent” than the leading candidates; rather, it’s clear that he’s politically naïve in the extreme, has no idea how to run a serious campaign, and would have no idea what to do were he by some miracle elected to high office.
- nocman 11y ago
  "running in a primary with a bunch of weak other candidates" ^ I think your political bias is showing through. In my opinion this is one of the strongest sets of candidates for the Republican primary in a long time. And I am far from alone in that assessment. Yes there are some weak candidates (there are always weak candidates in both parties), but it is far from "a bunch".
- GPGPU 11y ago
  People always say they don't like "Politicians" but politicians get things done. People who know how to make deals and bargains.
- webXL 11y ago
  > That works if you’re a billionaire with universal name-recognition like Trump Ben Carson is #2 though. But that's probably also due to the "weak"* candidates. * I think you mean relatively unknown compared to a former first lady.
  - hga 11y ago
    Both Trump and Carson are willing to move the Overton Window (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window) ... although I suppose it's telling that not being willing to do that is a defining characteristic of most if not all of those other candidates. The Republican base is beyond hungry for this, and for that matter playing by the other side's rules is a tried and true way to lose.
- _username 11y ago
  I registered just to reply to your comment. I live in Europe, and from here, your comments sounds like the grumblings of someone born and raised in some far shore of the USA where creationism is still taught at school and who genuinely believes that more guns are required to prevent mass shootings. > have no budget, no endorsements, a tiny donor base, no institutional support from the Democratic party, no grass-roots campaign organization That's the very reason why the American system is fucked up : you shouldn't get a chance to get elected for the sole reason that you have any of these. And I'm not pretending that European models are perfect, far from that. They are just less fucked up - North American elections look like a joke from here, almost as much as South African "democracies"/North Koea where they are president from father to son and get elected with scores approaching 90%. The only downside to the joke is that USA are far more powerful than NK. > a billionaire with universal name-recognition like Trump Outside of the US, nobody knows who he is. I'm 27, engineer, speak four languages and have traveled around Europe, North Africa, "Middle-East", and South Asia. The only things that I knew about him prior to the 2016 presidential campaign were that he is an eccentric billionaire and has/had alleged bounds to the mafia (and the only reason why I knew that is because I care about national North American politics - which most of the non-USA residents don't give a shit about). Since then, the only time he is referred to in the European media is to underline the stupidity of his statements/behavior. On the other hand, I've learned about Lessig during highschool : his legal challenges ; his role at Harvard, Yale and Standford ; his role in the creation of Create Commons, etc. He is seen as a dedicated, brilliant, man who tries and tackles tough issues. Every educated person knows or at least have heard about Lessig and/or Creative Commons.
smacktoward 11y ago
> This change now sharpens the difference between our campaign and the others. Now the strongest contrast in substance is the priority that I give to democratic reform. This difference should then press an obvious question for every other candidate: How do you expect to achieve what you are promising without this reform? And if you believe this reform is necessary, then why isn’t it your first priority? But in all these words he never gets around to explaining how as President he would actually make the reform happen, other than saying it'd be his "first priority" and (twice) that he would "work with Congress." Oh, is that all it's going to take to completely upend the deeply entrenched systemic power of elites who are richer than Croesus, Larry? We just need a President who wants it bad enough, and is willing to ask Congress for it nicely? Huh. I bet Barack Obama wishes he'd thought of that. All this time he could have just gone down to Capitol Hill, clicked his heels three times and made the Koch brothers disappear! Who knew? Lessig is such a paradox to me. His heart's in the right place, he's clearly earnest, and he's managed to accomplish some remarkable things, like Creative Commons. But every time he wades into electoral politics he does so in ways that are so desperately naïve that they'd be funny, if the stakes weren't so high. It's Mr. Bean Goes To Washington.
- parasubvert 11y ago
  "But every time he wades into electoral politics he does so in ways that are so desperately naïve that they'd be funny, if the stakes weren't so high." Same was said about a big-eared Senator from Chicago with a funny name, that gave a good political speech in 2004. Lessig is trying to find a mix between himself, the platform, and the process. You need to be naive if you ever hope to solve any seemingly intractable problem.
  - jacobolus 11y ago
    Obama was a career politician with lots of support and credibility, a best-selling author, and a charismatic speaker, with an absolutely incredible campaign organization. He was running on an anti-war platform during a highly unpopular war. Lessig doesn’t have any of those things.
bsimpson 11y ago
It'll be interesting to hear his foreign policy. He's probably the smartest guy running, and the least corrupt. That said, I'd have a hard time voting for someone whose only official job is to be the Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces and whose only platform is to be a placeholder representing the concept of reform. I want to know how he's gonna handle {the Middle East, Russia, etc.}.
- Asbostos 11y ago
  Does it matter how he'd handle those other issues if he gets his reform done? You seem to be saying that continuity in handling those issues in a way you like is more important than the reform he's proposing. Wouldn't it be worth having a few years of "bad" foreign policy in exchange for a whole future of reform?
  - bsimpson 11y ago
    Yeah, it does. It's pretty damned important to trust that the Commander-in-Chief would be a competent leader of the armed forces. How would he respond to an act of war? What would he do to stabilize the Middle East and neutralize ISIS? Of course every outsider wants reform. It's nice to see a smart person thinking creatively about how to achieve it. Still, you don't get to be Commander-in-Chief unless you can instill trust that you can handle being Commander-in-Chief.
- venomsnake 11y ago
  Okay - but why Middle East and Russia need handling? With the shell gas boom US is on its way to energy independence. Middle east is irreparable mess, the US president is not all powerful. Russia is big but regional power (for now). Europe should learn to take care of itself (Disclaimer - I am citizen of EU nation).
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
kakakaren 11y ago
I think many agree with Lessig's policies. But I have serious doubts he wants to get money out of politics. If his voting history's any indication, he wants the money in politics to be from a wider range of the population. http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/10/lessig-lawrence-democrats-debate-2016-213215 http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/10/lessig-lawren...
EGreg 11y ago
Oh boy. Looks like he'll have to show he can be president to get his reform passed... and otherwise his campaign hit a wall, what a surprise. My response: http://magarshak.com/blog/ http://magarshak.com/blog/
- chillwaves 11y ago
  response to your response: it's a good idea but would there be margin of error? Would have to be. And how could you do a recount on close issues? What makes more sense is to allow online voting (with appropriate safeguards) and then restructure the process so the votes actually mean something, i.e. break the two party system as a start.
  - EGreg 11y ago
    Well, that's the Buridan's ass problem. You simply don't change course unless the majority is large enough. For example unless clearly over 80% of the country votes a certain way, you keep the status quo. If you are unsure, you keep the status quo. In the Buridan's problem the solution is a timeout: if you haven't made a decision and can clearly see that the timeout has passed, you pick a certain predetermined decision (in this case the status quo). Polling also prevents sybil attacks, ballot stuffing etc. and is impervious to voter turnouts.
natch 11y ago
I love Lessig but speaking of mistakes, he should do a poll about his glasses. Whether he switches to something more likable or not will be an indicator of how savvy he would be on the job.
- fmjrey 11y ago
  I'm assuming half of your point is humour and the other is the fact you don't like his glasses. It is on this second half I'd like to comment. It shifts the focus on form rather than content. Sure form has its non-negligible role, but in politics and most domains it should never take precedence over content, the actual message itself. And here lies one part of the problem Lessig is trying to go after: the corruption of our mind in its ability to be seduced by form at the expense of content. It is that kind of corruption that makes it possible for movie actors without real political substance to become president. It is that kind of corruption that makes the present political system a democratic farce. If we want him to succeed we have to do our part too, and it's precisely because we haven't for ages, that we have such situation today. Even if he succeeds and changes the rules of the political game, if we the people also don't change the way we think, then this can start all over again in 4 years without us even realizing. So maybe he could do with another pair of glasses, but we the people also need another pair of glasses. Deal?
  - natch 11y ago
    Well you totally missed the point. There's plenty of substance with Lessig. I just am talking about one bit of substance, which is whether he has the pragmatism needed to get and then to do the job or not. The glasses (which I actually like; not sure where you got your "fact"... but I doubt US voters will) are the form here, to use your word. Not the substance. They are trivial. So yes, the glasses are not substance. His lack of pragmatism in clinging to them is substance.
javajosh 11y ago
I feel sad because I'm probably Lessig's ideal target audience, but I don't like any of this. I don't like that he backed down so quickly from his first approach, because of the polls. Isn't that what corrupt politicians do? I don't like that he is so vague about what he's going to do to fix corruption - I get it that it's about taking money out of politics, but how do you get there, especially when Congress is seized up? And I want to hear about other issues, too, if he's seriously running for president. What about local police corruption, violence, and abuse? What about drone assassinations? What about corporate welfare that socializes risk and privatizes rewards? What about poverty and basic income? What about simplifying the legal system so that justice isn't too expensive for most people? What about extra-legal punishment like no-fly lists? What about the goddamn NSA? What about the security theater at the airport we pay for and endure? From the other candidates all we hear about is "the economy", mid-east terrorism and related problems, immigration, and now and again (against all odds) climate change. From Lessig you just hear about corruption. If you want to impress me as a real Presidential candidate, speak eloquently about the days when the US would never have even considered torturing someone for any reason; when 1984 was a cautionary tale about surveillance, not a manual on how to do it; when we needed to work together to defeat an enemy, we did it, or to achieve a great goal like the moon, we did it, and how we can do it again, but this time we're going to End Oil, worldwide. I want to hear about how we can use technology to make government at every level more accountable and more responsive, and I want to hear more about our aspirations. I want to hear that we will recover the first asteroid from the asteroid belt within 20 years. I want to hear that federal funding will be tied to the creation of independent police review panels in every major city. I want to hear that blanket surveillance will be made explicitly illegal. But I don't hear hardly any of that, not even from Lessig. Which makes me sad.
- mlinksva 11y ago
  Backing down from an approach that can't work sounds good to me. I wish politicians would do it more often. Regarding hearing about other issues, near the end of the article: > But beyond that priority, I would do everything else a president must do, too. Which means I bear the burden in this campaign of convincing America I could do that well. Like every other candidate, I will outline my position on the policies that I would press, once reform is achieved. In every relevant way, my campaign will be like every other campaign—except mine will place democracy first. I suspect his positions will at least start out closer to something like an academic consensus than any other candidate, but am prepared to be disappointed.
jlebar 11y ago
I largely agree with Lessig's point about our campaign finance laws being the root of all evil, and I think he's spoken rather intelligently about this in the past. But I'm frankly amazed at how earnestly he speaks about his "discovery" that "elect me, an outsider, to fix Congress" polls so well. I mean, this is not a novel talking point. Does it really take an expert pollster to tell you that people like this message?
LeicaLatte 11y ago
Sounds super confusing
solipsism 11y ago
I think Lessig should reinstate his promise to resign after passing the Citizen Equality Act, run as an independent, and pick a good conservative to be his running mate. The corruption of democracy by special interests is not only a Democratic issue. Hell, it's one of the Tea Party's Core Beliefs. This would get him more attention, it would get some conservatives voting for him, and it would get some some progressives voting for him. As a progressive, I'd accept a term with a conservative president if it meant taking a huge step to fix the system as a whole.
jensen123 11y ago
Let's say that Larry Lessig succeeds. What would happen then? Would it be primarily journalists who would influence the government then, rather than corporations and rich people? Journalists tend to be left-leaning. The left is probably better on some issues, such as the environment, however, they aren't always so good for the economy and entrepreneurs. Personally, I'm really not sure whether the US would be a better or worse place without money in politics.
ddw 11y ago
Lessig seems to be too in love with the idea to the point that he doesn't realize that the execution is what matters. He would've been better off organizing people to get one or more of the legit Dem candidates to promise to work on this reform if elected. This also assumes that the president has enough influence to get meaningful reform passed which isn't a reality with the current Congress.
blazespin 11y ago
The way to create "equality" is via the libertarian movement. Get rid of the rules and social safety nets. Hell, let all the immigrants in! If we have a truly libertarian society, than it won't be a problem. Giving government the power to chose who is rich and who is poor is not going to create 'equality' (whatever that means), it's just going to give the government the ability to handicap the able and enable the disabled. That being said, I don't believe 'equality' is what we need. What we need it is a society that rewards those who teach, learn and work for the good of the community with security and dignity.
grizzles 11y ago
Lessig is just as electable as anyone out there, but I am not sure he is much of a strategic thinker. He just gave up the one thing that made his #hackthepresidency style campaign interesting. At this point & with the right campaign you could run a rump roast for the presidency and it'd have a decent shot at grabbing a signficant share of the vote. I could name way more but Lessig top problems imo are: He lacks conviction. That rump roast is more red blooded than he is. If you are running for president, you can't just expect to win based on having a few good ideas. You need forcefulness. Someone says you can't attend a debate? You don't kick back and watch it on tv. You show up anyway and have your supporters provoke a riot when they don't let you in. Hopefully the media makes a field day out of it. Arrested? Even better. It fits in with your narrative. Lessig's next big problem is - He needs an angle. Lessig seems to be too principled to participate in the usual games that gets people to the oval. That puts him at a big disadvantage. If he doesn't like how the sausage is made, he needs a strategy or SOMETHING to compensate for the power the machine gives you. Trump is a natural showman. Rubio is handsome, Ben Carson is a religious nut. Each of these guys is in the race, but Lessig isn't. Until Lessig finds something that gives him some oomph, he might as well just curl up into a fetal.
lorddoig 11y ago
> America gave birth to the idea of representative democracy And here was me thinking that was the Greeks. Thousands of years before America existed.
- caf 11y ago
  I believe the Athenians practiced direct democracy rather than representative.
thomasfoster96 11y ago
Observations from Australia: * Lessig is trying to reform US politics with minimal grassroots support and from the outside. That's pretty much impossible, even without the sort of broken system he's trying to reform. * Bernie Sanders seems to be offering similar reforms, though not as a No.1 priority. Lessig is essentially arguing that he'll implement one Sanders policy as a priority, and then get out of the way - that sounds completely silly to me, and I don't see why you wouldn't just vote Sanders instead. * I'd contend that the problems in US politics run much deeper than campaign finance - voting systems, the structure of government, separation of powers, etc all need a thorough look and possible overhaul. Any campaign finance reform would probably end up being disappointingly ineffective compared to how it's being sold.
hownottowrite 11y ago
I admire Mr. Lessig's convictions and his ideas, but frankly the concept of a self-resigning President is half-baked. It reveals a fundamental lack of understanding about the role of the Presidency in United States politically and socially and image it projects to the world at large. The United States isn't a startup. You can't have a Minimum Viable Presidency focused on a single issue.
- jack9 11y ago
  > It reveals a fundamental lack of understanding about the role of the Presidency in United States politically and socially and image it projects to the world at large. Your comment is ironic to the core. The role of POTUS is not to serve the current system of contributors after the fact. That's the nature of the problem. The idea that POTUS is sancrosanct or even in a different class (projects to the world at large, lol) shows how far we have diverged from the concept of a public servant. POTUS is just a man and deserving little more than cursory protections and respect. The political system has been corrupted to make it a MONUMENTAL effort to get someone in the office. This does not make the station special. We have had real need for reform and this backward thinking that POTUS is elevated is part of the cultural shift that needs to occur to break the corruption cycle. It won't, of course. Partly because people are too stupid to break their own socialization (nobody will acknowledge it's so broken that anyone elected is unqualified, so you get lip service to "fight corruption") and partly because statistically, no large democracy has ever even accidentally broken the cycle before a catastrophic decline.
  - hownottowrite 11y ago
    It's hardly ironic. It's realistic, and your defense is simplistic at best. What does President Lessig do during the first 100 days of his Presidency if war breaks out? What if a natural disaster strikes putting millions of Americans at risk? We have no idea because his Presidency is not about governing towards a better future but rather tearing down a system he doesn't like. Noble as his idea may sound on the surface it is a childish proposal which does not take into account the complexity of the system it intends to address.
bsbechtel 11y ago
I realize I'll probably get downvoted in this thread for saying this, but allowing more money into politics is actually giving people more choice in elections, and Lessig is becoming a victim of the problems with the system before Citizens United. Between both parties, we have over 20 people running for President. We have more choice than ever. Why? Because these individuals can afford to do so, and don't need to rely on getting mainstream media attention to find donors they need to finance their campaign. Lessig, on the other hand, is running a campaign to fix campaign finance, and is running into issues with what hobbled the system before - media gatekeepers who aren't giving his campaign any attention. Yes, I understand that allowing the free flow of money into politics favors the wealthy, but at least now there is some sort of counterbalancing force to the media basically deciding who becomes our President. I don't know what would be a true democratic equalizer (maybe eliminating political parties), but Lessig's way of doing things had more problems than many want to acknowledge.
- mtgx 11y ago
  I disagree. Do you want "more choices" that are paid and pre-selected by the same 200 richest families? Or do you want actual choices supported by the People, who get their money not from few large donations, but from many small ones. In the latter's case, you can have serious campaign finance reform, without restricting your real choices. What we want is for the money "vote" to be an equalizer just like the regular vote. If 200 families can pick a "winner", despite millions of other people actually wanting someone else to win, then something is seriously wrong with that democracy, and the money vote is way too skewed in favor of a few.
  - yummyfajitas 11y ago
    Your reply is completely nonresponsive to bsbechtel's point. The point, stated more explicitly. There is a relatively small overton window permitted by the media - this is essentially what Chomsky would call "flak machines" and Moldbug would call the "cathedral". The "People", as you call them, will simply support whoever the media chooses to anoint. This set of candidates will basically be nothing but a few left wing Republicans and establishment Democrats (think Bush/Romney/Hillary) and we'll get more of the same. In contrast, the richest 200 families are far less monolithic than the media. Money actually makes it possible for choices that the media establishment dislikes to get real traction. For example, Ross Perot or Donald Trump. If the People like such a candidate, they can then vote for that candidate. tl;dr; The media has network effects which enforce a narrow overton window. In contrast, one eccentric rich guy can - if he chooses to spend lots of money - break through that and get other ideas out there.
Bud 11y ago
Lessig should do something useful and realistic, instead of this grandstanding and pretending that he can go from zero-to-President in 2.4 seconds as if politics were some sort of Tesla. It's embarrassing. To wit: he should run for the House, or Senate, or he should support candidates who are in favor of overturning Citizens United (i.e., Democrats).
- zeckalpha 11y ago
  Uh, the PAC he started does the candidate support, but he can't be associated with it while running as president.
  - Bud 11y ago
    Great. I agree with that, of course. And perhaps if he wasn't wasting millions of dollars of donor money on running for President, his PAC could do more good. What if Lessig actually won? It wouldn't matter at all. You think the Republican Congress is going to pass sweeping campaign finance reform? Jesus Christ could return and be President and he wouldn't be able to make that happen, either. Lessig surely understands our system well enough to know this. So why is he doing this very expensive pretending that him being President will cause any change? If a Democrat in the White House could magically fix this, Obama would fix it right now.
    - zeckalpha 11y ago
      What would he need congress for? Some people run just to change the conversation, not to win.
      - hga 11y ago
        In fact, that's been a successful third party tactic in times past: get successful enough and one or the other major parties will absorb it and much of its platform.
  - tptacek 11y ago
    Zephyr Teachout took over the PAC because Lessig's management of the PAC --- and the PAC itself --- was widely regarded as a total failure. That's not my opinion; it's the reporting on Mayday PAC.
PythonicAlpha 11y ago
Larry Lessig definitively has my vote. It is just inconvenient, that I am not an US-American. But if he would run for election in my country, I would give him my vote. The reason: He really takes democracy seriously -- some thing, that I would not attest to most people in our government -- and definitively not to the leading politicians of most political parties in my country. That is the reason, I fear that democracy is bound to fail -- and to be replaced by corporate ruling (in fact, we are already at this point, where corporations have much more power than politicians or voters).
jroseattle 11y ago
This notion that "outsiders" are what it takes to reform government is a popular campaign theme, but has never succeeded. The basis for justification is essentially one of "the system has made others corrupt, but not me" -- it's a play on principles rising above the temptation for personal gain in order to achieve reform. Aside from being untrue, we've actually seen how this plays out. Many of the far-right members in the House of Representatives that identify with the Tea Party are also highly principled. Listen to their campaigns and you'll hear how they'll "fix Washington" and such. One may or may not agree with those principles, but many of those members are steadfast in their beliefs, and govern based on those beliefs. And what has been accomplished? To quote Admiral Stockdale - Gridlock! Reform will never happen with a single leader. It will take the right people in all levels of government to make it happen.
morgante 11y ago
> This change now sharpens the difference between our campaign and the others. Not really. Now he's just yet another candidate who has an issue they talk about more than the others. For Trump, it's immigration. For Sanders, it's wealth inequality. Except he's a fringe candidate talking about an abstract issue which most people don't actually care about that much.
deckar01 11y ago
I first gained interest in Lessig when he offered a poll to vote for his vice president (who takes over when he steps down). https://lessig2016.us/vote4vp/ https://lessig2016.us/vote4vp/ I just love the idea of Neil deGrasse Tyson being president.
logn 11y ago
Lessig is not thinking this through. If he wants to be taken seriously as a candidate he's going to need to address every single issue the others have. By the time he's done that, his message will be diluted and sidetracked, and he'll have groups of people who may support him on the corruption issue but disagree on other issues, e.g., how to handle Syria. At this point he kind of reminds me of Donald Trump who also has not taken time to formulate many policy positions but just wants to the voters to trust him it'll all be great. Additionally, a big part of being President is just the relentless work at championing your causes and causing your opponents to fail if they refuse to compromise. Lessig seems allergic to this type of work, politics, and campaigning in general. I don't know how he expects to get his legislation passed. Even on the issue of corruption, I'm not sure he's effectively explained his solution. He's just laid out legislation to pass, but hasn't detailed how he'll get Congress to pass it without amendments that destroy it, how he'll keep the Supreme Court from eviscerating it, and how the rules could withstand attempts to game them.
- hga 11y ago
  He's just laid out legislation to pass Errr, as far as I know he hasn't entirely done that. From his web site, https://lessig2016.us/the-plan/ https://lessig2016.us/the-plan/ he has two specific "Equal Right to Vote" laws plus "In addition, we will enact automatic voter registration and turn election day into a national holiday." Then there's a Ranked Choice Voting item with specific language, but the third item is not specific, and as other discussions here have noted, here the devil is in the details: CITIZEN FUNDED ELECTIONS All citizens deserve an equal ability to choose our leaders. The Citizen Equality Act will end pay-to-play politics by changing the way we fund campaigns by taking the best of Rep. Sarbanes’ Government by the People Act, and Represent.US’s “American Anti-Corruption Act.” That hybrid would give every voter a voucher to contribute to fund congressional and presidential campaigns; it would provide matching funds for small-dollar contributions to congressional and presidential campaigns. And it would add effective new limits to restrict the revolving door between government service and work as a lobbyist.
Ankaios 11y ago
Thank you, Mr. Lessig. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10138724 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10138724

324 points by command_tab 11y ago

> But it weakened the credibility of the campaign. Was I really trying to be president? Or was I just trying to make a point? Obvious answer: he’s just trying to make a point, the whole thing is a publicity stunt, and his campaign has never had and still does not have any credibility whatsoever. > But the result was almost no national media focused on a campaign that was actually more viable than that of at least two of the other Democratic candidates, “More viable” meaning that when you add up the poll numbers for Lessig plus those other two candidates, the percentage rounds to zero. Likewise they have no budget, no endorsements, a tiny donor base, no institutional support from the Democratic party, no grass-roots campaign organization, etc. etc. Lessig’s approach to politics is to shout “HEY EVERYBODY, LOOK AT ME! I don’t have any experience or support, and I haven’t tried to engage with the political system before, but vote for me because all those other guys are corrupt!” That works if you’re a billionaire with universal name-recognition like Trump, running in a primary with a bunch of weak other candidates, targeting primary voters responsive to knee-jerk racism and insults. Lessig isn’t Trump though. In the 2014 midterm elections his PAC raised a moderate amount of money mostly from Silicon Valley VCs, threw it at a handful of congressional races, and had absolutely zero impact on anything. Seems like it’s not working out this time either.

smacktoward 11y ago
The sad thing is that in some ways Trump is actually better at making Lessig's pitch than Lessig is, because while Trump is a clownish, racist buffoon he does have one thing Lessig completely lacks: charisma. He knows how to deliver a line, how to work a crowd. Those are important skills for a politician!
AlwaysBCoding 11y ago
The thing is though, Lessig is completely right. Members of Congress spend 70% of their time raising money. They're not lawmakers, they're professional fundraisers. Think of a startup whose founders spent 70% of their time raising money, they would never get anything done. And since fundraising is now such an integral part of a Congressman's day to day, they have two classes of constitutes to think about: the voters, and the funders. And there is a very small group of people who give > 50% of all campaign cash and more or less have control over the entire country. This is why common sense laws that have majority support from the voters (gun control, marijuana legalization etc...) never get the traction they should. The funders don't want them, and they have the final say, not the voters. It's crazy how complacent people have become about government incompetence. The becoming president and then resigning thing was weird. I'm glad he's dropping it, because you can hate the method all you want, and I too think he comes off really distant out of touch sometimes, but what he's saying needs to be heard.
- jacobolus 11y ago
  Okay, but so what? Lessig has no chance of winning the Democratic Party nomination, so his campaign basically amounts to hijacking the primary to promote his message. Even if that message is “completely right”, so what? You think if Lessig gets a seat at the Democratic primary debates, he’ll be able to convince the Republicans in Congress to reverse course on campaign finance? Fat chance. The most likely way to improve things at the moment is to elect another Democrat to office, and hope that Justice Scalia and/or Justice Kennedy resigns within the next few years, and the composition of the Supreme Court changes enough to reverse the Citizens United case. Also, hope that the Justice Department under a Democratic president stays aggressive about promoting voting rights around the country. Beyond that, the next big hope is getting Democrats back in control of the House of Representatives, which probably can’t happen until after the 2020 census, and only if the Democrats gain control of enough state legislatures to redraw fairer district boundaries.
  - Gotadime 11y ago
    Having a single party in total control like that would be destructive to our country, no matter how you spin it. Both parties have legitimate points and interests that need to be represented in our system. I have never understood individuals that buy in 100% to a single party and just can't fathom the idea of the opposing party having any good ideas that need to be heard. Radicalism of any kind is dangerous - conservative or liberal.
    - jacobolus 11y ago
      Campaign finance reform is dead in the water as long as the Republicans control Congress (and as long as, per Citizens United, unlimited corporate spending on political advertising is considered protected speech). So if we agree with Lessig that campaign finance reform is the most important national political priority, then electing a Democratic majority to the House is the necessary precondition. (I’m not saying you should agree with that, but it’s the premise of Lessig’s campaign.)
      - 11y ago
SwellJoe 11y ago
"I haven’t tried to engage with the political system before" Now that's just inaccurate, unless you mean merely that he's never run for office. He has engaged with the political system on numerous fronts over the span of a couple of decades, sometimes effectively, sometimes not. He's made real positive change in the world (possibly as much as anyone else running, if we're being honest), occasionally through political means. But, more importantly, I genuinely trust him to do what he says. Which is definitely more than can be said of the vast majority of people vying for the title on either side of the fence (the entirety of GOP field is particularly villainous this year, but the current leader for the DNC isn't exactly a pillar of virtue). But, you're right that he is running a losing race. Several commentators on the first debate said they would have preferred to see Lessig on the stage, and perhaps if that would have happened, things would look different. I don't know. That said, I think you're missing the point of why he's so thoroughly unlikely to even get fair treatment by the DNC, much less taken seriously as a candidate. Despite his impressive fundraising for a "nobody" in politics, and despite being clearly smarter and more broadly competent than some of the other DNC candidates, his desire to tear down the very system that feeds the DNC (and the GOP) virtually guarantees he will never be taken seriously. A reform candidate in a thoroughly corrupt system stands no chance. Short of pitchforks and the guillotine, our system likely won't be reformed.
- jacobolus 11y ago
  He’s been a lawyer arguing cases and filing amicus briefs w/r/t copyright law and net neutrality, and he’s been an issue-specific activist/lobbyist on those two issues plus, more recently, campaign finance reform. He’s also given a TED talk and written a book outlining zany, politically impossible proposals for tackling the latter issue, and he ran a failed single-issue PAC in 2014. But that’s a very limited kind of engagement with the overall political system. If you want to become president, you need to build a broad base of support, which means spending many years organizing, becoming versed in salient political issues, directly working on a wide range of issues with a wide range of other people, leaving a public record and earning credibility. You won’t be able to build a large grass-roots organization, earn endorsements from major institutional political players, build a donor base, etc. on pure message alone. The easiest way to meaningfully engage in a public way is by being elected to political office, but there are probably other possible ways for someone willing to put the years of work in (e.g. as a high-level executive department official, as a career judge, as a military general, ...). Right now Lessig’s only reputation is as “that guy who doesn’t like copyright, and keeps grandstanding about campaign finance”, but he has no broader credibility as a presidential candidate. Lessig is not “smarter” or “more competent” than the leading candidates; rather, it’s clear that he’s politically naïve in the extreme, has no idea how to run a serious campaign, and would have no idea what to do were he by some miracle elected to high office.
nocman 11y ago
"running in a primary with a bunch of weak other candidates" ^ I think your political bias is showing through. In my opinion this is one of the strongest sets of candidates for the Republican primary in a long time. And I am far from alone in that assessment. Yes there are some weak candidates (there are always weak candidates in both parties), but it is far from "a bunch".
GPGPU 11y ago
People always say they don't like "Politicians" but politicians get things done. People who know how to make deals and bargains.
webXL 11y ago
> That works if you’re a billionaire with universal name-recognition like Trump Ben Carson is #2 though. But that's probably also due to the "weak"* candidates. * I think you mean relatively unknown compared to a former first lady.
- hga 11y ago
  Both Trump and Carson are willing to move the Overton Window (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window) ... although I suppose it's telling that not being willing to do that is a defining characteristic of most if not all of those other candidates. The Republican base is beyond hungry for this, and for that matter playing by the other side's rules is a tried and true way to lose.
_username 11y ago
I registered just to reply to your comment. I live in Europe, and from here, your comments sounds like the grumblings of someone born and raised in some far shore of the USA where creationism is still taught at school and who genuinely believes that more guns are required to prevent mass shootings. > have no budget, no endorsements, a tiny donor base, no institutional support from the Democratic party, no grass-roots campaign organization That's the very reason why the American system is fucked up : you shouldn't get a chance to get elected for the sole reason that you have any of these. And I'm not pretending that European models are perfect, far from that. They are just less fucked up - North American elections look like a joke from here, almost as much as South African "democracies"/North Koea where they are president from father to son and get elected with scores approaching 90%. The only downside to the joke is that USA are far more powerful than NK. > a billionaire with universal name-recognition like Trump Outside of the US, nobody knows who he is. I'm 27, engineer, speak four languages and have traveled around Europe, North Africa, "Middle-East", and South Asia. The only things that I knew about him prior to the 2016 presidential campaign were that he is an eccentric billionaire and has/had alleged bounds to the mafia (and the only reason why I knew that is because I care about national North American politics - which most of the non-USA residents don't give a shit about). Since then, the only time he is referred to in the European media is to underline the stupidity of his statements/behavior. On the other hand, I've learned about Lessig during highschool : his legal challenges ; his role at Harvard, Yale and Standford ; his role in the creation of Create Commons, etc. He is seen as a dedicated, brilliant, man who tries and tackles tough issues. Every educated person knows or at least have heard about Lessig and/or Creative Commons.

smacktoward 11y ago

> This change now sharpens the difference between our campaign and the others. Now the strongest contrast in substance is the priority that I give to democratic reform. This difference should then press an obvious question for every other candidate: How do you expect to achieve what you are promising without this reform? And if you believe this reform is necessary, then why isn’t it your first priority? But in all these words he never gets around to explaining how as President he would actually make the reform happen, other than saying it'd be his "first priority" and (twice) that he would "work with Congress." Oh, is that all it's going to take to completely upend the deeply entrenched systemic power of elites who are richer than Croesus, Larry? We just need a President who wants it bad enough, and is willing to ask Congress for it nicely? Huh. I bet Barack Obama wishes he'd thought of that. All this time he could have just gone down to Capitol Hill, clicked his heels three times and made the Koch brothers disappear! Who knew? Lessig is such a paradox to me. His heart's in the right place, he's clearly earnest, and he's managed to accomplish some remarkable things, like Creative Commons. But every time he wades into electoral politics he does so in ways that are so desperately naïve that they'd be funny, if the stakes weren't so high. It's Mr. Bean Goes To Washington.

parasubvert 11y ago
"But every time he wades into electoral politics he does so in ways that are so desperately naïve that they'd be funny, if the stakes weren't so high." Same was said about a big-eared Senator from Chicago with a funny name, that gave a good political speech in 2004. Lessig is trying to find a mix between himself, the platform, and the process. You need to be naive if you ever hope to solve any seemingly intractable problem.
- jacobolus 11y ago
  Obama was a career politician with lots of support and credibility, a best-selling author, and a charismatic speaker, with an absolutely incredible campaign organization. He was running on an anti-war platform during a highly unpopular war. Lessig doesn’t have any of those things.

bsimpson 11y ago

It'll be interesting to hear his foreign policy. He's probably the smartest guy running, and the least corrupt. That said, I'd have a hard time voting for someone whose only official job is to be the Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces and whose only platform is to be a placeholder representing the concept of reform. I want to know how he's gonna handle {the Middle East, Russia, etc.}.

Asbostos 11y ago
Does it matter how he'd handle those other issues if he gets his reform done? You seem to be saying that continuity in handling those issues in a way you like is more important than the reform he's proposing. Wouldn't it be worth having a few years of "bad" foreign policy in exchange for a whole future of reform?
- bsimpson 11y ago
  Yeah, it does. It's pretty damned important to trust that the Commander-in-Chief would be a competent leader of the armed forces. How would he respond to an act of war? What would he do to stabilize the Middle East and neutralize ISIS? Of course every outsider wants reform. It's nice to see a smart person thinking creatively about how to achieve it. Still, you don't get to be Commander-in-Chief unless you can instill trust that you can handle being Commander-in-Chief.
venomsnake 11y ago
Okay - but why Middle East and Russia need handling? With the shell gas boom US is on its way to energy independence. Middle east is irreparable mess, the US president is not all powerful. Russia is big but regional power (for now). Europe should learn to take care of itself (Disclaimer - I am citizen of EU nation).
deleted 11y ago
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kakakaren 11y ago

I think many agree with Lessig's policies. But I have serious doubts he wants to get money out of politics. If his voting history's any indication, he wants the money in politics to be from a wider range of the population. http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/10/lessig-lawrence-democrats-debate-2016-213215 http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/10/lessig-lawren...

EGreg 11y ago

Oh boy. Looks like he'll have to show he can be president to get his reform passed... and otherwise his campaign hit a wall, what a surprise. My response: http://magarshak.com/blog/ http://magarshak.com/blog/

chillwaves 11y ago
response to your response: it's a good idea but would there be margin of error? Would have to be. And how could you do a recount on close issues? What makes more sense is to allow online voting (with appropriate safeguards) and then restructure the process so the votes actually mean something, i.e. break the two party system as a start.
- EGreg 11y ago
  Well, that's the Buridan's ass problem. You simply don't change course unless the majority is large enough. For example unless clearly over 80% of the country votes a certain way, you keep the status quo. If you are unsure, you keep the status quo. In the Buridan's problem the solution is a timeout: if you haven't made a decision and can clearly see that the timeout has passed, you pick a certain predetermined decision (in this case the status quo). Polling also prevents sybil attacks, ballot stuffing etc. and is impervious to voter turnouts.

natch 11y ago

I love Lessig but speaking of mistakes, he should do a poll about his glasses. Whether he switches to something more likable or not will be an indicator of how savvy he would be on the job.

fmjrey 11y ago
I'm assuming half of your point is humour and the other is the fact you don't like his glasses. It is on this second half I'd like to comment. It shifts the focus on form rather than content. Sure form has its non-negligible role, but in politics and most domains it should never take precedence over content, the actual message itself. And here lies one part of the problem Lessig is trying to go after: the corruption of our mind in its ability to be seduced by form at the expense of content. It is that kind of corruption that makes it possible for movie actors without real political substance to become president. It is that kind of corruption that makes the present political system a democratic farce. If we want him to succeed we have to do our part too, and it's precisely because we haven't for ages, that we have such situation today. Even if he succeeds and changes the rules of the political game, if we the people also don't change the way we think, then this can start all over again in 4 years without us even realizing. So maybe he could do with another pair of glasses, but we the people also need another pair of glasses. Deal?
- natch 11y ago
  Well you totally missed the point. There's plenty of substance with Lessig. I just am talking about one bit of substance, which is whether he has the pragmatism needed to get and then to do the job or not. The glasses (which I actually like; not sure where you got your "fact"... but I doubt US voters will) are the form here, to use your word. Not the substance. They are trivial. So yes, the glasses are not substance. His lack of pragmatism in clinging to them is substance.

javajosh 11y ago

I feel sad because I'm probably Lessig's ideal target audience, but I don't like any of this. I don't like that he backed down so quickly from his first approach, because of the polls. Isn't that what corrupt politicians do? I don't like that he is so vague about what he's going to do to fix corruption - I get it that it's about taking money out of politics, but how do you get there, especially when Congress is seized up? And I want to hear about other issues, too, if he's seriously running for president. What about local police corruption, violence, and abuse? What about drone assassinations? What about corporate welfare that socializes risk and privatizes rewards? What about poverty and basic income? What about simplifying the legal system so that justice isn't too expensive for most people? What about extra-legal punishment like no-fly lists? What about the goddamn NSA? What about the security theater at the airport we pay for and endure? From the other candidates all we hear about is "the economy", mid-east terrorism and related problems, immigration, and now and again (against all odds) climate change. From Lessig you just hear about corruption. If you want to impress me as a real Presidential candidate, speak eloquently about the days when the US would never have even considered torturing someone for any reason; when 1984 was a cautionary tale about surveillance, not a manual on how to do it; when we needed to work together to defeat an enemy, we did it, or to achieve a great goal like the moon, we did it, and how we can do it again, but this time we're going to End Oil, worldwide. I want to hear about how we can use technology to make government at every level more accountable and more responsive, and I want to hear more about our aspirations. I want to hear that we will recover the first asteroid from the asteroid belt within 20 years. I want to hear that federal funding will be tied to the creation of independent police review panels in every major city. I want to hear that blanket surveillance will be made explicitly illegal. But I don't hear hardly any of that, not even from Lessig. Which makes me sad.

mlinksva 11y ago
Backing down from an approach that can't work sounds good to me. I wish politicians would do it more often. Regarding hearing about other issues, near the end of the article: > But beyond that priority, I would do everything else a president must do, too. Which means I bear the burden in this campaign of convincing America I could do that well. Like every other candidate, I will outline my position on the policies that I would press, once reform is achieved. In every relevant way, my campaign will be like every other campaign—except mine will place democracy first. I suspect his positions will at least start out closer to something like an academic consensus than any other candidate, but am prepared to be disappointed.

jlebar 11y ago

I largely agree with Lessig's point about our campaign finance laws being the root of all evil, and I think he's spoken rather intelligently about this in the past. But I'm frankly amazed at how earnestly he speaks about his "discovery" that "elect me, an outsider, to fix Congress" polls so well. I mean, this is not a novel talking point. Does it really take an expert pollster to tell you that people like this message?

LeicaLatte 11y ago

Sounds super confusing

solipsism 11y ago

I think Lessig should reinstate his promise to resign after passing the Citizen Equality Act, run as an independent, and pick a good conservative to be his running mate. The corruption of democracy by special interests is not only a Democratic issue. Hell, it's one of the Tea Party's Core Beliefs. This would get him more attention, it would get some conservatives voting for him, and it would get some some progressives voting for him. As a progressive, I'd accept a term with a conservative president if it meant taking a huge step to fix the system as a whole.

jensen123 11y ago

Let's say that Larry Lessig succeeds. What would happen then? Would it be primarily journalists who would influence the government then, rather than corporations and rich people? Journalists tend to be left-leaning. The left is probably better on some issues, such as the environment, however, they aren't always so good for the economy and entrepreneurs. Personally, I'm really not sure whether the US would be a better or worse place without money in politics.

ddw 11y ago

Lessig seems to be too in love with the idea to the point that he doesn't realize that the execution is what matters. He would've been better off organizing people to get one or more of the legit Dem candidates to promise to work on this reform if elected. This also assumes that the president has enough influence to get meaningful reform passed which isn't a reality with the current Congress.

blazespin 11y ago

The way to create "equality" is via the libertarian movement. Get rid of the rules and social safety nets. Hell, let all the immigrants in! If we have a truly libertarian society, than it won't be a problem. Giving government the power to chose who is rich and who is poor is not going to create 'equality' (whatever that means), it's just going to give the government the ability to handicap the able and enable the disabled. That being said, I don't believe 'equality' is what we need. What we need it is a society that rewards those who teach, learn and work for the good of the community with security and dignity.

grizzles 11y ago

Lessig is just as electable as anyone out there, but I am not sure he is much of a strategic thinker. He just gave up the one thing that made his #hackthepresidency style campaign interesting. At this point & with the right campaign you could run a rump roast for the presidency and it'd have a decent shot at grabbing a signficant share of the vote. I could name way more but Lessig top problems imo are: He lacks conviction. That rump roast is more red blooded than he is. If you are running for president, you can't just expect to win based on having a few good ideas. You need forcefulness. Someone says you can't attend a debate? You don't kick back and watch it on tv. You show up anyway and have your supporters provoke a riot when they don't let you in. Hopefully the media makes a field day out of it. Arrested? Even better. It fits in with your narrative. Lessig's next big problem is - He needs an angle. Lessig seems to be too principled to participate in the usual games that gets people to the oval. That puts him at a big disadvantage. If he doesn't like how the sausage is made, he needs a strategy or SOMETHING to compensate for the power the machine gives you. Trump is a natural showman. Rubio is handsome, Ben Carson is a religious nut. Each of these guys is in the race, but Lessig isn't. Until Lessig finds something that gives him some oomph, he might as well just curl up into a fetal.

lorddoig 11y ago

> America gave birth to the idea of representative democracy And here was me thinking that was the Greeks. Thousands of years before America existed.

caf 11y ago
I believe the Athenians practiced direct democracy rather than representative.

thomasfoster96 11y ago

Observations from Australia: * Lessig is trying to reform US politics with minimal grassroots support and from the outside. That's pretty much impossible, even without the sort of broken system he's trying to reform. * Bernie Sanders seems to be offering similar reforms, though not as a No.1 priority. Lessig is essentially arguing that he'll implement one Sanders policy as a priority, and then get out of the way - that sounds completely silly to me, and I don't see why you wouldn't just vote Sanders instead. * I'd contend that the problems in US politics run much deeper than campaign finance - voting systems, the structure of government, separation of powers, etc all need a thorough look and possible overhaul. Any campaign finance reform would probably end up being disappointingly ineffective compared to how it's being sold.

hownottowrite 11y ago

I admire Mr. Lessig's convictions and his ideas, but frankly the concept of a self-resigning President is half-baked. It reveals a fundamental lack of understanding about the role of the Presidency in United States politically and socially and image it projects to the world at large. The United States isn't a startup. You can't have a Minimum Viable Presidency focused on a single issue.

jack9 11y ago
> It reveals a fundamental lack of understanding about the role of the Presidency in United States politically and socially and image it projects to the world at large. Your comment is ironic to the core. The role of POTUS is not to serve the current system of contributors after the fact. That's the nature of the problem. The idea that POTUS is sancrosanct or even in a different class (projects to the world at large, lol) shows how far we have diverged from the concept of a public servant. POTUS is just a man and deserving little more than cursory protections and respect. The political system has been corrupted to make it a MONUMENTAL effort to get someone in the office. This does not make the station special. We have had real need for reform and this backward thinking that POTUS is elevated is part of the cultural shift that needs to occur to break the corruption cycle. It won't, of course. Partly because people are too stupid to break their own socialization (nobody will acknowledge it's so broken that anyone elected is unqualified, so you get lip service to "fight corruption") and partly because statistically, no large democracy has ever even accidentally broken the cycle before a catastrophic decline.
- hownottowrite 11y ago
  It's hardly ironic. It's realistic, and your defense is simplistic at best. What does President Lessig do during the first 100 days of his Presidency if war breaks out? What if a natural disaster strikes putting millions of Americans at risk? We have no idea because his Presidency is not about governing towards a better future but rather tearing down a system he doesn't like. Noble as his idea may sound on the surface it is a childish proposal which does not take into account the complexity of the system it intends to address.

bsbechtel 11y ago

I realize I'll probably get downvoted in this thread for saying this, but allowing more money into politics is actually giving people more choice in elections, and Lessig is becoming a victim of the problems with the system before Citizens United. Between both parties, we have over 20 people running for President. We have more choice than ever. Why? Because these individuals can afford to do so, and don't need to rely on getting mainstream media attention to find donors they need to finance their campaign. Lessig, on the other hand, is running a campaign to fix campaign finance, and is running into issues with what hobbled the system before - media gatekeepers who aren't giving his campaign any attention. Yes, I understand that allowing the free flow of money into politics favors the wealthy, but at least now there is some sort of counterbalancing force to the media basically deciding who becomes our President. I don't know what would be a true democratic equalizer (maybe eliminating political parties), but Lessig's way of doing things had more problems than many want to acknowledge.

mtgx 11y ago
I disagree. Do you want "more choices" that are paid and pre-selected by the same 200 richest families? Or do you want actual choices supported by the People, who get their money not from few large donations, but from many small ones. In the latter's case, you can have serious campaign finance reform, without restricting your real choices. What we want is for the money "vote" to be an equalizer just like the regular vote. If 200 families can pick a "winner", despite millions of other people actually wanting someone else to win, then something is seriously wrong with that democracy, and the money vote is way too skewed in favor of a few.
- yummyfajitas 11y ago
  Your reply is completely nonresponsive to bsbechtel's point. The point, stated more explicitly. There is a relatively small overton window permitted by the media - this is essentially what Chomsky would call "flak machines" and Moldbug would call the "cathedral". The "People", as you call them, will simply support whoever the media chooses to anoint. This set of candidates will basically be nothing but a few left wing Republicans and establishment Democrats (think Bush/Romney/Hillary) and we'll get more of the same. In contrast, the richest 200 families are far less monolithic than the media. Money actually makes it possible for choices that the media establishment dislikes to get real traction. For example, Ross Perot or Donald Trump. If the People like such a candidate, they can then vote for that candidate. tl;dr; The media has network effects which enforce a narrow overton window. In contrast, one eccentric rich guy can - if he chooses to spend lots of money - break through that and get other ideas out there.

Bud 11y ago

Lessig should do something useful and realistic, instead of this grandstanding and pretending that he can go from zero-to-President in 2.4 seconds as if politics were some sort of Tesla. It's embarrassing. To wit: he should run for the House, or Senate, or he should support candidates who are in favor of overturning Citizens United (i.e., Democrats).

zeckalpha 11y ago
Uh, the PAC he started does the candidate support, but he can't be associated with it while running as president.
- Bud 11y ago
  Great. I agree with that, of course. And perhaps if he wasn't wasting millions of dollars of donor money on running for President, his PAC could do more good. What if Lessig actually won? It wouldn't matter at all. You think the Republican Congress is going to pass sweeping campaign finance reform? Jesus Christ could return and be President and he wouldn't be able to make that happen, either. Lessig surely understands our system well enough to know this. So why is he doing this very expensive pretending that him being President will cause any change? If a Democrat in the White House could magically fix this, Obama would fix it right now.
  - zeckalpha 11y ago
    What would he need congress for? Some people run just to change the conversation, not to win.
    - hga 11y ago
      In fact, that's been a successful third party tactic in times past: get successful enough and one or the other major parties will absorb it and much of its platform.
- tptacek 11y ago
  Zephyr Teachout took over the PAC because Lessig's management of the PAC --- and the PAC itself --- was widely regarded as a total failure. That's not my opinion; it's the reporting on Mayday PAC.

PythonicAlpha 11y ago

Larry Lessig definitively has my vote. It is just inconvenient, that I am not an US-American. But if he would run for election in my country, I would give him my vote. The reason: He really takes democracy seriously -- some thing, that I would not attest to most people in our government -- and definitively not to the leading politicians of most political parties in my country. That is the reason, I fear that democracy is bound to fail -- and to be replaced by corporate ruling (in fact, we are already at this point, where corporations have much more power than politicians or voters).

jroseattle 11y ago

This notion that "outsiders" are what it takes to reform government is a popular campaign theme, but has never succeeded. The basis for justification is essentially one of "the system has made others corrupt, but not me" -- it's a play on principles rising above the temptation for personal gain in order to achieve reform. Aside from being untrue, we've actually seen how this plays out. Many of the far-right members in the House of Representatives that identify with the Tea Party are also highly principled. Listen to their campaigns and you'll hear how they'll "fix Washington" and such. One may or may not agree with those principles, but many of those members are steadfast in their beliefs, and govern based on those beliefs. And what has been accomplished? To quote Admiral Stockdale - Gridlock! Reform will never happen with a single leader. It will take the right people in all levels of government to make it happen.

morgante 11y ago

> This change now sharpens the difference between our campaign and the others. Not really. Now he's just yet another candidate who has an issue they talk about more than the others. For Trump, it's immigration. For Sanders, it's wealth inequality. Except he's a fringe candidate talking about an abstract issue which most people don't actually care about that much.

deckar01 11y ago

I first gained interest in Lessig when he offered a poll to vote for his vice president (who takes over when he steps down). https://lessig2016.us/vote4vp/ https://lessig2016.us/vote4vp/ I just love the idea of Neil deGrasse Tyson being president.

logn 11y ago

Lessig is not thinking this through. If he wants to be taken seriously as a candidate he's going to need to address every single issue the others have. By the time he's done that, his message will be diluted and sidetracked, and he'll have groups of people who may support him on the corruption issue but disagree on other issues, e.g., how to handle Syria. At this point he kind of reminds me of Donald Trump who also has not taken time to formulate many policy positions but just wants to the voters to trust him it'll all be great. Additionally, a big part of being President is just the relentless work at championing your causes and causing your opponents to fail if they refuse to compromise. Lessig seems allergic to this type of work, politics, and campaigning in general. I don't know how he expects to get his legislation passed. Even on the issue of corruption, I'm not sure he's effectively explained his solution. He's just laid out legislation to pass, but hasn't detailed how he'll get Congress to pass it without amendments that destroy it, how he'll keep the Supreme Court from eviscerating it, and how the rules could withstand attempts to game them.

hga 11y ago
He's just laid out legislation to pass Errr, as far as I know he hasn't entirely done that. From his web site, https://lessig2016.us/the-plan/ https://lessig2016.us/the-plan/ he has two specific "Equal Right to Vote" laws plus "In addition, we will enact automatic voter registration and turn election day into a national holiday." Then there's a Ranked Choice Voting item with specific language, but the third item is not specific, and as other discussions here have noted, here the devil is in the details: CITIZEN FUNDED ELECTIONS All citizens deserve an equal ability to choose our leaders. The Citizen Equality Act will end pay-to-play politics by changing the way we fund campaigns by taking the best of Rep. Sarbanes’ Government by the People Act, and Represent.US’s “American Anti-Corruption Act.” That hybrid would give every voter a voucher to contribute to fund congressional and presidential campaigns; it would provide matching funds for small-dollar contributions to congressional and presidential campaigns. And it would add effective new limits to restrict the revolving door between government service and work as a lobbyist.

Ankaios 11y ago

Thank you, Mr. Lessig. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10138724 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10138724