6 ms·

Depends how you define it and wether you’re defining it as intentionally en masse or as a byproduct of pure self interest regardless of anything else. There’s

Depends how you define it and wether you’re defining it as intentionally en masse or as a byproduct of pure self interest regardless of anything else. There’s plenty of examples, the most famous one in my opinion is that the popularity of legislation is irrelevant for passage, support by wealthy is. Similarly how the vast majority of people obtain political office is by and large courting the influence of wealthy donors (source - the amount of money being spent in politics and particularly dark money). Also how “lobbying” works even in the Supreme Court and pay to play by definition is politically battling the poor.

WalterBright 11mo ago
Obamacare is of no use at all for the wealthy. So why do those in power support it? Everybody says that money buys elections. But consider that Hillary outspent Trump 2:1 and lost, Harris outspent Trump 3:1 and still lost. Bloomberg poured money into his presidential bid, and he didn't garner enough votes to be a blip on the radar. Campaign money does buy you a stage, but it doesn't buy the votes. Nobody has ever bought my vote. How about you?
- piva00 11mo ago
  > Obamacare is of no use at all for the wealthy. So why do those in power support it? They... Didn't? It's been defanged and reduced to the aberration it is right now, instead of being single payer, universal healthcare. > Everybody says that money buys elections. But consider that Hillary outspent Trump 2:1 and lost, Harris outspent Trump 3:1 and still lost. Bloomberg poured money into his presidential bid, and he didn't garner enough votes to be a blip on the radar. > Campaign money does buy you a stage, but it doesn't buy the votes. Without campaign money you have no chance at all, could you run a successful presidential campaign on 1/10th or 1/100th of the budget given you had a hypothetical bright candidate, someone that could objectively be a much better president than any of the moneyed ones? No, hence campaign money does buy votes, it just doesn't buy them completely but without campaign money you have absolutely no chance.
  - WalterBright 11mo ago
    Money buys a stage, not a vote. If the voters don't like what you're selling, you're going to lose. After all, was your vote bought in the last election?
    - throaway123213 11mo ago
      Money too often decides who we get to vote for. It definitely does in the USA.
      - WalterBright 11mo ago
        Again, money buys you a stage. You'll need a stage to run for office. But if your message stinks, people won't vote for you. Kamala bought a big stage (she outspent Trump by a wide margin). But she lost. If money buys elections, she would have won.
        throaway123213 11mo ago
        Sooo...Harris' failure to win proves that money doesn't win elections...you do realize that her opponent also had to spend dozens of millions to even be able to compete, right? Really hard to imagine how you aren't being willfully ignorant on this. Money doesn't win elections. It just puts you in the only possible position where one can win. Those are your own words, yet you somehow conclude that money doesn't win elections? Money literally decides what choice WE HAVE in an election. You cannot vote for someone who doesn't have the extreme wealth required to compete. & someone who isn't competing, isn't a choice given to voters. Electricity doesn't make computers run, pushing the on button does!
    - piva00 11mo ago
      Sure, money buys a stage, and an outsized stage for a worse idea is still persuading many more voters than a smaller stage with a better idea. If one campaign saturates communication it drowns others, this is what money buys on political campaigns (especially in the US). Where I vote money doesn't play much of a part in elections so no chance for my vote to be bought; in the USA, a society much less politically active and educated, money goes a much longer way to persuade, convince, deceive, and outright lie to voters. Hence so many Trump voters coming out of the woodwork to say "I didn't vote for this".
- vlovich123 11mo ago
  > Obamacare is of no use at all for the wealthy. So why do those in power support it? Health insurance companies love it. > Campaign money does buy you a stage, but it doesn't buy the votes. You literally just talked about how the people everyone got to select from are those that could raise billions for a campaign. Hell the current president is a billionaire - literally the wealthy - and staffed important posts by other wealthy people. Congress is stacked by wealthy people, in no small part because the salary for congress is not commensurate with the responsibility it has. Also, your numbers seem off for the Harris v Trump campaign (not what I’m seeing looking online) but it doesn’t matter (I highlight where you may have made the error below). > Nobody has ever bought my vote. How about you? No one serious about this issue suggests that they hand out money for votes. Well Elon actually did engage in that in this prior election cycle in swing states so there is that undermining your rhetorical comment. But it’s also the height of naïveté to either not believe advertising/marketing (aka propaganda) works (you know, the trillion billion dollar companies of Google and Facebook) or to believe that politics is somehow immune from its effects as well (which requires ignoring how political movements work or what we learned about propaganda and its efficacy in WWII). And all of that takes big $. Of the 1.2B Kamala raised, 40% was small dollar donations. Of the 400M Trump raised, only 133M was small dollar donations (28.8%). Note: if this is where you’re getting the 3:1 number you’re not reading the data correctly - democrats spent ~1.9B total vs Republicans 1.6B and Trump directly spent >900M (presumably carrying over the donations from the previous campaign? Not sure). And again - I’ll refer you to the research showing the general popularity of a proposal is irrelevant to it getting passed. How popular it is among wealthy does have that effect. And it again, you seem to struggle when I say this and try to point out some particular piece of legislation - it’s percentages. It doesn’t matter if it’s not an absolute. You don’t need to win every battle to win the war. Anyway, Walter you’re a smart guy. I expect more from you than rudely dismissive comments that insinuate committing a crime is the only way money and wealth can influence and “buy” politics (and ignoring that Republicans did attempt to do so this past cycle)
  - vlovich123 11mo ago
    Oh and I suggest you look at how advertising works. It’s classic 0 sum game. If you and I spend 0 on advertising, the outcome is the same as if we both spent $100 on advertising (assuming equivalent efficiency of conversion). However if you spend $100 and I spend 0 you capture the market. If you outspend 2:1 you’ll get 2/3 of the market (roughly). Obviously efficiency of the spend is also important, but it’s literally a 0 sum information war between competitors. If you didn’t think it mattered, you’d have to explain why companies spend hundreds of millions on advertising - that would be money more efficiently invested somewhere else.

WalterBright 11mo ago

Obamacare is of no use at all for the wealthy. So why do those in power support it? Everybody says that money buys elections. But consider that Hillary outspent Trump 2:1 and lost, Harris outspent Trump 3:1 and still lost. Bloomberg poured money into his presidential bid, and he didn't garner enough votes to be a blip on the radar. Campaign money does buy you a stage, but it doesn't buy the votes. Nobody has ever bought my vote. How about you?

piva00 11mo ago
> Obamacare is of no use at all for the wealthy. So why do those in power support it? They... Didn't? It's been defanged and reduced to the aberration it is right now, instead of being single payer, universal healthcare. > Everybody says that money buys elections. But consider that Hillary outspent Trump 2:1 and lost, Harris outspent Trump 3:1 and still lost. Bloomberg poured money into his presidential bid, and he didn't garner enough votes to be a blip on the radar. > Campaign money does buy you a stage, but it doesn't buy the votes. Without campaign money you have no chance at all, could you run a successful presidential campaign on 1/10th or 1/100th of the budget given you had a hypothetical bright candidate, someone that could objectively be a much better president than any of the moneyed ones? No, hence campaign money does buy votes, it just doesn't buy them completely but without campaign money you have absolutely no chance.
- WalterBright 11mo ago
  Money buys a stage, not a vote. If the voters don't like what you're selling, you're going to lose. After all, was your vote bought in the last election?
  - throaway123213 11mo ago
    Money too often decides who we get to vote for. It definitely does in the USA.
    - WalterBright 11mo ago
      Again, money buys you a stage. You'll need a stage to run for office. But if your message stinks, people won't vote for you. Kamala bought a big stage (she outspent Trump by a wide margin). But she lost. If money buys elections, she would have won.
      - throaway123213 11mo ago
        Sooo...Harris' failure to win proves that money doesn't win elections...you do realize that her opponent also had to spend dozens of millions to even be able to compete, right? Really hard to imagine how you aren't being willfully ignorant on this. Money doesn't win elections. It just puts you in the only possible position where one can win. Those are your own words, yet you somehow conclude that money doesn't win elections? Money literally decides what choice WE HAVE in an election. You cannot vote for someone who doesn't have the extreme wealth required to compete. & someone who isn't competing, isn't a choice given to voters. Electricity doesn't make computers run, pushing the on button does!
  - piva00 11mo ago
    Sure, money buys a stage, and an outsized stage for a worse idea is still persuading many more voters than a smaller stage with a better idea. If one campaign saturates communication it drowns others, this is what money buys on political campaigns (especially in the US). Where I vote money doesn't play much of a part in elections so no chance for my vote to be bought; in the USA, a society much less politically active and educated, money goes a much longer way to persuade, convince, deceive, and outright lie to voters. Hence so many Trump voters coming out of the woodwork to say "I didn't vote for this".
vlovich123 11mo ago
> Obamacare is of no use at all for the wealthy. So why do those in power support it? Health insurance companies love it. > Campaign money does buy you a stage, but it doesn't buy the votes. You literally just talked about how the people everyone got to select from are those that could raise billions for a campaign. Hell the current president is a billionaire - literally the wealthy - and staffed important posts by other wealthy people. Congress is stacked by wealthy people, in no small part because the salary for congress is not commensurate with the responsibility it has. Also, your numbers seem off for the Harris v Trump campaign (not what I’m seeing looking online) but it doesn’t matter (I highlight where you may have made the error below). > Nobody has ever bought my vote. How about you? No one serious about this issue suggests that they hand out money for votes. Well Elon actually did engage in that in this prior election cycle in swing states so there is that undermining your rhetorical comment. But it’s also the height of naïveté to either not believe advertising/marketing (aka propaganda) works (you know, the trillion billion dollar companies of Google and Facebook) or to believe that politics is somehow immune from its effects as well (which requires ignoring how political movements work or what we learned about propaganda and its efficacy in WWII). And all of that takes big $. Of the 1.2B Kamala raised, 40% was small dollar donations. Of the 400M Trump raised, only 133M was small dollar donations (28.8%). Note: if this is where you’re getting the 3:1 number you’re not reading the data correctly - democrats spent ~1.9B total vs Republicans 1.6B and Trump directly spent >900M (presumably carrying over the donations from the previous campaign? Not sure). And again - I’ll refer you to the research showing the general popularity of a proposal is irrelevant to it getting passed. How popular it is among wealthy does have that effect. And it again, you seem to struggle when I say this and try to point out some particular piece of legislation - it’s percentages. It doesn’t matter if it’s not an absolute. You don’t need to win every battle to win the war. Anyway, Walter you’re a smart guy. I expect more from you than rudely dismissive comments that insinuate committing a crime is the only way money and wealth can influence and “buy” politics (and ignoring that Republicans did attempt to do so this past cycle)
- vlovich123 11mo ago
  Oh and I suggest you look at how advertising works. It’s classic 0 sum game. If you and I spend 0 on advertising, the outcome is the same as if we both spent $100 on advertising (assuming equivalent efficiency of conversion). However if you spend $100 and I spend 0 you capture the market. If you outspend 2:1 you’ll get 2/3 of the market (roughly). Obviously efficiency of the spend is also important, but it’s literally a 0 sum information war between competitors. If you didn’t think it mattered, you’d have to explain why companies spend hundreds of millions on advertising - that would be money more efficiently invested somewhere else.