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If your Congress person is Republican, they are much more afraid of being primaried by someone who tows the line and is being financed by Musk than their consti

If your Congress person is Republican, they are much more afraid of being primaried by someone who tows the line and is being financed by Musk than their constituents.

bluGill 2y ago
All congress persons are most afraid of voters. If voters do not care than those other people withholding money can cost them an election, but they will betray anyone else if their voters care about the issue. They can find money from other sources - or even beg for forgiveness and get the money anyway.
- scarface_74 2y ago
  The issue is if you are a Republican, you will never make it to the general election if you have to compete in the primaries against someone who is further to the right and endorsed by Trump/Musk. You can’t get enough money to compete against Musk and the true MAGAs who vote in the primaries and forgive anything that Trump does.
  - bluGill 2y ago
    There are very few areas where a democrat can't win with just a small shift in voters. Get 5% of republicans mad enough to stay home (or maybe vote third party) and that changes the outcome - not to mention independents who change their vote, or democrats who might get mad enough to go vote even if they think they don't have a chance.
    - JustExAWS 2y ago
      It’s not about a Republican candidate winning against a Democrat. It’s about a Republican beating another well financed Republican in the primaries before the election even happens. Besides with gerrymandering, most Republican seats are safe Republican seats. Even without gerrymandering, there are entire states that are never going to vote for a Democrat. This is map of red vs blue counties. https://miro.medium.com/v2/resize:fit:720/format:webp/1*86sURhsiwekHqCuqjbFnkQ.png https://miro.medium.com/v2/resize:fit:720/format:webp/1*86sU...
SimianSci 2y ago
This is the heart of the issue. We allowed a single person to gather enough wealth to which they could subvert the process by this one simple trick. The Republican trend has been to worry less about their constituents as Republican voters care less and less about the actions or policy of their representatives and more about what conservative media is focused on. This makes money a far more effective means of deciding who holds seats. Money has always had an outsized effect on who wins their seat come next election, but where some candidates could succeed despite their oponents out-spending them, the republican party has become almost entirely "pay to win." Americans need to expect their living circumstances to continue to decrease as representatives increasingly service wealth holders instead of constituents.
- JustExAWS 2y ago
  Americans want their living standards to decrease for some odd reason. The vast majority of rural America and the poor not only voted for Trump and Republicans. But are steady cheering DOGE cutting services and programs they depend on. Their major concerns are God, Guns, sticking it to the “college educated elite”, getting rid of “illegals”, fighting against the demographic shift of the US becoming majority/minority, protecting Israel so Jesus will have some place to come back to (no exaggeration) and woke something or other.
- jyounker 2y ago
  Thank you. This is why wealth concentration and media consolidation are so poisonous to democracy.
- cmrdporcupine 2y ago
  I think it's unfortunate to just paint this as being a case of Trump being super powerful cuz money. The reality is there's a dark thing at the heart of most people which tends towards an ethic of "might makes right", and holding government over the most powerful nation in the world and then explicitly propagating that as official national religion is absolutely seductive. Americans -- like many others -- crave supremacy. Fate and fortune has given them some form of it, and they've been told their whole lives how they deserve it. But they feel it slipping. "Make America Great Again" is just about that. Others must submit and we will be most powerful. This Canada stuff is just one small instance of it. The Greenland stuff is even more disturbing.
sorcerer-mar 2y ago
They're also afraid of MAGA death threats.

If your Congress person is Republican, they are much more afraid of being primaried by someone who tows the line and is being financed by Musk than their constituents.

bluGill 2y ago

All congress persons are most afraid of voters. If voters do not care than those other people withholding money can cost them an election, but they will betray anyone else if their voters care about the issue. They can find money from other sources - or even beg for forgiveness and get the money anyway.

scarface_74 2y ago
The issue is if you are a Republican, you will never make it to the general election if you have to compete in the primaries against someone who is further to the right and endorsed by Trump/Musk. You can’t get enough money to compete against Musk and the true MAGAs who vote in the primaries and forgive anything that Trump does.
- bluGill 2y ago
  There are very few areas where a democrat can't win with just a small shift in voters. Get 5% of republicans mad enough to stay home (or maybe vote third party) and that changes the outcome - not to mention independents who change their vote, or democrats who might get mad enough to go vote even if they think they don't have a chance.
  - JustExAWS 2y ago
    It’s not about a Republican candidate winning against a Democrat. It’s about a Republican beating another well financed Republican in the primaries before the election even happens. Besides with gerrymandering, most Republican seats are safe Republican seats. Even without gerrymandering, there are entire states that are never going to vote for a Democrat. This is map of red vs blue counties. https://miro.medium.com/v2/resize:fit:720/format:webp/1*86sURhsiwekHqCuqjbFnkQ.png https://miro.medium.com/v2/resize:fit:720/format:webp/1*86sU...

SimianSci 2y ago

This is the heart of the issue. We allowed a single person to gather enough wealth to which they could subvert the process by this one simple trick. The Republican trend has been to worry less about their constituents as Republican voters care less and less about the actions or policy of their representatives and more about what conservative media is focused on. This makes money a far more effective means of deciding who holds seats. Money has always had an outsized effect on who wins their seat come next election, but where some candidates could succeed despite their oponents out-spending them, the republican party has become almost entirely "pay to win." Americans need to expect their living circumstances to continue to decrease as representatives increasingly service wealth holders instead of constituents.

JustExAWS 2y ago
Americans want their living standards to decrease for some odd reason. The vast majority of rural America and the poor not only voted for Trump and Republicans. But are steady cheering DOGE cutting services and programs they depend on. Their major concerns are God, Guns, sticking it to the “college educated elite”, getting rid of “illegals”, fighting against the demographic shift of the US becoming majority/minority, protecting Israel so Jesus will have some place to come back to (no exaggeration) and woke something or other.
jyounker 2y ago
Thank you. This is why wealth concentration and media consolidation are so poisonous to democracy.
cmrdporcupine 2y ago
I think it's unfortunate to just paint this as being a case of Trump being super powerful cuz money. The reality is there's a dark thing at the heart of most people which tends towards an ethic of "might makes right", and holding government over the most powerful nation in the world and then explicitly propagating that as official national religion is absolutely seductive. Americans -- like many others -- crave supremacy. Fate and fortune has given them some form of it, and they've been told their whole lives how they deserve it. But they feel it slipping. "Make America Great Again" is just about that. Others must submit and we will be most powerful. This Canada stuff is just one small instance of it. The Greenland stuff is even more disturbing.

sorcerer-mar 2y ago

They're also afraid of MAGA death threats.