alt Hacker NewsI think rich people have too much influence, I probably agree with Garry Tan on a lot but we need to get money out of politics. Let’s face it we’re all meant to get one vote but rich people spend money on this stuff so that they manipulate what and who can be voted for.
I do think that if this current system is the result of democracy + the internet we need to seriously reconsider how democracy works because it’s currently failing everyone but the ultra wealthy.
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Eat the rich.
I do so by taking Jeff Bezos' money and giving him a penny. Also by not supporting restaurants that have a Wall-street ticker nor any alcohol producers that have a Wall-street ticker.
You are spot on about rich people buying influence this way but it has nothing to do with how great democracy is.
I agree with you, in spirit, but I think the true issue lies elsewhere.
Rich people can spend money to influence elections, yes, but how can they do it? through political donations, super-pacs and bribes. Bribes are already illegal. political donations and super-pacs can give politicians the juice they need to get their messaging out, but getting the message across isn't enough to win an election. The people need to vote. Billionaires can spend as much money as they want to support candidates, but a billionaire still only has one vote to cast.
My point is, billionaires can pay for all the political campaigns in the world, but the electorate gets the final say. It's up to us to A) run for office and B) vote for the best candidate (but tell that to the 64% turnout in the 2024 presidential election)
Every "democracy" I know, has become a plutocracy.
This is an underrated point because the U.S. failure to rein in the excesses of the ultra-wealthy is not just impacting our domestic politics but actually the politics of every country on earth. Imagine if Jack Ma had eventually personally intervened in U.S. congressional elections? That's pretty much exactly what U.S. oligarchs do to other countries regularly.
If rich techies had too much influence in California, the state government would not look like what it does. I mean I just don't see how you get to this opinion after any real review of the evidence.
System is broken af. Politicians don’t want to reign in on campaign financing because it will hurt their own re-election and campaign fundraising.
Republicans have bought/installed the SCOTUS which allowed for favorable decision in Citizens United v FEC.
This corporation dominated landscape is quite awful. Corporations have more rights than woman right now.
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> we need to get money out of politics.
We need to get the power out of politics.
> we need to get money out of politics
Not really possible. There's at least 40 more years of citizens united before any practical ability to restrict money in politics becomes constitutional again.
> we need to seriously reconsider how democracy works because it’s currently failing everyone but the ultra wealthy
Not true. The plurality that voted in the current administration are generally pleased with the state of things. Democracy is working as expected. It was close, but this is what more people wanted.
Study after study shows that money doesn't really effect the results of high-information elections. If it really did, Hillary Clinton would have been president twice. It's just that candidates with a ton of support tend to raise a ton of money.
Low-information elections are where money seems to help. I think we can throw that on the pile of 'your democracy is only as good as your electorate', and we have an electorate where most people can't even name their US House rep, much less their representatives in state and local politics.