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SBF spent about 33% Republican / 66% Democrat EDIT: Not accurate ^ Yet 18 of the 25 top donors were Republican leaning. Billionaires comprise 20% of Republica

SBF spent about 33% Republican / 66% Democrat EDIT: Not accurate ^ Yet 18 of the 25 top donors were Republican leaning. Billionaires comprise 20% of Republican funding vs. 14% for Dems. Most republican megadonors were entirely republican. The big ones are from hedge funds. So yeah, SBF donated to the dems. We need more regulation to get money out of politics. But let's not kid ourselves into thinking the republican party is immune to this. They are in it. They tend to be more in it. 96% of house seats were won by the party that spent more in their race. https://web.archive.org/web/20221113221316/https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/03/us/politics/midterm-money-billionaires.html https://web.archive.org/web/20221113221316/https://www.nytim... https://web.archive.org/web/20221113013307/http://www.opensecrets.org/news/2022/11/spend-big-win-big-96-of-u-s-house-races-won-by-the-biggest-spender/ https://web.archive.org/web/20221113013307/http://www.opense...

flanked-evergl 4y ago
> So yeah, SBF donated to the dems. We need more regulation to get money out of politics. But let's not kid ourselves into thinking the republican party is immune to this. They are in it. They tend to be more in it. Fair enough and thanks for the context, but politically connected is politically connected. Can be politically connected to democrats or republicans.
- mcrad 4y ago
  Some people will never understand how damaging this level of tech money tied up in politics is. Apparently it's easier to jump on one side and do finger-pointing than to actually accept the level of fraud happening.
rhaway84773 4y ago
Good post. > 96% of house seats were won by the party that spent more in their race. I don’t think the causality here is clear. A lot of companies/billionaires/millionaires and even regular people tend to donate money towards the people who are likely to win the race. If you wanna be in the good graces of the person representing a certain district in the House the best way to do that is to make a bet on the likely winner ahead of the elections.
- spywaregorilla 4y ago
  I would say... mostly true? The 96% isn't as sobering as it first sounds because most races are not competitive at all. https://www.opensecrets.org/outside-spending/by_race/2022?disp=R&pty=N&type=H https://www.opensecrets.org/outside-spending/by_race/2022?di... Many have literally $0 by outside spenders (ignoring the parties themselves). On the other hand you don't see a ton of money going to non-competitive races because it doesn't really matter. The politician doesn't benefit all that much so it's not exactly a great way to earn favors. Or at least, that's what I'd assume. Lobbying is cheaper than people expect but a lot of these totals are so low I can't imagine it really matters to anyone. The highest spending race was Nevada 3. With ~$15M for Republicans and ~$5M for Democrats. Predicted a likely democrat Win by 538 and ultimately won by democrats 52-48. Contradicting kind of all points here we're making. It's fuzzy of course. Need to get money out regardless.
  - cool_dude85 4y ago
    >On the other hand you don't see a ton of money going to non-competitive races because it doesn't really matter. The politician doesn't benefit all that much so it's not exactly a great way to earn favors. Just my own speculation, but this is probably only true to a certain point. A politician in a non-competitive race is not going to have anything productive to do with 15 million as in NV3, but money that goes to the PAC run by your former aide helps to grease his palm (so 100k goes in and 50k is spent on ads, 50k on the PAC CEO's salary for example), or to similarly grease the palm of your various consultants, friends, and family, or to grease the palms of friendly industry groups who you sincerely hope will hire you on a do-nothing job once you retire from politics. Money coming in to a certain point is always a good thing, and I speculate being in a foregone conclusion race probably helps limit the scrutiny on how you spend it.
zmgsabst 4y ago
SBF spent 99.9% Dems and 0.1% Repub, according to your first link. You’re telling untrue facts according to your own sources — to minimize that the second largest Dem donor was a criminal stealing customer funds. Your comparison to Repubs is unfounded as none of their donors engaged in organized crime like SBF. Why are you spreading election misinformation?
- spywaregorilla 4y ago
  Ok buddy, look, one. You're right, it was a mistake. I misremembered something. I cited a source containing the right information and you pointed it out. Thanks. > Why are you spreading election misinformation? Two, Fuck off. This is needlessly passive aggressive. There is no need to throw in a worst-faith assessment of my motivations for posting all of this.
  - zmgsabst 4y ago
- reallythisguy 4y ago
  This is more misinformation than the OP - there's more criminal money flowing into republicans by far, the below is just two examples (edit: two examples) from 10 seconds of searching for an article: https://www.politico.com/news/2021/09/20/gop-operatives-charged-funneling-russian-money-trump-rnc-513219 https://www.politico.com/news/2021/09/20/gop-operatives-char... https://www.wsj.com/articles/former-gop-donors-charged-in-investment-fraud-scheme-involving-illegal-contributions-11658174558 https://www.wsj.com/articles/former-gop-donors-charged-in-in... Even if talking just about people who are later found to have acted improperly, look at the CEO of FTX Ryan D. Salame, one of the largest Republican donors.
  - mcrad 4y ago
    10 seconds of searching is where your argument falls apart, good luck with that. Anyway you are justifying this destructive behavior with more destructive behavior? It's no wonder you don't take more time to understand these things.

flanked-evergl 4y ago

> So yeah, SBF donated to the dems. We need more regulation to get money out of politics. But let's not kid ourselves into thinking the republican party is immune to this. They are in it. They tend to be more in it. Fair enough and thanks for the context, but politically connected is politically connected. Can be politically connected to democrats or republicans.

mcrad 4y ago
Some people will never understand how damaging this level of tech money tied up in politics is. Apparently it's easier to jump on one side and do finger-pointing than to actually accept the level of fraud happening.

rhaway84773 4y ago

Good post. > 96% of house seats were won by the party that spent more in their race. I don’t think the causality here is clear. A lot of companies/billionaires/millionaires and even regular people tend to donate money towards the people who are likely to win the race. If you wanna be in the good graces of the person representing a certain district in the House the best way to do that is to make a bet on the likely winner ahead of the elections.

spywaregorilla 4y ago
I would say... mostly true? The 96% isn't as sobering as it first sounds because most races are not competitive at all. https://www.opensecrets.org/outside-spending/by_race/2022?disp=R&pty=N&type=H https://www.opensecrets.org/outside-spending/by_race/2022?di... Many have literally $0 by outside spenders (ignoring the parties themselves). On the other hand you don't see a ton of money going to non-competitive races because it doesn't really matter. The politician doesn't benefit all that much so it's not exactly a great way to earn favors. Or at least, that's what I'd assume. Lobbying is cheaper than people expect but a lot of these totals are so low I can't imagine it really matters to anyone. The highest spending race was Nevada 3. With ~$15M for Republicans and ~$5M for Democrats. Predicted a likely democrat Win by 538 and ultimately won by democrats 52-48. Contradicting kind of all points here we're making. It's fuzzy of course. Need to get money out regardless.
- cool_dude85 4y ago
  >On the other hand you don't see a ton of money going to non-competitive races because it doesn't really matter. The politician doesn't benefit all that much so it's not exactly a great way to earn favors. Just my own speculation, but this is probably only true to a certain point. A politician in a non-competitive race is not going to have anything productive to do with 15 million as in NV3, but money that goes to the PAC run by your former aide helps to grease his palm (so 100k goes in and 50k is spent on ads, 50k on the PAC CEO's salary for example), or to similarly grease the palm of your various consultants, friends, and family, or to grease the palms of friendly industry groups who you sincerely hope will hire you on a do-nothing job once you retire from politics. Money coming in to a certain point is always a good thing, and I speculate being in a foregone conclusion race probably helps limit the scrutiny on how you spend it.

zmgsabst 4y ago

SBF spent 99.9% Dems and 0.1% Repub, according to your first link. You’re telling untrue facts according to your own sources — to minimize that the second largest Dem donor was a criminal stealing customer funds. Your comparison to Repubs is unfounded as none of their donors engaged in organized crime like SBF. Why are you spreading election misinformation?

spywaregorilla 4y ago
Ok buddy, look, one. You're right, it was a mistake. I misremembered something. I cited a source containing the right information and you pointed it out. Thanks. > Why are you spreading election misinformation? Two, Fuck off. This is needlessly passive aggressive. There is no need to throw in a worst-faith assessment of my motivations for posting all of this.
- zmgsabst 4y ago
reallythisguy 4y ago
This is more misinformation than the OP - there's more criminal money flowing into republicans by far, the below is just two examples (edit: two examples) from 10 seconds of searching for an article: https://www.politico.com/news/2021/09/20/gop-operatives-charged-funneling-russian-money-trump-rnc-513219 https://www.politico.com/news/2021/09/20/gop-operatives-char... https://www.wsj.com/articles/former-gop-donors-charged-in-investment-fraud-scheme-involving-illegal-contributions-11658174558 https://www.wsj.com/articles/former-gop-donors-charged-in-in... Even if talking just about people who are later found to have acted improperly, look at the CEO of FTX Ryan D. Salame, one of the largest Republican donors.
- mcrad 4y ago
  10 seconds of searching is where your argument falls apart, good luck with that. Anyway you are justifying this destructive behavior with more destructive behavior? It's no wonder you don't take more time to understand these things.