4 ms·

The degree to which US politics can be bought amazes me as a Canadian. It does seem that $$$ makes right in the US. It isn’t so much the will of the people but

The degree to which US politics can be bought amazes me as a Canadian. It does seem that $$$ makes right in the US. It isn’t so much the will of the people but the will of the rich and powerful. For example, in the last US election there was billions spent in 2024 by the political parties, and outside groups: Parties themselves: https://www.opensecrets.org/2024-presidential-race https://www.opensecrets.org/2024-presidential-race Outside groups: https://www.opensecrets.org/outside-spending/by_group https://www.opensecrets.org/outside-spending/by_group

guywithahat 1y ago
It doesn't, money has surprisingly little effect on competitive elections
- iancmceachern 1y ago
  Do you have a source?
  - MangoCoffee 1y ago
    just google kamala harris campaign fundraising vs trump. 2024 election just happened not too long ago. she got more money than trump and yet lose. money is not the only factor.
    - Chinjut 1y ago
      The election where the billionaire prominently campaigned for by the richest megabillionaire in the world won proves that money plays little role in politics.
    - thejazzman 1y ago
      elon poured a ton of money into strategic locations right at the end, such as running a fake lottery in PA. many attribute the outcome on the role he played. may not be the most money, but it's the most effective use of money. PA roads were littered with trump signs because of people being paid to litter our streets with them. for months. people are, sadly, very easily influenced. companies wouldn't pour so much into advertising, in general, if it didn't have such an effective influence
      - prasadjoglekar 1y ago
        Reid Hoffman poured an equal amount of money thru Future Forward PAC on the Harris side.
    - digital_sawzall 1y ago
      Kamala raised $1.65 billion compared to Trump's $1.1 billion [0]. Not like it was a massive difference. Especially because that does not take into account super pacs, like Musks $200million in Pennsylvania. [0] https://www.usnews.com/opinion/articles/2024-11-15/trump-harris-and-musk-how-money-did-and-didnt-affect-the-election https://www.usnews.com/opinion/articles/2024-11-15/trump-har...
      - tzs 1y ago
        Probably what the money was spent on should be taken into account too. Most campaigns stretch the truth a bit here and there, but from what I personally saw and from what I read from other states where the campaigning was more intense generally the Harris campaign did not stretch nearly as far as the Trump campaign. I'd expect that this let the Tump campaign get more out of a given amount of spending than the Harris campaign could.
    - iancmceachern 1y ago
      Yeah but if you ask chatgpt: "Absolutely, money does have a measurable impact on political outcomes" https://www.investopedia.com/surprising-thing-billionaires-spend-money-on-11756141?utm_source=chatgpt.com https://www.investopedia.com/surprising-thing-billionaires-s... https://www.opensecrets.org/elections-overview/winning-vs-spending https://www.opensecrets.org/elections-overview/winning-vs-sp...
    - myrmidon 1y ago
      Maybe, but Trump spent over half a billion on his 2024 campaign. Are you suggesting the outcome would have been unchanged had he spent a "sane" amount like $50M total? Because I don't think so. Furthermore, in a country with somewhat free media you would always expect populist candidates to outperform with a given budget, because their platform is much better aligned with media interest; mass media does not want boring budget plans or quaint reforms-- rage-bait sells way better and nets populists tons of "free" online presence.
    - guywithahat 1y ago
      For fun I did a non-scientific analysis of presidential candidates a while back, and found funding raised wasn't statistically significant https://thomashansen.xyz/blog/election-spending-isnt-statistically-significant.html https://thomashansen.xyz/blog/election-spending-isnt-statist...
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
- decremental 1y ago
  [dead]
- notRobot 1y ago
  So then shouldn't be a problem to stop it entirely, right?
  - ch4s3 1y ago
    How do you stop people from running 3rd party ads in the US while not violating the 1sr amendment? You get into dicey territory quickly. The old overturned election laws were used in many cases to prevent books from being published in election years.
    - icandoit 1y ago
      >The old overturned election laws were used in many cases to prevent books from being published in election years. Which laws and which books? I can't find anything.
      - pcfwik 1y ago
        I assume the poster is referencing Citizens United v. FEC, specifically about the government's use of the 2002 Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act to restrict showing of political documentaries (apparently, called "Hillary: The Movie" and "Celsius 41.11"). While (as far as I know) the law was never actually used to ban books (only documentaries), the case became infamous because the government argued that it had the right to ban books if it wanted to. See, e.g., the NYTimes article below: "The [government's] lawyer, Malcolm L. Stewart, said Congress has the power to ban political books, signs and Internet videos, if they are paid for by corporations and distributed not long before an election.". https://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/25/washington/25scotus.html https://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/25/washington/25scotus.html https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens_United_v._FEC https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens_United_v._FEC https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/cert/08-205 https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/cert/08-205
        ch4s3 1y ago
        Yeah I made a mistake. There were a couple of films the FEC went after and they claimed the power extended to books as you pointed out. I was under-caffienated.
- myrmidon 1y ago
  What does "surprisingly little" mean to you? US election spending in 2024 was almost $2bn (mostly presidential election). If media presence had surprisingly little effect on outcomes, then I would expect candidates to spend surprisingly little or be constantly outperformed by "underfunded" candidates-- neither of which is the case.
  - notahacker 1y ago
    The old "half of my advertising budget is wasted, but I have no idea which half" quote springs to mind... Not sure how you're defining "underfunded" candidates, but the incumbents in competitive races where enormous amounts are spent by both sides to try to gain an advantage don't win anywhere near as often as the incumbent in nom-competitive races which parties and PACs barely bother spending in. Ultimately the spending is positional and cancels out, and the biggest spender often loses because there's not nearly enough difference between the candidates' spending levels to affect whether voters hear their messages.
  - guywithahat 1y ago
    It's a game theory problem. There are lots of studies around executive performance, and what people find is that the specific executive/CEO has basically no impact, while things like general industry growth and direction is what matters (suggesting executive/CEO decisions are just a game of chance). But obviously I could also choose a bad executive who would tank the company. What's really happening is when everyone is trying their hardest, all of the executives are as good as they can be, and the things they do tend to look more like luck than performance. It's the same thing in elections. Because everyone is competitive, who donates what money or it's amount tends to not really matter. If a candidate were to sabotage their campaign they would lose, but in a competitive election it doesn't end up being statistically significant.
  - keiferski 1y ago
    This seems like a big number, but frankly in context it's actually quite trivial. We're talking about the lead office in the world's most dominant country, and the amount spent on the election is roughly equivalent to...the amount spent on ice cream or manga/comic books, per year. There is a lot of money in America, and comparatively not that much is actually spent on the election. Maybe it's still too much in an ostensibly democratic system, but it's worth noting.
- intermerda 1y ago
  If money has surprisingly little effect on competitive elections, why do candidates ask for it?
- Perz1val 1y ago
  Yeah, cuz no matter who wins can be bought anyway... That's not good either
Aurornis 1y ago
Money has an influence but it’s an exaggeration to think that it’s the only factor. In contested elections both sides usually have a large amount of spending. If you only read the headlines you’d think it was only the winning side that spent any money. Another thing that isn’t obvious is that PACs have high win rates because they’re usually strategic about which races they go after. The money influence can only move the needle a little bit, so they need to pick races and topics where the voters are already close to evenly split. There have also been a lot of high profile examples of extreme spending on elections that didn’t lead to the desired outcome.
- dpc050505 1y ago
  There can be more than two sides in healthy democracies.
  - jaredklewis 1y ago
    Said healthy democracies don’t have first past the post voting systems. Our system pretty much ensures only two viable parties.
- ch4s3 1y ago
  We actually se an increasing number of elections where the loser outspends the winner by a large margin.
  - gjsman-1000 1y ago
    Case in point: Kamala Harris versus Donald Trump. Trump's campaign was about $541M cheaper. https://www.opensecrets.org/2024-presidential-race https://www.opensecrets.org/2024-presidential-race
    - vjvjvjvjghv 1y ago
      The absolute numbers are still astonishing and make it clear that without deep pockets you won’t get anywhere. Maybe you can make an argument that from a certain level on, money doesn’t help anymore. But the minimum amount is still very high.
MangoCoffee 1y ago
[flagged]
- galleywest200 1y ago
  A specific person raising more money is not the same as the wealthy spending money on PACs.
  - MangoCoffee 1y ago
    Kamla isn't the only case. You look at history and there are many examples.
    - wyre 1y ago
      Are there? afaik Trump is one of the only exceptions to American presidents that have won elections without raising more money than their competitors.
- brigade 1y ago
  Money doesn’t sway elections to any real degree, but it does shape legislation. Often for much less than you’d expect.
  - the_af 1y ago
    In the end, legislation is what really matters, right?
- andrewl 1y ago
  Money is a factor, but not the only factor. Trump also had a gigantic Russian propaganda campaign on his side. And the Russians are good at that kind of operation. So Trump also had Russian money on his side, just not in the form of cash.
  - gjsman-1000 1y ago
    [flagged]
deleted 1y ago
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vimwizard 1y ago
ever heard of "Laurentian elite" ?
- bhouston 1y ago
  > ever heard of "Laurentian elite" ? I don't think that is the same thing at all. Laurentian elite just refers to Canada's largest population cluster as a whole and saying that the upper class in general is influential, sure. But it is far from saying that a small number of billionaires are absolute key in the Canadian elections. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laurentian_elite https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laurentian_elite Canada has significant limits to political spending and I think that is amazing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_political_financing_in_Canada https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_political_financing_in...
CyberDildonics 1y ago
It wasn't always this extreme, but key decisions on what is allowed in the media and where money can come from have turned it into what it is now.
geodel 1y ago
Agree. That's why no Canadian ever wants to come to US work, shopping or medical treatments. Commercialization of all aspects of life is horrible in USA.
- smt88 1y ago
  This take is not based in reality. Despite issues with the US, net migration data shows that the US has been brain-draining Canada for most of the last 50 years. https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/36-28-0001/2025007/article/00006-eng.htm https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/36-28-0001/2025007/artic...
  - GuinansEyebrows 1y ago
    as a person who grew up in an american border town, i'm thinking the person you're responding to is being sarcastic. there were always a lot of canadian license plates on the roads and in parking lots where i grew up.
JSteph22 1y ago
>as a Canadian Canada arguably has an even more ingrained system of lobbying.
flatb 1y ago
Liberalism is the core of American conservatism. That’s less true elsewhere.
- throwawayqqq11 1y ago
  In that light, trump is no conservative at all and still, the GOP backs him. So are the republicans no conservatives either? I bet a lot of trumps base considers themselfs conservative but look away from basically every inner political move trump made. This is what confuses me about the "conservative core" your are speaking of. Where is it?
  - anthem2025 1y ago
    [flagged]
  - slipperydippery 1y ago
    Notably, this was basically never true of the modern, post-Nixon and post-authoritarian-christian-courting Republican voters. They (and a lot of democratic voters!) were always skeptical of things like very-liberal trade policy. The gap between that long-running strain in the voters, and what the bipartisan neoliberal consensus on trade (and immigration, for all Republican politicians complained about it when campaigning) had looked like among nearly all Federal elected officials from the early '80s on, is exactly the kind of thing that Trump exploited to swiftly take over the entire party.
goalieca 1y ago
As a Canadian, I cannot stand the “as a Canadian… $something_smug” trend. We look down on the USA and pretend our poop doesn’t stink.
- bhouston 1y ago
  Our political donation system is infinitely better though than the US.
  - goalieca 1y ago
    One criticism is that parties can be bought too cheaply in Canada.
gdbsjjdn 1y ago
As a Canadian I don't understand why people think Canada is different. We're just one step behind the US because there's less money to be made. But look at the concentration of wealth in the Weston family, the McCains, Rogers or the Thomsons. These folks have tremendous political influence which they are using to roll up Canada's economy and squeeze every cent out of the working class.
- alephnerd 1y ago
  > We're just one step behind the US because there's less money to be made There's plenty to be made - it's just very under the radar. Anecdotally, extended family of mine run a fairly decent sized construction contracting company out in BC (Vancouver Island and Lower Mainland), and have been having family members and family friends donate as a group for both Conservative and NDP MLAs for over a decade now, as well as helping organize voter drives and non-partisan activities at Gurdwaras (if partisan activities came up, they tended to be in Punjabi and thus not reported on - but tbf, in depth local news is dead in much of Canada as well outside of metros). Lobbying is common across democracies, but how it manifests is different. I feel that there is also a level of visibility into the American system that really highlights bad actors, but similar scrutiny isn't as common in other countries other than maybe the UK.
_joel 1y ago
Just watched a Benn Jordan video on creepy AI, particularly Flock Safety. No suprise that the some of the same people involved in this article are involved in the data brokerage company (which seems awfully dystopian). They've bumped in hundreds of millions in lobbying.
HWR_14 1y ago
Is the same not true in Canada? In Edmonton's upcoming elections 39% of the donations came from corporations, but they made up 84% of the donated dollars.
- bhouston 1y ago
  > Is the same not true in Canada? In Edmonton's upcoming elections 39% of the donations came from corporations, but they made up 84% of the donated dollars It is quite different. Here is how campaign finance works: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_political_financing_in_Canada https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_political_financing_in... And this includes all PACs and equivalents. We don't have dark money PACs.
camdroidw 1y ago
Not really true, Kamala outspent Trump 2:1 and had the media machinery on her side
- bhouston 1y ago
  > Not really true, Kamala outspent Trump 2:1 and had the media machinery on her side Only if you exclude outside funding. Conservative SuperPACs were incredibly well funded compared to Liberal ones last election: https://www.opensecrets.org/outside-spending/super_pacs https://www.opensecrets.org/outside-spending/super_pacs And they were funded more than the official candidates themselves. Because then these groups can act without limits on their spending.
keiferski 1y ago
There are plenty of examples where the candidate which spent the most lost. Or didn't even get to the election: Bloomberg is a good example. I'd also bet that the vast, vast majority of voters are already going to vote for their chosen candidate, independently of whether they see $1 billion worth of ads or $5. If anything, "free" advertising like going on a podcast or working at McDonalds as a stunt seems to have more influence.
- bhouston 1y ago
  > I'd also bet that the vast, vast majority of voters are already going to vote for their chosen candidate, independently of whether they see $1 billion worth of ads or $5. This is true of elections in two party systems. Most people have parties they align with and don't switch often. But there are persuadables. The billions spent on political ads was spent for a reason. Similar to why billions are spent on marketing in general. There is the old adage that sure half of the marketing budget is wasted, but it is never clear which half ahead of time. https://www.b2bmarketing.net/half-the-money-i-spend-on-advertising-is-wasted-the-trouble-is-i-dont-know-which-half/ https://www.b2bmarketing.net/half-the-money-i-spend-on-adver...
  - keiferski 1y ago
    There's also the fact that it's something of an arms race, where not spending the billions is not really an option for serious candidates, whether it is "worth it" or not. It's not exactly something that can be tested scientifically, unless a serious candidate wants his campaign to be an experiment.
- slipperydippery 1y ago
  Get Out the Vote is where it's at. "True swing" (not self-reported swing, most people lie because they think being a swing voter is more socially desirable, I suppose) is indeed a tiny sliver. It's about convincing your people they need to show up or the other side will make your grandkids shit in litter boxes, or whatever lies it takes.

guywithahat 1y ago

It doesn't, money has surprisingly little effect on competitive elections

iancmceachern 1y ago
Do you have a source?
- MangoCoffee 1y ago
  just google kamala harris campaign fundraising vs trump. 2024 election just happened not too long ago. she got more money than trump and yet lose. money is not the only factor.
  - Chinjut 1y ago
    The election where the billionaire prominently campaigned for by the richest megabillionaire in the world won proves that money plays little role in politics.
  - thejazzman 1y ago
    elon poured a ton of money into strategic locations right at the end, such as running a fake lottery in PA. many attribute the outcome on the role he played. may not be the most money, but it's the most effective use of money. PA roads were littered with trump signs because of people being paid to litter our streets with them. for months. people are, sadly, very easily influenced. companies wouldn't pour so much into advertising, in general, if it didn't have such an effective influence
    - prasadjoglekar 1y ago
      Reid Hoffman poured an equal amount of money thru Future Forward PAC on the Harris side.
  - digital_sawzall 1y ago
    Kamala raised $1.65 billion compared to Trump's $1.1 billion [0]. Not like it was a massive difference. Especially because that does not take into account super pacs, like Musks $200million in Pennsylvania. [0] https://www.usnews.com/opinion/articles/2024-11-15/trump-harris-and-musk-how-money-did-and-didnt-affect-the-election https://www.usnews.com/opinion/articles/2024-11-15/trump-har...
    - tzs 1y ago
      Probably what the money was spent on should be taken into account too. Most campaigns stretch the truth a bit here and there, but from what I personally saw and from what I read from other states where the campaigning was more intense generally the Harris campaign did not stretch nearly as far as the Trump campaign. I'd expect that this let the Tump campaign get more out of a given amount of spending than the Harris campaign could.
  - iancmceachern 1y ago
    Yeah but if you ask chatgpt: "Absolutely, money does have a measurable impact on political outcomes" https://www.investopedia.com/surprising-thing-billionaires-spend-money-on-11756141?utm_source=chatgpt.com https://www.investopedia.com/surprising-thing-billionaires-s... https://www.opensecrets.org/elections-overview/winning-vs-spending https://www.opensecrets.org/elections-overview/winning-vs-sp...
  - myrmidon 1y ago
    Maybe, but Trump spent over half a billion on his 2024 campaign. Are you suggesting the outcome would have been unchanged had he spent a "sane" amount like $50M total? Because I don't think so. Furthermore, in a country with somewhat free media you would always expect populist candidates to outperform with a given budget, because their platform is much better aligned with media interest; mass media does not want boring budget plans or quaint reforms-- rage-bait sells way better and nets populists tons of "free" online presence.
  - guywithahat 1y ago
    For fun I did a non-scientific analysis of presidential candidates a while back, and found funding raised wasn't statistically significant https://thomashansen.xyz/blog/election-spending-isnt-statistically-significant.html https://thomashansen.xyz/blog/election-spending-isnt-statist...
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
decremental 1y ago
[dead]
notRobot 1y ago
So then shouldn't be a problem to stop it entirely, right?
- ch4s3 1y ago
  How do you stop people from running 3rd party ads in the US while not violating the 1sr amendment? You get into dicey territory quickly. The old overturned election laws were used in many cases to prevent books from being published in election years.
  - icandoit 1y ago
    >The old overturned election laws were used in many cases to prevent books from being published in election years. Which laws and which books? I can't find anything.
    - pcfwik 1y ago
      I assume the poster is referencing Citizens United v. FEC, specifically about the government's use of the 2002 Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act to restrict showing of political documentaries (apparently, called "Hillary: The Movie" and "Celsius 41.11"). While (as far as I know) the law was never actually used to ban books (only documentaries), the case became infamous because the government argued that it had the right to ban books if it wanted to. See, e.g., the NYTimes article below: "The [government's] lawyer, Malcolm L. Stewart, said Congress has the power to ban political books, signs and Internet videos, if they are paid for by corporations and distributed not long before an election.". https://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/25/washington/25scotus.html https://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/25/washington/25scotus.html https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens_United_v._FEC https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens_United_v._FEC https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/cert/08-205 https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/cert/08-205
      - ch4s3 1y ago
        Yeah I made a mistake. There were a couple of films the FEC went after and they claimed the power extended to books as you pointed out. I was under-caffienated.
myrmidon 1y ago
What does "surprisingly little" mean to you? US election spending in 2024 was almost $2bn (mostly presidential election). If media presence had surprisingly little effect on outcomes, then I would expect candidates to spend surprisingly little or be constantly outperformed by "underfunded" candidates-- neither of which is the case.
- notahacker 1y ago
  The old "half of my advertising budget is wasted, but I have no idea which half" quote springs to mind... Not sure how you're defining "underfunded" candidates, but the incumbents in competitive races where enormous amounts are spent by both sides to try to gain an advantage don't win anywhere near as often as the incumbent in nom-competitive races which parties and PACs barely bother spending in. Ultimately the spending is positional and cancels out, and the biggest spender often loses because there's not nearly enough difference between the candidates' spending levels to affect whether voters hear their messages.
- guywithahat 1y ago
  It's a game theory problem. There are lots of studies around executive performance, and what people find is that the specific executive/CEO has basically no impact, while things like general industry growth and direction is what matters (suggesting executive/CEO decisions are just a game of chance). But obviously I could also choose a bad executive who would tank the company. What's really happening is when everyone is trying their hardest, all of the executives are as good as they can be, and the things they do tend to look more like luck than performance. It's the same thing in elections. Because everyone is competitive, who donates what money or it's amount tends to not really matter. If a candidate were to sabotage their campaign they would lose, but in a competitive election it doesn't end up being statistically significant.
- keiferski 1y ago
  This seems like a big number, but frankly in context it's actually quite trivial. We're talking about the lead office in the world's most dominant country, and the amount spent on the election is roughly equivalent to...the amount spent on ice cream or manga/comic books, per year. There is a lot of money in America, and comparatively not that much is actually spent on the election. Maybe it's still too much in an ostensibly democratic system, but it's worth noting.
intermerda 1y ago
If money has surprisingly little effect on competitive elections, why do candidates ask for it?
Perz1val 1y ago
Yeah, cuz no matter who wins can be bought anyway... That's not good either

Aurornis 1y ago

Money has an influence but it’s an exaggeration to think that it’s the only factor. In contested elections both sides usually have a large amount of spending. If you only read the headlines you’d think it was only the winning side that spent any money. Another thing that isn’t obvious is that PACs have high win rates because they’re usually strategic about which races they go after. The money influence can only move the needle a little bit, so they need to pick races and topics where the voters are already close to evenly split. There have also been a lot of high profile examples of extreme spending on elections that didn’t lead to the desired outcome.

dpc050505 1y ago
There can be more than two sides in healthy democracies.
- jaredklewis 1y ago
  Said healthy democracies don’t have first past the post voting systems. Our system pretty much ensures only two viable parties.
ch4s3 1y ago
We actually se an increasing number of elections where the loser outspends the winner by a large margin.
- gjsman-1000 1y ago
  Case in point: Kamala Harris versus Donald Trump. Trump's campaign was about $541M cheaper. https://www.opensecrets.org/2024-presidential-race https://www.opensecrets.org/2024-presidential-race
  - vjvjvjvjghv 1y ago
    The absolute numbers are still astonishing and make it clear that without deep pockets you won’t get anywhere. Maybe you can make an argument that from a certain level on, money doesn’t help anymore. But the minimum amount is still very high.

MangoCoffee 1y ago

[flagged]

galleywest200 1y ago
A specific person raising more money is not the same as the wealthy spending money on PACs.
- MangoCoffee 1y ago
  Kamla isn't the only case. You look at history and there are many examples.
  - wyre 1y ago
    Are there? afaik Trump is one of the only exceptions to American presidents that have won elections without raising more money than their competitors.
brigade 1y ago
Money doesn’t sway elections to any real degree, but it does shape legislation. Often for much less than you’d expect.
- the_af 1y ago
  In the end, legislation is what really matters, right?
andrewl 1y ago
Money is a factor, but not the only factor. Trump also had a gigantic Russian propaganda campaign on his side. And the Russians are good at that kind of operation. So Trump also had Russian money on his side, just not in the form of cash.
- gjsman-1000 1y ago
  [flagged]

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

vimwizard 1y ago

ever heard of "Laurentian elite" ?

bhouston 1y ago
> ever heard of "Laurentian elite" ? I don't think that is the same thing at all. Laurentian elite just refers to Canada's largest population cluster as a whole and saying that the upper class in general is influential, sure. But it is far from saying that a small number of billionaires are absolute key in the Canadian elections. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laurentian_elite https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laurentian_elite Canada has significant limits to political spending and I think that is amazing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_political_financing_in_Canada https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_political_financing_in...

CyberDildonics 1y ago

It wasn't always this extreme, but key decisions on what is allowed in the media and where money can come from have turned it into what it is now.

geodel 1y ago

Agree. That's why no Canadian ever wants to come to US work, shopping or medical treatments. Commercialization of all aspects of life is horrible in USA.

smt88 1y ago
This take is not based in reality. Despite issues with the US, net migration data shows that the US has been brain-draining Canada for most of the last 50 years. https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/36-28-0001/2025007/article/00006-eng.htm https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/36-28-0001/2025007/artic...
- GuinansEyebrows 1y ago
  as a person who grew up in an american border town, i'm thinking the person you're responding to is being sarcastic. there were always a lot of canadian license plates on the roads and in parking lots where i grew up.

JSteph22 1y ago

>as a Canadian Canada arguably has an even more ingrained system of lobbying.

flatb 1y ago

Liberalism is the core of American conservatism. That’s less true elsewhere.

throwawayqqq11 1y ago
In that light, trump is no conservative at all and still, the GOP backs him. So are the republicans no conservatives either? I bet a lot of trumps base considers themselfs conservative but look away from basically every inner political move trump made. This is what confuses me about the "conservative core" your are speaking of. Where is it?
- anthem2025 1y ago
  [flagged]
- slipperydippery 1y ago
  Notably, this was basically never true of the modern, post-Nixon and post-authoritarian-christian-courting Republican voters. They (and a lot of democratic voters!) were always skeptical of things like very-liberal trade policy. The gap between that long-running strain in the voters, and what the bipartisan neoliberal consensus on trade (and immigration, for all Republican politicians complained about it when campaigning) had looked like among nearly all Federal elected officials from the early '80s on, is exactly the kind of thing that Trump exploited to swiftly take over the entire party.

goalieca 1y ago

As a Canadian, I cannot stand the “as a Canadian… $something_smug” trend. We look down on the USA and pretend our poop doesn’t stink.

bhouston 1y ago
Our political donation system is infinitely better though than the US.
- goalieca 1y ago
  One criticism is that parties can be bought too cheaply in Canada.

gdbsjjdn 1y ago

As a Canadian I don't understand why people think Canada is different. We're just one step behind the US because there's less money to be made. But look at the concentration of wealth in the Weston family, the McCains, Rogers or the Thomsons. These folks have tremendous political influence which they are using to roll up Canada's economy and squeeze every cent out of the working class.

alephnerd 1y ago
> We're just one step behind the US because there's less money to be made There's plenty to be made - it's just very under the radar. Anecdotally, extended family of mine run a fairly decent sized construction contracting company out in BC (Vancouver Island and Lower Mainland), and have been having family members and family friends donate as a group for both Conservative and NDP MLAs for over a decade now, as well as helping organize voter drives and non-partisan activities at Gurdwaras (if partisan activities came up, they tended to be in Punjabi and thus not reported on - but tbf, in depth local news is dead in much of Canada as well outside of metros). Lobbying is common across democracies, but how it manifests is different. I feel that there is also a level of visibility into the American system that really highlights bad actors, but similar scrutiny isn't as common in other countries other than maybe the UK.

_joel 1y ago

Just watched a Benn Jordan video on creepy AI, particularly Flock Safety. No suprise that the some of the same people involved in this article are involved in the data brokerage company (which seems awfully dystopian). They've bumped in hundreds of millions in lobbying.

HWR_14 1y ago

Is the same not true in Canada? In Edmonton's upcoming elections 39% of the donations came from corporations, but they made up 84% of the donated dollars.

bhouston 1y ago
> Is the same not true in Canada? In Edmonton's upcoming elections 39% of the donations came from corporations, but they made up 84% of the donated dollars It is quite different. Here is how campaign finance works: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_political_financing_in_Canada https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_political_financing_in... And this includes all PACs and equivalents. We don't have dark money PACs.

camdroidw 1y ago

Not really true, Kamala outspent Trump 2:1 and had the media machinery on her side

bhouston 1y ago
> Not really true, Kamala outspent Trump 2:1 and had the media machinery on her side Only if you exclude outside funding. Conservative SuperPACs were incredibly well funded compared to Liberal ones last election: https://www.opensecrets.org/outside-spending/super_pacs https://www.opensecrets.org/outside-spending/super_pacs And they were funded more than the official candidates themselves. Because then these groups can act without limits on their spending.

keiferski 1y ago

There are plenty of examples where the candidate which spent the most lost. Or didn't even get to the election: Bloomberg is a good example. I'd also bet that the vast, vast majority of voters are already going to vote for their chosen candidate, independently of whether they see $1 billion worth of ads or $5. If anything, "free" advertising like going on a podcast or working at McDonalds as a stunt seems to have more influence.

bhouston 1y ago
> I'd also bet that the vast, vast majority of voters are already going to vote for their chosen candidate, independently of whether they see $1 billion worth of ads or $5. This is true of elections in two party systems. Most people have parties they align with and don't switch often. But there are persuadables. The billions spent on political ads was spent for a reason. Similar to why billions are spent on marketing in general. There is the old adage that sure half of the marketing budget is wasted, but it is never clear which half ahead of time. https://www.b2bmarketing.net/half-the-money-i-spend-on-advertising-is-wasted-the-trouble-is-i-dont-know-which-half/ https://www.b2bmarketing.net/half-the-money-i-spend-on-adver...
- keiferski 1y ago
  There's also the fact that it's something of an arms race, where not spending the billions is not really an option for serious candidates, whether it is "worth it" or not. It's not exactly something that can be tested scientifically, unless a serious candidate wants his campaign to be an experiment.
slipperydippery 1y ago
Get Out the Vote is where it's at. "True swing" (not self-reported swing, most people lie because they think being a swing voter is more socially desirable, I suppose) is indeed a tiny sliver. It's about convincing your people they need to show up or the other side will make your grandkids shit in litter boxes, or whatever lies it takes.