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> In the US the way to influence politics is campaign contributions to politicians. I mean, the US has a ton of industry funded "think tanks" that are effectiv
by fakesheriff 5y ago
> In the US the way to influence politics is campaign contributions to politicians.
I mean, the US has a ton of industry funded "think tanks" that are effectively unregistered lobbyists. If they spend >50% of their time lobbying, they have to register. Some probably cross that line and don't register.
Spending money on lobbying makes a lot of noise, but donating to a "think tank" can be stealthy.
It could be interesting to scrape / crowd-source the public calendars of house/senate committee members and agency commissioners to identify these orgs and the scale of their lobbying activities. The results might surprise you.
- pessimizer 5y agoThink tanks don't lobby at all. What they do is design favorable conclusions for their backers, and the studies and press releases to dishonestly back those conclusions up and to generate pithy quotes. The politicians that are then lobbied by those backers now have something to say when interviewed about their political activities in favor of who is being lobbied for. Politicians need a media strategy in order to do the things that they're paid to do by private interests, and think tanks provide that strategy.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]