• Kronusdark@lemmy.world
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    14 days ago

    It’s incredibly messed up that the thing that ensures we get a good candidate in US politics is bags of money. It’s almost like the system might have some glaring problems.

    • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
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      14 days ago

      I mean, we all knew what this campaign was gonna look like.

      He appointed Jamie Harrison as the DNC chair, someone that appeared out of nowhere to checks notes lose to Lindsey Graham despite getting record breaking donations…

      I mean seriously, dude raised $57,000,000 dollars but couldn’t beat Lindsey Graham so Biden put him in charge of the DNC.

      https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/11/us/politics/jaime-harrison-lindsey-graham-south-carolina.html

      And he’s got a “media mogul” named Jeffrey Kazenberg as a campaign co-chair. His bonafides involve access to celebrities and bundling donations from millionaires.

      https://www.latimes.com/la-influential/story/2024-06-16/jeffrey-katzenberg-hollywood-fundraiser-democrats

      It’s not like the actual campaign manager knows better, this is the first time she’s been a campaign manager, so it’s good she used such a low stakes campaign as her springboard.

      https://www.politico.com/news/2023/04/25/bidens-campaign-team-00093671

      And that last link covers the rest of the team as well.

      But when people keep wondering “who the fuck is making these calls?”

      It’s those people handpicked by Biden, and they’re fucking up a very important campaign and refusing to listen to any feedback that doesn’t come from the incredibly wealthy.

      • lennybird@lemmy.world
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        13 days ago

        Some valid criticism here, but in fairness to the campaign manager, you make it sound like she was pulled off the street when:

        but she served as the deputy campaign manager on Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris’ last campaign and is close with the president.

    • Maeve@kbin.earth
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      14 days ago

      Money endures quality candidates like it endures quantity products, eg not at all.

      • vxx@lemmy.world
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        13 days ago

        30 million is 10c for every voter they try to reach. That’s about a letter per household if bought in masses.

        It’s important to look closely so they can’t misuse the funds, and they need to be held accountable if they do.

    • Chainweasel@lemmy.world
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      14 days ago

      It’s unsustainable long term, eventually either someone with enough money comes along and ends the game and establishes some kind of an autocracy, Or enough people will get pissed off about it that they can’t ignore making reform’s on it.
      I feel like we’re much closer to one of those eventualities than the other at the moment, because as far as I’m aware there’s not much for campaign finance reform on the horizon. And it’ll be interesting to see what kind of punishment is handed out for violating our current campaign finance laws, but I’m not holding my breath for incarceration.

      • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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        13 days ago

        Well there effectively aren’t any rules for campaign finance at the presidential level. There’s intentionally huge holes they can use to inject billions of dollars. Of course you need lawyers and networks of connections to access those holes, so yeah it’s 100% a proto-oligarchy setup. Step two is using the criminal justice system to shut down effective opposition. Which is why giving Trump the duest of processes is so important. If it becomes fashionable to send political opponents to prison then we’ve effectively lost the game.

        To put it into sports it’s mid-game and we’re down by half the other team’s goals. It’s not unwinnable but it’s not looking great either.

    • Beaver @lemmy.ca
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      14 days ago

      He can start by dropping all federal government support to Israel and by promoting BDS

      • lennybird@lemmy.world
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        13 days ago

        Donald Trump approves this message!

        Let’s not forget that a massive segment of the voting electorate still supports Israel, which is the needle to thread.

        If you care so much about this, what you can do is go on social media as well as speak to your friends and family about what Israel is doing to influence the polls directly. Reduce the national poll numbers and you’ll see a reflection in policy. The slow shift in policy towards Israel has obviously been proportional to the degrading national and international support.

        • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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          13 days ago

          Recent polling shows that isn’t true. Early in 2024 the most people wanted to condition military aid to food aid. Polls taken by late March and early April showed a swing to where people now believe it’s a dirty war on both sides that we should not be supporting, except to force them to accept food aid. Most democrats and independents are recorded with this position.

          The question none of this polling dares to ask and probably should is, “will this issue prevent you from voting for a candidate in the general election?”

          • lennybird@lemmy.world
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            13 days ago

            What polling are you referring to, because the March polling from PEW who I’d trust the most in this situation still has 36% supporting Gaza action and another 9% having no opinion.

            The question none of this polling dares to ask and probably should is, “will this issue prevent you from voting for a candidate in the general election?”

            I think that’s a fair question, but at the end of the day, the vast majority of people also do not place the Israeli-Palestinian war remotely at the top of their top list of concerns. So framing another way is: What % of the electorate in key states actually considers Biden’s actions as unacceptable, versus the % of the electorate who still continues to support Israel and would consider it unacceptable if he withdrew further support? Moreover in terms of damage-control what would happen to Biden if he withdrew all aid to Israel and they just so happened to incur another terrorist attack? Whether we like it or not, this election is inevitable and Biden is certainly the better option not only for the people of Gaza but also the people of Ukraine and the wider planet for that matter. Certainly wouldn’t be that difficult for a right-wing nationalist government to stage a false-flag akin to Russia’s apartment bombings. So I think the proportional wind-down as polls continue to turn against Israel is the smart move. If I was in the Oval Office (and of course, none of us here are), that’s what I would be advising. Meanwhile the second I win election, I’d be cutting Israel off entirely.

            • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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              13 days ago

              That’s why the question needs to be asked. The traditional ranking against other issues fails when an issue might be a deal breaker. It’s why Abortion is such a huge thing in campaigns, even though it never ranks highly in that polling question either. Even after Roe V Wade healthcare access is sitting at fifth in Gallup’s latest rankings.

              My numbers are from Gallup.

              Interestingly Pew’s report from earlier shows less engagement than Gallup’s but it’s also more in depth on Muslim and Jewish attitudes towards the fighting which is interesting but less useful for the campaign overall.

              So either they managed to poll meaningfully different groups or things are shifting and the paying attention number jumped for some reason in March. Also of note in the Gallup poll is that Democrats and independents no longer approve of Israel’s war. At 70 and 60 percent for each. Suggesting the time to start divesting is now.

    • homesnatch@lemm.ee
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      14 days ago

      How do you get Millenials and Gen Z’ers to answer their phones for more accurate polls?

  • goferking0@lemmy.sdf.org
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    14 days ago

    They gonna stop spamming people to donate now? Nah they’ll do a bigger push for regular people’s money.

    600% match now!

    • hark@lemmy.world
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      13 days ago

      They think that because I donated to Bernie years ago that it means I want to donate to any shit democratic candidate they put in front of me. The lesson I learned is to never donate to a political candidate ever again.

      • Dearth@lemmy.world
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        13 days ago

        There’s gotta be more than 2 political parties on my city level elections. I bet there’s a candidate whos sensible and who wants to improve my city. I’ll buy a yard sign of any who aren’t r/d

  • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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    13 days ago

    This seems like a lot but in 2020 both parties (together) accounted for spending 5.7 Billion dollars on the presidency. Taking that at half, this is 1 percent of what they’re expecting to spend. Further, according to Open Secrets, Democrats get about half of their campaign donations from small donations.

    That’s not a bad thing, I just want to keep this in perspective. It also means Democrats are more likely to listen to voter pressure, you know, if there was some kind of emergent thing going on, say… in the middle east.

    • hark@lemmy.world
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      13 days ago

      It also means Democrats are more likely to listen to voter pressure, you know, if there was some kind of emergent thing going on, say… in the middle east.

      Then why haven’t they been listening?

  • Etterra@lemmy.world
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    13 days ago

    Well it it makes a difference them fine. Even if I do believe in funding limits (which will never happen of course). But I’m not blind to reality, so if all that money is enough to flip one borderline state, them it’ll be worth it.

    • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
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      14 days ago

      From small donors too, the benefit of small donors is they can keep giving.

      Once someone gives the ~million to BVF, they’re tapped out. And they tend to give as much as they can to attend something like this, then they’re tapped out for the race.

      With small donors campaigns can spend as they earn, with large donors you have to try to budget. Which lets small donors campaigns get off to a fast start.

      Going after just big money isn’t a good strategy, and the DNC should have learned that lesson from the 2016 primary and then the general.

      Instead they’ve doubled down on chasing the wealthy.

      • RestrictedAccount@lemmy.world
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        14 days ago

        102% true. Just like the 102,000 people that attended his rally

        (/s)

        How can you put anything he says out as true?

        • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
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          14 days ago

          Weird…

          So you think trump and all the rubes are lying about donating him money?

          Like. Yeah, trumo lies about most things, but you think he convinced millions of idiots to claim they donated money to him, but not actually donate?

          It’s trump…

          Why would he ever want people to not give him money?

          Like, I’ve never heard anyone call into his question that trump gets money from poor dumb people…

          • RestrictedAccount@lemmy.world
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            13 days ago

            Just sayin’.

            This was not an official document. It would be much easier to get 40 rich dudes who stand to make bank off his election to write checks and just claim it was small donations.

            • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
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              13 days ago

              By all means, do t take a politicians word on anything.

              But like, a bunch of poor people definitely give money to trump, it’s his bread and butter.

              He gets plenty from large so it’s too, it’s just weird someone would act like he doesn’t get any

              And small donations still get tracked, campaigns are responsible for not accepting anything over the limit, so there are rules about tracking.

              Now, if you wanted to argue that they’re doing some kind of straw donation scheme where a wealthy person gives money to friends so they can donate…

              Yeah, that can happen, and kind of what bundling is but there’s access and Influence to the bundler at play too. Like, if a business associate you want a deal with asks you to bundle implying it helps the odds of a deal or something.

              That’s plausible.

              But there’s still a bunch of idiots that donate to trump every pay period.

      • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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        13 days ago

        The DNC gets about half of it’s donations from small donors versus the RNC getting about 30 percent. You’re yelling at the wrong tree.

  • Verdant Banana@lemmy.world
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    13 days ago

    Roe v. Wade falling really is paying off for both parties

    one gets money because it fell and the other gets money to try and restore rights indefinitely

    two party scam

    • hark@lemmy.world
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      13 days ago

      People in denial are downvoting you, but you’re pointing out reality. Obama had a chance to do something about it but said it was not a top priority. Politicians love their bargaining chips, but actually solving problems would mean fewer bargaining chips, so they don’t tend to solve problems.

  • ZK686@lemmy.world
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    12 days ago

    It’s funny how the Left looks at the rich and power as the enemy… when in fact, the vast majority of them in this country are Democrats… all of Hollywood and the entertainment industry like to say “we’re just like you!” and the Left eats it up…

    • Riccosuave@lemmy.world
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      11 days ago

      The liberal celebrities you are referring to are mostly millionaires who beat the odds. The vast majority of billionaires, on the other hand, are conservatives with generational wealth who are attempting to continuously shape society for their exclusive benefit.